• This week in the classroom

Welcome to Year  2

Hello and welcome to our Sandbach Primary Academy Year 2 class page. Ms Marshall-Clarke is the Year 2 class teacher. This term, we will be supported by Miss Shield and Miss Phillips.  

For an update each week, please see the 'This Week in the Classroom' tab above. 

General Information to know about Year 2: 

Reading and homework 

• Please read with your child at home as often as possible, this is a great time to bond with your child and create a love of reading. 

• All home reading books are signed out to children under a library system and they will be expected to return their current book before they are allowed to take another. 

• Homework - spelling  and  times tables activities will be set on a Friday and should be completed by the following Thursday.  

PE 

• PE will be every Monday and Wednesday. 

• Children should come to school in their PE kits on these days. 

Personal items 

• Please ensure that items of clothing are clearly named. This will ensure that if anything goes missing it can be quickly reunited with its owner.  

• Please ensure your child has suitable footwear in school.  

• Please do not allow children to bring toys and  other items from home. They are easily lost or cause upsets. 

Drinks and snack 

• Children need to bring their own water bottles into school which they can use throughout the day and refill when needed. Please do not allow other drinks such as juice, fizzy drinks etc. Juices, smoothies etc. are only for lunch.  

• All children will receive free fruit snack each day.  

• In addition to fruit, children can purchase school hot snack which is priced at 20p - 30p per day. Please click here for more information relating to our healthy snack policy. 

• Children will need to bring their snack money in a purse/wallet that they will hand to one of the adults in the classroom to be kept safe in our snack money box.  

 Spring Overview 

English  

In the first part of the term, Year 2 will be reading The Wolf, the duck and the mouse. Our linked texts will include This is not my hat, I want my hat back and The Bear and the piano,. We will use these brilliant stories as inspiration to retell narrative and recount real events. We will be writing sentences that are correctly punctuated and include adjectives, conjunctions and story language.  

Later, we will move on to read Once upon a raindrop by James Carter. We will also study the story The Papaya that spoke and The Hippocrump, to inspire our writing of Journey stories, poetry and character descriptions.  

Mathematics  

We will continue to explore multiplication, representing counting in 2s, 5s and 10s as the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Later, we will learn to double and halve and be introduced division structures. Finally, we will compare 2D and 3D shapes. 

Science  

In Science, we will be studying uses of everyday things in the first part of the term, We will be identifying the materials that object are made of and the properties that make them suitable for their uses.  In the second half of the term, we will move onto to learn about living things, focussing on life cycles and health. We will study the life cycles of different animals and learn what they need to stay healthy. We will then translate this learning to humans, looking at hygiene and healthy eating. 

History  

In History, we will be learning about Crewe Works. We will learn about what happened there and the impact it had on Crewe and the people who lived there.   

Geography  

In the second half of the term, we will study the four countries of the United Kingdom. We will learn to identify them on maps and describe there location using compass points  
N, S, E and W. We will also learn their capital cities, national flowers and flags. 

Art   

Our art topic this term is sculpture. We will work with clay to create house tiles, inspired by the work of Rachel Whiteread. We will learn a variety of skills needed to shape and join clay..  

DT  

We will study mechanisms – learning to create sliders and levers. We will generate ideas and make moving images, using card and paper, practising a range of cutting, shaping and joining skills.  

Music  

Our themes this term are Round the world and Whatever the Weather. Through these themes we will be building on our existing knowledge and learning,  what an ostinato is, what dynamics are and that that symbols can be used to represent sound. 

RE  

In the first half of the term we will explore how we know some people have a special connection to God. We will study Jesus, Guru Nanak, Krishna and Muhammad and learn about the stories associated with them and how they are important to people with different religious beliefs. We will build on this knowledge in the second half of the term,  to explore what it means to be a prophet. 

PSHE  

In PSHE, we will learn about what makes a good friend, considering how to make friends and how to resolve conflicts. In the second half of the term, we will move on to learn about bullying: what it is, how it affects people and how to respond to it. 

Computing  

We will learn how to use computers to present our writing, learning how text can be changed and edited. We will then go on to learn to make music digitally, learning about how music makes us feel, the patterns within it and ultimately composing our own digital pieces. 

PE  

Each week, the children will have two PE lessons, one with the sports coach on Monday and the second with Ms Marshall-Clarke on Wednesday. During this time, the children will take part in gymnastics, yoga and net and wall games. We will build balance and co-ordination, we will learn basic gymnastics skills and learn how to play strokes as part of a rally.