Home Classes Welcome to year 2 - beech and cherry classes

Welcome to Year 2 - Beech and Cherry Classes

Teachers:

Miss Cohen

Teacher: Cherry Class

Mrs Bruce

Teacher: Beech Class

Mrs MacIntyre

Teacher: Beech Class

TAs:

Miss Starnes

TA:

Miss Ball

TA:

As children work towards their SATS at the end of year 2, our main aim is to encourage them to be more independent, to be resilient learners and to enjoy their learning. The curriculum is taught in a variety of inspiring and engaging ways.

We also have some exciting events and visits taking place throughout the year:

Christmas singing concert
A visit from a Theatre Workshop during the topic of The Great Fire of London
Trip to Ashdown Forest
Ice Cream Parlour
Sports Day

Communication between home and school is crucial throughout your child’s time at school. You can contact us easily through notes in home-school link books, speaking to us in the mornings/afternoons when you drop off/pick up your child and through Class Dojo messages.

Our door is always open!

Movers and Shakers

We have been so busy in our first two terms of Year 2. The children have settled in well and we’ve been enjoying lots of fun and exciting learning experiences.

We started off with learning about numbers up to 100 in maths, then we moved onto addition and subtraction, including column addition.

In Science we learnt about human survival. We talked about the importance of regular exercise for the heart and lungs. Then we took part in an exercise investigation to find out if to find out if we could improve our aerobic fitness. Each day we timed ourselves to see how long we could hold a balance without wobbling or falling over. Most of us found that we had improved after one week.

We also carried out a handwashing investigation. We tried washing our hands with just cold water, cold water and soap and warm water and soap to see which would be the most effective. We found out that soap and warm water is the most effective way of washing our hands to kill germs.

To start off our history topic of ‘Movers and Shakers’ we had a treasure hunt around the school grounds. We found pictures of significant people that we would be learning about later on in the term. We also learnt a little bit about why they are significant. We found Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Emmeline Pankhurst, Vincent Van Gogh, Joseph Lister and Christopher Columbus to name a few.

We dressed up as robots, aliens and numbers for our NumBots sponsorship day. We raised money to put towards our school trip to Great Dixter in Term 4.

In our DT topic remarkable recipes we made and ate a vegetable casserole and an Eton Mess. We explored how pulses and root vegetables are softened by cooking and looked at and felt a variety of dried pulses and root vegetables, including lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, butter beans, carrots, parsnips and turnips, and discussed why they need cooking.

For Democracy week, we had a visit from PC Tom who spoke to us about following the law and following rules.

As part of our Art topic ‘Mix it’ we learnt about primary colours and secondary colours. We learnt that other colours can be made by mixing the primary colours. We created a colour wheel in our sketch books to show how colours are organised. It showed that the secondary colours sit between the primary colours from which they are made.

As part of our Geography learning we took a trip to Ore Village. We surveyed the local shops to see how many customers visited. We used this information and made a graph to show our findings.

In RE we learnt about Advent and Rachel from St Helens Church came to talk to us about how Advent is celebrated by Christians.

At the end of Term 2 we performed out Christmas concert to the residents of Barrington House care home, KS1 and our families.

Term 3

What a great two terms we have had! We are SO impressed with how hard the children are working. Our topic has been Coastline and the children have really improved their geographical knowledge. They have used maps to locate seaside towns in Britain and they have also used a compass to say whether they were in the north, south, east or west. The children explored how Hastings has changed as a coastal town over time by looking at photos of the past and today.

Our DT topic in term 3 was Beach Huts. The children researched the features of a beach hut like an apex roof before designing and constructing their beach huts. They were extremely careful with using the saws to cut their pieces of wood even though it was hard work and their arm muscles were aching! The children’s final decorations were bright and colourful to stand out on the beach even on a gloomy day like we sometimes have!

Our science topic in term 3 was materials. This work supported our DT work as the children had to think about what is the best material for a specific task and why. They investigated the properties of different materials by testing how strong, absorbent or smooth they were. The children also went on a materials walk to explore the different materials they could find in school and whether they were natural or manmade.

In maths, the children learned about mass, temperature, money and started to learn about 2D shapes. They know that shapes have different properties like the number of sides and whether they are symmetrical or not.

Term 4

Term 4 has been super busy!

In maths, the children have continued their learning of 2D shapes before moving onto 3D shapes and now fractions.

A real highlight of the term was World Book Day! It was great to share stories with Holly Class. The children loved playing Guess the Character and were super confident at knowing the characters which just shows how much they love reading!

Year 2 also thought Career’s Week was great! Nina’s mum, Mariam, came into school and it was interesting to find out how challenging but rewarding it is to be a nurse. The children had lots of great questions and afterwards thought carefully about what jobs they might like to do in the future and what essential skills they would need to do the job.

Science Week was also in term 4 and it coincided with Career’s Week so we researched the work of a marine biologist called Dawood Qureshi. The children were interested to learn what skills you need to be a marine biologist and what it’s like studying wildlife around the world.

The children have worked hard in school and our excited for the Easter holidays now. They have learnt all about the Holy Week and should be Easter Experts!

Term 5

We started term 5 with a trip to Hastings seafront. Year 2 visited the RNLI lifeboat station and the Fisherman’s Museum to find out more about our coastal town and its history. The children completed worksheets identifying the physical and human features of the coastline. It was a great day and the ice cream at the end was a treat for all the children’s hard work!

In term 5 we launched our Magnificent Monarchs topic which continued into term 6. Through the topic we have created a timeline of all the kings and queens of England and Britain from Alfred the Great until King Charles III. To launch our topic we had a perform workshop where we learnt about the life of King Charles III.

Our science topic for terms 5 and 6 has been Animal Survival. We have looked at invertebrates and their characteristics as well as the microhabitats where you can find them. Our learning in class was supported by observing living things in various microhabitats during outdoor learning.

Our art project for terms 5 and 6 has been Portraits and Poses. We have learnt all about portraiture through analysing the portraits of Tudor monarchs and comparing Tudor portraits with selfies today. We have used photo editing software to create royal portraits.

Term 6

Our Magnificent Monarchs topic has continued where we have focused on 6 significant sovereigns: Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. The children have looked at how the power of the monarchy has changed over time and discussed which monarch they think is the most significant and why.

In science in term 6 we have identified and researched what an animal needs to survive. We have constructed simple food chains, learning the terms ‘producer’ and ‘consumer.’ We have explored how humans can harm and help animals’ habitats and made posters to persuade people to help habitats. We have looked at the stages in animals’ life cycles and matched the offspring to the adult. We revisited learning about the four seasons and explored how animals’ behaviour changes across the seasons and how this links to their life cycles. Through outdoor learning we have thought about how humans can have a positive impact on wildlife and we built bug hotels to encourage wildlife in our school grounds.

We have been active in term 6! As well as our brilliant sports day we really enjoyed the Game On Challenge Day. Through working as a team to design our own sports we focused on our 8 essential skills. We worked as a team; we listened to each other and gave our own ideas; we were creative with our ideas and we problem solved when we needed to change something about our games. It was a really positive and motivational day, especially listening to Courtney Orange tell us all how we can overcome challenges and turn them into strengths. We tell ourselves ‘I… CAN…DO…IT!’