1. YEAR TWO Welcome Evening

2. Social Expectations Eldest children in the school: Setting examples to the younger children in terms of manners, behaviour and work ethic. Behaviour management: our ship! Jobs of responsibility: fruit monitors, eco warriors, library monitors.. Responsibility towards the younger children: looking after them at break time Responsibility towards themselves: becoming more independent, working to the best of their ability.

3. Curriculum 2015: NEW National Curriculum became statutory for all year groups in state maintained schools. Year 2 follows all of the new National Curriculum. Children’s standards in English, Maths, Science, reading, writing, spelling, handwriting assessed against all other children of this age in new tests that will be taken at the end of KS1. Year 2 children will have a broad and balanced curriculum, learning history, geography, ICT, art and design, RE, music, PE and philosophy in addition to the above core areas.

4. How can I help my child? First, sleep! Nothing will help them more than ensuring they are rested and ready for school each day. A child ’ s concentration levels are directly proportional to how much sleep they are getting. The more sleep, the better they perform and behave. Some quiet time at home every day doing something they enjoy will also help develop their concentration - puzzles, drawing, lego, etc.

5. Phonics Every day, 20 mins discrete phonics session Phonics runs through all of the daily teaching. There are lots of phonics programmes on the internet which will help you to understand how synthetic phonics works. http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk http://www.letters-and-sounds.com We are always happy to answer any questions and help! Phonics can seem bewildering, so please, do come and ask if you have any queries.

6. Reading Reading is the key to your child learning to the best of their ability. The demands of Year 2 are exacting: children are expected to be able to access and glean knowledge from all different kinds of books: fiction, non-fiction and poetry and also information texts such as newspapers, magazines, scientific and historical writings. They will also be researching topics more on the Internet.

7. How can I help my child? Please encourage your child to read with you, even if it is only for 5 minutes every day. If possible, choose a time when your child is not tired. If you are able to, try either when you come straight home from school, or in the mornings after a good night’s sleep. Bath time can also be a good time. Read in the car and when out and about: signs, adverts on billboards, at train stations and bus stops. Involve them as much as possible in spotting letters: supermarkets and car number plates are always good. (For number recognition too!)

8. Please try to read with your child during the school holidays, even if only every other day, if you do not want your child to slip back and lose some of their progress. Most children know how to apply their phonics decoding skills by breaking down words into smaller sounds. We will be focusing in Year 2 on applying this knowledge in their writing. Help your child by pointing out anomalies! For example: isn’t it interesting how the ‘ough’ sound in ‘enough’ isn’t the same as in ‘plough’, yet we spell the ending the same way? There are lots of words in English which simply don’t follow any rules and just have to be learnt. We refer to these as ‘tricky’ words. Help your child learn them by using fridge magnets and get them to spell them out, or by simply sticking them up around the house.

9. Reading Records It is important to write in your child’s reading record every time they have read with you at home. Please write the page numbers you have read together and any words your child is having difficulty with. If your child is racing through a book with no mistakes, we would like to know about it, as it probably means they need to be assessed to try something more challenging! Equally, if your child is finding nearly every word difficult, we would also like to know. Staff try and read with each child at least once in the week.

10. We are aiming to make children fluent, confident readers. It is important to re-read the same passage until they can read the words confidently and without mistakes, and also so that they understand what they are reading! Get them to think about the words: are there some they may not know the meaning of? What does it mean if someone ‘loses their head’ or ‘gets in a stew’, for example? We want to get children to a point where they can infer meaning in a story/text. Help them use a dictionary/thesaurus and look up the meaning together. This is a very important skill: they learn to think about finding out meanings for themselves.

11. Writing In Year Two, more focus is placed on spelling, punctuation and handwriting. End of year expectations are that children can spell 100 keywords correctly, and attempt more tricky spellings, including words with suffixes and pre-fixes. They should also be able to use capital letters, full stops, commas, question marks and exclamation marks correctly. They are expected to be able to join their writing by the end of the year and are currently working on joins within words. We spend 20 minutes each day handwriting.

12. How can I help my child? Involve your child in writing anything!. shopping lists. notes to people. birthday/celebration cards to family/friends. reading! The more vocabulary they are exposed to, the more they will use it in their writing.. help them practise their handwriting. Their developing phonics skills will help them to encode words to write.

13. Maths By the end of Year 2, it is expected that all children will know how to count in 1s up to 100 and back and to know their 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables. Knowing how to count and their times tables is the foundation on which all the rest of their mathematical knowledge is based. They will find it easier to add, multiply, spot number patterns and understand fractions if they know their tables. Alongside learning how to add, subtract, divide and multiply increasingly larger numbers, we will be looking at 3D shapes and measurement, data handling, time and money in more detail this year. We have a daily mental maths session at the start of every lesson to revisit and consolidate prior learning.

14. How can I help my child? Maths can be such a fun subject if approached in the right way! Get your child involved in making food at home: recipes are the perfect way for them to hone their measuring skills. Count as much as possible, and try not to always start at 0! Count backwards too. Count in 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s etc. Try to get them to notice 2 and 3D shapes in the home and out and about. Fractions: when having pizzas/cakes, apples or eating toast, try cutting them equally in half, quarters, eighths and talk about what fractions they are. How many quarters make 1 whole pizza? Eat one quarter: how many quarters do I have left?

15. Time: try to get them to practise telling the time: even if it is just o’clock and half past the hour. Money: handling coins is really important! Recognition of coin values is a brilliant start: it is crucial that children realise that the bigger the size of the coin does not necessarily mean the value is higher. Try letting them pay shopkeepers and help them count out the money in front of them. In restaurants/supermarkets, try to get them to look at the price of food to help them recognise pounds and pence.

16. Science New science curriculum is much more nature based. Smokey Row More focus on scientific enquiry: children will be learning how to ask questions in a more meaningful way and thinking through how to find the answers to questions themselves. The children would really benefit from any chats you could have with them when out and about: talk to them if you can about the seasons changing, the length of days, names of trees, plants.

17. How can I help my child? Try to involve children in gardening: look at the roots of plants, talk about how they need water, sun and soil to grow. Try to get them to notice the differences in plant types. If you have them, take plant/flower/insect books with you on walks: see if your child can identify the different flora and fauna whilst you are out and about. Try to ask them questions about science: why do you think a cat has whiskers? Why do you think things drop to the ground when you let go? Why do we have night an day? Help them research these questions: in books/internet.

18. Learning Logs In addition to weekly spellings and daily reading, homework will be done in our Learning Logs.. ½ hour approximate time to spend on homework: if your child wants to do more that’s also fine! Do not push your child to do too much work: we do not want them to become upset. Please make a note if your child does become upset/ how much time they are spending on their learning log work. There is usually no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do the Learning Log work: open to the child’s interpretation.