Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Year 2 and welcome to Hoberman class. Myself and Miss Karen have all very much enjoyed our first hot, hot, hot week back at school and we hope the children have too. We’ve spent most of the week getting to know each other and adjusting to the expectations of Year 2. The children are doing brilliantly and we think we’re going to have a fantastic year together.

In English we’ve been learning about our class poet Mary Ann Hoberman and studying a poem he wrote called Brother. The children discussed the poem, how it made them feel and words that they liked. They also learnt the meaning of unknown words in the text.

A little bit of admin.

Homework will be set on Fridays and will be uploaded on the class website page – but not this week. We will start in earnest next week so enjoy this weekend!

Miss Bell will be reading with all the children to determine their current reading level soon. Once levels have been checked, reading books will start to go home with your children.

PE is on Mondays and Gymnastics is on Tuesdays so please make sure that your children come to school in their PE kits on these days.

We have uploaded a copy of our timetable, curriculum map and our class poem to the website so please do familiarise yourselves with them. Please feel free to email us with any questions or concerns. Our email addresses are

l.whiting@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk

For our Art lesson on Friday 22nd we need 16 tea towels. It would be amazing if the children could start to bring these in.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Whiting

Dear Parents/Carers

Our first full week in Year 2 and luckily no water or concrete issues to keep us off school!

This week we have been reciting the class poem Brother by our class poet Mary Ann Hoberman. The children picked their favourite describing words from the text before writing their own versions with new adjectives. You can find a copy of the poem on the class webpage and soon you should be able to hear your children recite it too!

In Maths, we have been looking at Place Value partitioning numbers into tens and ones and finding different ways of breaking numbers apart using part-whole models, tens and ones and as calculations e.g. 12 = 12 + 2 and 12 = 6 + 6. Some children are still finding this tricky so we’ve included a place value activity in our homework this week for extra practice.

In Humanities this week, we learnt about London landmarks such as Big Ben and the London Eye so do ask your children what they remember and see if they can spot any landmarks on your activities this weekend.

We also began our RE topic on Hinduism, learning what it means to be a Hindu and the importance of family. Students drew pictures, wrote about who is important in their family and why they are important. Could it be you..?

This is the first week for homework so do save some time this weekend! Children always have weekly spellings, a little bit of Maths, three sentences to write linked to spelling words and a fortnightly Comprehension activity that you will find in their homework book starting from this week. Children will bring home their homework books this afternoon (Friday), complete the homework in the book and return by next Wednesday at the latest. You will also find homework information on this webpage.

Mathletics will also be set this Friday and should be completed by the following Friday – so a couple of days extra to return! Please don’t let your children get behind with Mathletics. The work set will consolidate their class learning and help ensure it is stored in their long term memory.

Mathletics logins and spelling groups (which are fluid throughout the year) can be found on the inside front cover of your child’s homework books. The green group should learn the first 5 spellings, and the blue group should learn all 8 spellings. There are also 5 statutory spellings that all children should learn. Spelling tests will take place on Friday mornings starting from next week. Children will also be tested on two ‘unseen words’ that follow the spelling pattern for that week to assess children’s understanding of each rule.

Last call for tea towels – so far we’ve only received few donations and need 16 altogether so do please dig around in your kitchen drawers for any tea towels you are happy to pass on. These will be used in our Art lesson next Tuesday. Thanks in advance.

Your children should also have in their school bags to bring home a leaflet from FOSS detailing their amazing efforts last year and what their donations helped to pay for in school. The leaflet gives information on how you can support their work this year in the form of donations or by volunteering.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Whiting

Happy Friday everyone.

This week Year 2 have been carrying on our Maths Place Value work partitioning 2-digit numbers and we have re-introduced the class to the greater than/less than symbols. A good trick to help children remember which way round these go is ‘the greedy crocodile always eats the bigger number!’ The Maths homework set this week will help to consolidate this.

In English we have started our new topic based around Margaret Mahy’s beautiful book ‘The Lion in the Meadow’. The class have acted out the story, answered comprehension questions and looked at the difference between retrieval and inference questions. (Answers to retrieval questions can be found in the text whilst you need to look for clues for inference questions.) The class have also thought of their own adjectives to describe the animals in the story and wrote their own questions for the lion.

Thank you for all of your tea towel donations which have been put to great use. The tea towels were used to help make children’s own felt with wool fibres.

We are still after small boxes (think matchbox size) to give our imaginary creatures in English a comfortable home so do please have a hunt at home. Many thanks to the new homes that have already been provided.

Next week, the children will be split into two groups for Maths. One will be with Mrs Foster/Mrs Wordsworth and the other half will stay with us. We will be telling the children which group they are in on Monday.

Reading books will start to go home with your children next Monday and are due back each Friday. Miss Karen will not be able to change books if they are not returned. Thank you to the parents who have already come forward to offer their help as parent-readers. If you would like to volunteer to read in Year 2 and across the school then do let us know and we will put you in touch with Natasha to start the ball rolling with DBS checks and Safeguarding training so you can be added to the list.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Whiting & Miss Karen