Home Classes Welcome to year 2 - beech, cherry and rowan classes

Welcome to Year 2 - Beech, Cherry and Rowan Classes

Teachers:

Mrs Bruce

Teacher: Beech Class

Hello! My name is name is Mrs Bruce and I have taught at Sandown Primary School for seven years. I have taught in Year 6 for most of that time and I am now teaching in Year 2. In my school holidays, I love going on adventures and visit new places in the world. In the last few years, I have been lucky enough to visit Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, China and Iceland. In the last summer holiday break, I went around the Scottish Highlands on my motorbike with my husband.I also love reading books, cooking and spending time growing vegetables and flowers in my arden. At home, I have a black and white cat called Bonnie.

Miss Cohen

Teacher: Cherry Class

Miss Owen

Teacher: Rowan Class

My name is Miss Owen and I have taught at Sandown Primary School for 12 years. I’m passionate about teaching and love to see the children gain confidence in their different subjects, especially with their reading. Out of school I love spending time with my family, including my two children and dog called Teddy. At the weekend we like to go on long walks in the countryside or take our bikes up to Bedgebury Pinetum. I have recently moved house so this year is all about decorating and keeping the garden looking as tidy as when we moved in.

TAs:

Miss Starnes

TA:

Miss Featherston

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!

2022-23

WOW! What a great start to the year! The children have quickly and positively settled into year 2 and responded well to new routines.

Stunning Start:

We kicked off the term with a stunning start for our Geography topic, The United Kingdom. The children had to demonstrate both listening and teamwork skills to complete a huge scavenger hunt around the school grounds. They had to work together to read and decode each clue in order to find the next. At the end, they had to solve the puzzle in order to make each flag of the four nations. We then continued to look at where in the UK we live, the four nations and their capital cities.

Story Telling Festival and STEM Week:

The last week of this term saw a whole school celebration of everything creative. We celebrated Hasting Storytelling Week with a visiting puppet show production of ‘Oldilock and the three bears’. We also invented and designed Nessie catching machines and entered an engineering competition in the hope that we can get some of our inventions made.

Fantastic Finish:

This term Year 2 have been reading the story ‘No Such Thing as Nessie’ by Chani McBain and Kirsteen Harris-Jones. We have been busy predicting, clarifying, summarising and reflecting upon this story so we can retell it fluently. To finish our English this term we enjoyed making Nessie’s favourite treat – Shortbread biscuits!

Outdoor Learning:

We have been lucky to have outdoor learning sessions on Thursday afternoon where we have been planting, caring for our wormery and getting arty in the woods with mud tree sculptures. We love outdoor learning and can’t wait for next term when we get to continue these sessions.

2021-22

What a fantastic term, it’s certainly been a busy one! All the children have amazed us with how well they are engaging with their learning and working so hard.

Reading, reading, reading!

In Year 2 we are passionate about getting the children to be more confident readers. This term we have had a huge focus on phonics and all the children have taken part in the Phonics Screening Check. The class text ‘Finn MacCool and the Giant’s Causeway’ has really engaged and inspired the children to produce some wonderful pieces of writing. We had a visit from a librarian who talked to the children about how they can use their local library service to access lots of fantastic books for free! He also spoke to the children about his job as a librarian and the children asked some interesting questions.

Fire, Fire!

This term Year 2 have continued to learn about the Great Fire of London in our history lessons and deepen their understanding of how we know about the events that took place 350 years ago. Linked to this in Design and Technology, the children have been researching, designing and making Tudor style houses. They investigated the best materials to use to make a model house and what shapes are used to create strong and stable building structures.

Christmas Shenanigans:

Christmas is always such a fun time of year at school. It’s when the children can really start to get excited about the arrival of Father Christmas. This year the children have got to take part in a Santa dash around the running track, enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner and even got to meet the Mr or Mrs Santa Claus themselves. On a more serious note, they have learnt in RE how Christians today prepare for Advent in the Church. We had a visit from a local vicar who explained what an advent ring was and identified the symbolism of each candle on the advent ring.

Christmas Concert:

The children absolutely loved performing all their Christmas songs for you and worked so hard to learn all the words and actions. It was a wonderful way to finish the term and we really hope you enjoyed the concert as much as we all did.

Merry Christmas everyone!

2021-22

What a great term we have had!

We have loved our outdoor learning sessions with Sandown Outdoors; we built bug hotels and created a wormery to compost our fruit in.

Our Great Fire of London topic has seen us build Tudor-style houses, learn great fire of London songs and read and explore the book ‘Vlad and the Great Fire of London’.

We had a great day celebrating 25 years of Harry Potter and loved dressing up as our favourite character. We did a draw-along with the illustrator of the Harry Potter books, we found our own wands in the woods and decorated them. We loved making potions and sharing books together.

