Dear Parents,
I hope that you have all had a lovely relaxing easter holiday and are enjoying some more springlike weather.
We have a very busy term ahead with lots of enjoyable learning planned. Our topic for the term will be Groovy Greeks, inspired by Ancient Greece – see below for more details.
We have already enjoyed a Greek feast where the children were able to taste and enjoy a range of delicious Greek foods. They were highly excited about this, as you can imagine!
We have a number of exciting activities planned, including a celebration of the Coronation, a return visit to the
Children’s Forest and the residential for Year 3 and 4.
Sports Day will take place on Tuesday 6th June at 2.30pm and our Class 2 assembly will take place on Tuesday 13th June at 3pm.
Groovy Greeks
In Class 2 our focus for each subject area will be as follows:
- Art: ancient Greek patterns, investigating Greek pottery, design and make a patterned plate
- British Values: liberty
- Computing: internet research and presenting findings using PowerPoint
- D and T: ingredients – tasting, designing and making typical Greek foods
- Geography: world map, continents and oceans, Mediterranean countries, islands, maps of Greece, creating a Greek tourism poster
- History: a study of the ancient Greeks – democracy, The Olympics, The Battle of Marathon, Greek gods and goddesses, the Trojan War
- Music: exploring singing games, creating text and composing melody
- PSHE: Health and Wellbeing – Healthy Lifestyles, Keeping Safe and Growing and Changing
- PE: football with Rowan on Fridays, cricket with Fraser (first half term) and tennis with Bethan (second half term), sports day, outdoor and adventurous activities (Y3 & 4 residential)
- RE: what do Old Testament stories teach about God? what do different religions teach about Creation?
- Science: types of plant, planting and growing, the parts of a plant, transportation of water through the stem, the life cycle of plants, flowers and pollination, seed dispersal
Homework
Homework will continue as before – a brief summary below.
Maths and English – the children will have a piece of homework for each subject to complete each week. Maths – given out on Monday, to return by Wednesday; English given out on Wednesday to be returned by Friday. Please check that your child knows what they have to do in order to complete the homework task before they begin and that once completed they have not made any silly mistakes.
Spellings – please continue to practise spellings regularly through the week, (not just on a Thursday night!) and for children in Year 3 and 4 also practise putting words into sentences and writing definitions as these will also be tested.
Times tables – please continue to practise these regularly – we are aiming for instant recall, out of order!
Children in Year 4 now have to sit a statutory times tables test in the summer term. This means that the expectation will be that they know all their times tables off by heart up to 12 x 12. The test is online and comprises of 25 random questions with about 6 seconds to answer each question – it is quite a challenge! There are some apps which you could download to help your child prepare for this at home, for example Times Tables Rock Stars and Komodo maths.
Reading – please could you continue to support your children’s progress in reading by hearing them read regularly through the week. Even if your child is now a fluent reader, it is very important that they continue to share books with you, and even more important that you talk about the book with them asking questions, which check their understanding, help develop their inference skills and widen their vocabulary. Children who read regularly with an adult at home make more progress than those who do not.
Assessments
Year 2 – SATS
Children in Year 2 will have to sit a range of tests at the end of May. Hopefully, those of you who purchased the revision booklets offered to you last term have found them helpful. Please continue with helping your children work through these – such extra practice is invaluable, even for the most able children.
Please rest assured that we keep the whole SATs week experience as low key as possible and most of the children usually quite enjoy them!
Year 3 and 4 – The children in Year 3 and 4 do not have national tests to sit, (apart from the new online times tables test), but I will still be carrying out routine half termly assessments, which will also take place during the last week of this half term, and again towards the end of the second half term.
KS2 Residential
The Year 3 and 4 children will be going on the residential trip to Hawse End (Monday 26th June – Friday 30th June) with Class 3. I will accompany the trip for the whole week and Miss Pennington will remain in school with the Year 2 children who will join Mrs Harrison in Class 1 for a week of themed activities.
I hope that this newsletter will be useful to you. As ever I am available for a chat at the beginning and end of the school day, so please do not hesitate to come and see me if you have any queries or concerns.
If you need to send me an e-mail please do so! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
I am looking forward to another exciting term with the children and I hope they are too!
Yours sincerely,
Fiona Sweetman
