Willow Class
Welcome to a new year in Willow Class!
WHO'S WHO IN WILLOW CLASS
Class Teacher: Miss Knight
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Kelly and Mr Payne
Welcome to all parents, carers and children joining Willow Class this year! We are a happy and hardworking class of Year 2 children who love to learn, collaborate, and develop our independent skills through fun and engaging activities. The teaching team work hard to challenge and creatively inspire us to believe we can achieve and be the best we can be- always with a sense of fun and purpose!
During each term of the year we embark on a Quest Learning focus. Our Quests this year include 'Who am I' in the autumn term, 'Once Upon a time' in the spring term and 'Our wonderful World' in the summer term. During the autumn term we will explore stories and poems about families and pets, understand our classroom rules and create our own class charter. We will also be reading and exploring lots of fiction and non-fiction stories and animations set in familiar and fantasy settings in both our English and Guided Reading sessions. We will use the White Rose Maths and NCETM programmes of learning in our Maths sessions to support and enhance the development of Maths Mastery skills.
As we move into the second phase of the autumn term we will develop our understanding of materials and their properties and conduct collaborative and independent enquiries and tests. In Geography we will explore maps and mapping using traditional and digital resources helping us to make links with our prior knowledge and understanding of the world around us. In History we will explore the Victorian era focusing on children's toys from the past comparing them with our own toys. We will be conducting in depth studies of the work of Mondrian, Clarice Cliff, Paul Klee and Andy Warhol as part of our art focuses during the year as well as exploring our wonderful world during the summer where we conduct lots of scientific and geographic investigations!
Throughout our learning a growth mindset is encouraged and the teaching team work hard to provide us with the tools to achieve success in our learning and development not only within the National Curriculum but also personally, socially and emotionally.
Miss Knight, Mrs Kelly and Mr Payne look forward to supporting your child to aspire, believe and achieve this year!
Some of the poems and stories we will explore during the Summer Term include...
DAILY ROUTINES
Our school day begins from 8.40-8.50am and ends at 3.20pm. The drop off point in the mornings is through the main hall and the collection point at the end of the day is outside the main building exit onto the top play ground. Please inform the school office if there is a change to collection at the end of the day.
PE: During the autumn term we will have PE on Monday and Thursday afternoon and during the course of the school day the children will also participate in brain break sessions with Miss Knight such as gentle jogging or simple aerobics movements. In the spring term we will be working towards completing our run a mile challenge and in the the summer term we will participate in Forest School. In addition to these sessions we will also participate in enrichment opportunities led by the Premier Sports Coaching team through the course of each term.
WATER BOTTLES: Please enable your child to bring a named drink bottle to school with only water inside.
CLASS DOJO: Regular updates are posted on our class dojo page - we aim to share information and pictures from the learning activities we have achieved during our day so do please do get connected and check your child's class page if you can. Parents and carers are encouraged to contact Miss Knight via class dojo should they require advice or an opportunity to discuss their child.
Miss Knight looks forward to developing positive happy relationships with all parents and carers joining Willow Class this year.
PHONICS PROGRAMME IN YEAR 2
What is phonics?
There has been a huge shift in the past few years in how we teach reading in UK schools. This is having a big impact and helping many children learn to read and spell. Phonics is recommended as the first strategy to engage children when supporting them learn to read. At the end of Year 1, all children are tested on their phonics knowledge.
Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read and write.
It's all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words. Some are represented by one letter, like 't', and some by two or more, like 'ck' in duck and 'air' in chair. Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling. Synthetic phonics refers to 'synthesising', or blending, the sounds to read words. It's based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context.
Click on the link below to have a look at an example Phonics test. Some words are made up (Alien) and others are real.
At Cotford St Luke, we use Monster phonics- click on the link below for more information
We follow the Monster Phonics programme in Reception and Key Stage 1 and the programme is also used in Key Stage 2. Monster Phonics is a DfE listed programme that uses a colour coded grapheme system linked to monsters. The resources are mapped against the Letters and Sounds phases 2-6 and the KS1 Spelling Curriculum. The colour-coded grapheme system is unique to Monster Phonics; each coloured grapheme is paired with a monster character that makes the same sound to give audio-visual prompts that help children ‘see’ each sound within a word and pronounce it correctly.
Meet the Monsters
Reading books-
This year the Foundation and Key Stage teams will teach Monster Phonics, a fun and systematic programme to develop your child's reading and spelling skills. To support reading at home and align with the new programme we will be sending out 1 reading book each week to encourage your child to practise their reading skills- the book will be sent home in either digital or paper formats. The reading book will be linked to your child's phonic ability which is regularly assessed throughout each term. Encouraging independent reading, developing fluency (reducing the need to sound out sounds) and expression are key features encouraged by the teaching team when the children are reading this book at home. Opportunities for your child to share and develop their vocabulary, topic knowledge, story structure and love for reading will also be available as part of our class provision.
Reading books will be sent out on a Friday along with a reading diary to enable you to put any comments and share experiences with the teaching team. Paper format books should be returned on a Thursday. We encourage you to read the books more than once with your child to develop their fluency and use of expression. It is also good to ask your child questions about the book you have shared with them- most of the new Monster phonics books have questions included in the book. For those children who develop to free reading books (after successful completion of phonics based reading schemes) you may need a little longer to finish your books - just let us know if this is the case in your child's reading diary.
The children will be heard to read both as part of a guided reading group and individually through the term at school to ensure positive individual progression and challenge.
Below is some additional advice for developing phonic and reading skills at home
KEY STAGE 1 QUEST PLANS
In Key Stage 1 we have a two year rolling programme of planning quests (learning themes). Take a look at how the team plans for the children's progression in learning across the year groups. This year the team are following the Year b planning quests.
KS1 curriculum objective progression by quest
SOME OF THE THINGS WE HAVE BEEN GETTING UP TO IN WILLOW CLASS THIS YEAR.
YEAR 2 SPELLING PROGRAMME: Take a look at the words the children will practise reading and spelling during their time in Year 2. We differentiate between HFW (high frequency words which can be decoded) and CEW (common exception words) which cannot be decoded and are sometimes referred to as tricky words.
The document below is the advice we give children every time they use a computer at school.
Please click here to find out more about what we teach in each subject. The links at the bottom of the ‘Curriculum’ page will tell you all you could wish to know.