Welcome To Year 2!

1. Welcome To Year 2! Parent Information Meeting - 16th September 2013

2. Rules and Expectations • We follow the school golden rules • If children do not follow the rules, we use the following system: • Children are given a verbal warning to stop the unwanted behaviour • Then, children are asked to turn their name over • Children move their name and lose 5 minutes of their golden time on a Friday afternoon • Children can also gain time back!

3. PE • We do two sessions of PE on Monday and Thursdays • Mondays is Outdoor PE (Games) and Thursday is Indoor PE (Gymnastics/Dance) • The children will need a PE kit in school EVERY day (white t-shirt, black shorts and daps) • You might also want to put in a pair of jogging bottoms/jumper

4. Our topics for the year... • Term 1 – The Ugly Bug Ball • Term 2 – Rainforests • Term 3 – World War II • Term 4 – Anthony Browne • Term 5 – Sculpture • Term 6 – Geography

5. Reading • Children change their books every Monday, Wednesday and Friday • Guided Reading happens every day (one focus group per day) and a comment will be recorded in your child’s reading record • Priority readers heard daily • Each child in the class reads their individual reading book to an adult at least once a week • Benchmarking to assess children’s reading levels (October) • Regular reading tests to assess children’s reading and comprehension • Children have group targets for reading

6. Helping your child with reading... • Try NOT to cover up the pictures in the book • If your child is stuck on a word, encourage them to use a variety of strategies (picture cues, phonics, context) • Ask your child questions about the story to check their comprehension of the story • Encourage their skills of inference and prediction by asking questions like ‘What do you think will happen next?’ and questions that go ‘beyond the literal’ • Ask them to talk about the language used in the text –Is that a good describing word? What other words could you use there? • Ask your child to share their opinion of the text – What did you like/not like about this book? • Encourage them to use expression in their reading when they see ! and ?

7. Writing • Every Friday we do BIG writing: • VCOP games before playtime (30 minutes building up to 45 minutes by the end of Year 2) • Vocabulary • Connectives • Openers • Punctuation • Planning and independent writing after playtime (30 minutes building up to 45 minutes by the end of Year 2) • Children have individual writing targets which are referred to on a daily basis • We will also be doing daily cursive handwriting practice

8. Cursive Handwriting…

9. Writing Levels • Level 1 – spell simple words and use phonics to spell words not known, beginning to use full stops and capital letters, can usually form letters correctly, work can be decoded by an adult without child present • Level 2 – can use any connective to join two simple sentences, beginning to make writing more interesting, can use basic punctuation correctly, can link ideas to create flow • Level 3 – can adapt chosen form to the audience, produce work which is organised, imaginative and clear, experimenting with different punctuation, uses a wide range of connectives to clarify relationships between points and ideas, using paragraphs to separate ideas

10. Key Writing Vocabulary • Connective – a word we use to ‘join’ two parts of a sentence together, e.g. and, but, because, so, then, after • Opener – a word that we use at the start of a sentence, for example my, the, we, next, she, he, I, then, after • Punctuation – full stops, exclamation marks, question marks, speech marks, commas • Paragraph – a section of text on the same theme

11. Parts of a sentence This year, we are going to do lots of work on grammar and different parts of a sentence. The children will learn the following terms: • Noun – a word that names a person, place, thing or idea, e.g. grandma, forest, wolf, joy • Adjective – a word we use to describe a noun, e.g. ‘The dangerous, fierce lion ate the man.’ • Verb – a word which shows actions. These actions can be physical or mental, e.g. run, speak, dream, think • Adverb – a word we use to describe a verb, e.g. ‘She slowly walked down the road.’

12. Phonics Daily 20 minute phonics sessions We are learning: • New ways to spell different graphemes • Split digraphs • Reading high frequency words • Reading two and three-syllable words We will move on to: • Learning spelling rules when adding suffixes (ed, ing, est, er) • Strategies to spell longer words

13. Maths • 2 week units of Maths – different focus for each of the units • Block A – Counting, partitioning and calculating • Block B – Securing number facts, understanding shape • Block C – Handling data and measures • Block D – Calculating, measuring and understanding shape • Block E – Securing number facts, relationships and calculating • Collect evidence in a variety of ways – group work

14. End of year expectations • Count on and back in ones from any given number up to 100 (Know the number that comes before the multiple of ten e.g. 59 is one less than 60) • Know ten more and ten less than any given number up to 100 (e.g. ten more than 26) • Recall doubles of all numbers to a total of 30 (15+15) and the corresponding halves (e.g. 15 + 15 = 30 so half of 30 = 15) • Know pairs of numbers that add up to 20 and solve problems using these number facts. • Be able to partition two digit numbers in different ways (e.g. 26 = 20 + 6 or 10 + 16) • Count in steps of 2,3,5 and 10 (forwards and backwards) • Recognise the place value of each digit in a 2-digit number • Compare numbers to 100 using ≤ and ≥ • Read/ write 2-digit numbers in numerals and words

15. The four operations + add plus total and altogether more than - take away subtract minus less than difference x times multiple repeated addition multiplied by lots of groups of ÷ divide divided by group into repeated subtraction

16. Spellings • Spellings are sent home every Thursday and tested in school the following Thursday • Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check strategy • We also check letter formation when testing children • Spellings are from the 300 key words which are taken from Letters and Sounds • If a child mis-spells a word one week, they have it the following week. Also we may include words that children mis-spell in their BIG writing

17. Homework • Reading books every night – write in reading records • Education City and Bug Club will be used for web-based homework and will be set termly • Learning logs will come home on 27th September. This is going to be used for homework from Year 2 upwards and gives children the opportunity to be creative and present their homework in different ways. • Learning logs will be set on a Friday and be due in two weeks later (Friday) • Children will have two weeks to complete the tasks set and one week where they can focus on web-based homework while learning logs are in school

18. SATs! • All through teacher assessment at Year 2 • We use the national assessment papers for reading, spelling, writing and maths to support our judgements • Evidence from school work is also used to assess children • Continuously assessing children throughout the year, making targets for the end of the year • Children do their SATs in small groups as part of normal lessons and are given as much time as they need • All with as little pressure as possible! • Don’t Worry!

19. Websites to use at home • www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize - Literacy and Numeracy games to play (Literacy games support our VCOP strategy) • www.ictgames.com – A range of games to support the curriculum • www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents - Supporting your child at home, a range of information about the national curriculum • www.orchidvale.swindon.sch.uk – Our new school website which is updated frequently, so remember to check! • www.mathszone.co.uk – A range of Maths games • www.bbc.co.uk/history/forkids - A good place to start with researching new topics!

20. Extra bits! • We will be doing ‘Show and Tell’ on Fridays. Please only send in things to show that are related to topic or extra-curricular activities • Please ensure your child has a bag of clothes they can wear when we go into the wildlife area. We will be going into the wildlife area every Wednesday afternoon