In Science, we have learnt all about habitats and have been exploring the habitats we have in our school grounds.

It has been quite a short term but we have squeezed in lots of fantastic learning.

2021-22

What a great term 4 we have had! Carry on reading to hear about some of the highlights…….

Siddy Bennett Song Writer

As part of careers week, we welcomed singer/songwriter Siddy Bennet in to class. We create our own song about dreams and goals and performed it with Siddy and her guitar. We had such a great time and made an original song to share on Sandown Radio.

World Book Day

World Book Day 2022 was the best one yet! We had a great day celebrating books, reading and storytelling. We were so lucky to have best-selling author Peter Bunzl visit our school. We also had the wonderful Hastings Bookshop in for the day selling beautiful picture books, chapter books and the WBD books. We had a joyful visit from Henry the librarian who shared funny stories in our school library. We loved joining in with the actions and parts of the story.

Great Fire of London Performance

We were lucky enough to have a theatre performance all about Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London. We learnt more about the fire and how people tried to stop it spreading. We acted, we sang and we had a great time.

Ore Community Library Visits

Year 2 have all now been on at least one visit to Ore Community Library. We have met the librarians and spent time sharing books together and choosing books to take back to our classroom. Many children have now joined up to the library so that they can visit at the weekends and after school.

2021-22

We have had another fantastic term in Year 2.

This term we have immersed ourselves in the wonderful world of Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood. We have read chapters from the first of the series of Winnie the Pooh books, written thoughtful descriptions of Winnie and his friends and created beautiful poetry.

In Science, we have been learning about plants. We carried out a fair test to see where our plants would grow best and what conditions plants need to thrive. We have planted bean seeds and studied how they change from a seed to a plant.

In Art, we studied the sculptor Lucie Rie. We then used her as inspiration when we designed and sculpted our own clay pots to take home.

To mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we made crowns and had a huge street party on the playground. We waved our flags and had a tasty feast of sandwiches and sausage rolls.

We can’t wait until next term when we go on our school trip to visit the Hundred Acre Wood.

2021-22

WOW! How is it already the end of year 2?

Term 6 has been full of exciting learning and adventures.

Ashdown Forest

The most exciting event of this term was our amazing Winnie the Pooh inspired trip to Ashdown Forest. We had a wonderful time exploring both the heathland and woodland. The children had the opportunity to build Eeyore a den, take a paper bee for a walk to collect nectar, a hide and seek animal game, play mini pooh sticks and explore the sandpit. We even had a teddy bear’s picnic at lunchtime. Our guides, Paula and Lisa, were so impressed with the children’s knowledge of nature and the outdoors as well as their great enthusiasm and impeccable behaviour. Well done Cherry and Beech class!

Sports Day

Sports day was a great success this year. The weather stayed dry but not too hot. The Year 2 children showed how much progress they had made in their running, jumping and balancing skills. We were also really impressed with how they encouraged their teammates during each race, their fantastic sportsmanship, perseverance and resilience. Good Work Year 2! Thank you to all the parents/carers who were able to come along on the day and make it such a special event.

Ice Cream Parlour

We were so surprised and excited when we received an invite from Paddington Bear to his ice cream parlour. In our DT lessons, we explored the healthiness of ice creams and lollies that we can buy in the shops. Then we designed our own ice creams using squash, yoghurt and a variety of fruit combinations. We even made a picture graph so that Miss Clarke, Miss Owen and Miss Straw knew how many ingredients to buy. The children loved sharing their ice cream with their special guest. They also completed an evaluation after the event so they could think about what they did well and what they could improve next time. We hope you enjoy making some ice-creams at home over the summer holidays.

Meet the Teacher

The children loved meeting their new teacher and are excited to move into Key Stage 2.

The new classes are as follows:

Beech Class (Mrs Bruce/Miss Straw/Miss Owen) moving to Elder Class (Miss Straw)

Cherry Class (Miss Clarke/Miss Owen) moving to Juniper Class (Miss Siotto)

Thank you for your continued support during Year Two. We have had a wonderful year!

We wish you all the best in Year Three!

Welcome to Year 2 - Beech, Cherry and Rowan Classes

Teachers:

Mrs Bruce

All about me

Miss Cohen

Miss Owen

All about me

TAs:

Miss Starnes

Miss Featherston

Term 1

2022-23

**Stunning Start:**

**Story Telling Festival and STEM Week:**

**Fantastic Finish:**

**Outdoor Learning:**

Term 2

2021-22

Term 3

2021-22

Term 4

2021-22

Siddy Bennett Song Writer

World Book Day

Great Fire of London Performance

Ore Community Library Visits

Term 5

2021-22

Term 6

2021-22

Ashdown Forest

Sports Day

Ice Cream Parlour

Meet the Teacher

Stunning Start:

Story Telling Festival and STEM Week:

Fantastic Finish:

Outdoor Learning: