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DistingtonCommunity School

Empower, Learn, Celebrate

Year 2

Welcome to Year 2!

We are a class of 14 children. Our class teacher is Miss Heaton and our teaching assistant is Miss Hervé. Mrs Askew teaches us on a Thursday afternoon.

If you require any further information, please contact me via Class Dojo or using my email: e.heaton@distington-comm.cumbria.sch.uk.

Key Information:

Our PE days are Monday and Friday.
Children are expected to read at least 5 times per week to achieve Strive 4 Five! Children receive a raffle ticket each time they read at home which enters them into our weekly reading raffle!

Our Curriculum:

We learn through a creative curriculum and we have lots of exciting, opportunities that allow us to develop and grow through memorable, fun activities. Please have a look through our curriculum map. This outlines our core topics for the year. We will keep you updated with your child's learning throughout the year via. Earwig, Class Dojo and parents meetings. Our Learning Challenge question for this half term is: Why are Neil Armstrong and Christopher Columbus so brave?

Curriculum Map 2023-2024.pdf

Spring 2024 Newsletter

Spring Newsletter.pdf

Strive 4 Five:

In Year 2, we are all 'Reading Rockstars'. We aim to read 5 times per week and are rewarded for our efforts with raffle tickets. These are entered into a weekly draw and children can win some amazing prizes!

All children will bring home 2 reading. One book will directly match their current reading ability and the other an Accelerated Reading book. Accelerated Reading books are used to help develop your child's comprehension skills and your child will sit regular (informal) online 'quizzes' to assess their understanding of the story.

Homework:

This year, we will not be setting homework tasks in homework books. This will free up more time for you to read at home with your child and support their reading development.

Weekly spellings will be posted on Class Dojo every Friday for children to practice at home. In class, we will have an informal spelling check once a week. The children who score 8/8 will receive a Prize Box!

Children also have access to online platforms such as Times Table Rockstars and Edshed. They should aim to access these at least three times a week for 10 minutes at a time.

Empowering Learning:

This half term we are learning to be Self Managers. We are aiming to develop our resilience and keep trying even if we find things difficult. We are also working on managing our emotions so we are more prepared and able learn, which will help us to understand how we learn best!

Class Dojo and Earwig:

Please access your child's Earwig and class Dojo page regularly for updates on, and photos capturing, their year 2 learning journey.

If you have difficulty in accessing either of these, please let Miss Heaton or the school office know and we will help you with this.

Key Dates:

Please continue to check the whole-school and class DOJO pages for additional key dates and information that may be added and given.

School term dates can be accessed on Cumbria County Council's website.

School Councillors:

Year 2 would like to introduce our Class Councillors for the year... Noah and Paisley!

Our Class Councillors were nominated into their position by their class friends. They will attend whole school councillor meetings with Mrs Kellett to discuss some very important issues and will report back to their class with their outcomes. They get the chance to organise fundraising events to raise money for the school and chosen charities.

Autumn Term:

Roald Dahl Week:

Roald Dahl Story Day is a day dedicated to Roald Dahl. It commemorates him and all his incredible achievements. It is celebrated every year on his birthday, the 13th of September. In Year 2, we focussed on the story of The BFG! In our English lessons, we looked at using ambitious adjectives to describe the BFG's appearance and personality. We then had a go at writing our own amazing acronym poem. To celebrate Roald Dahl day, we made our very own Snozzcumber cakes and Frobscottle drink, which we got to eat while watching part of the BFG film. We also created our very own dream jars which contain some very weird and wonderful dreams!

Designing and Making Our Ferris Wheels:

In Design and Technology this half term we have been looking at designing and making a Ferris wheel. We were given a design criteria that said we had to make sure our wheel was able to spin, it was decorated creatively and could hold 8-10 people. We started of by using a template to draw round each part of our Ferris wheel (making sure we carefully cut them out)! Then, we carefully chose our materials that we were going to use, making sure they were strong and durable. Finally, we had to make our Ferris wheel and add all the finishing touches! We think they look great!

Red Watch Fire Service Visit:

Our Learning Challenge question this half term has been 'What caused the Great Fire of London?' We have learnt about why the fire was able to spread so quickly and destroy London. We were lucky enough to get a visit from Red Watch Fire Service who talked to us about how the fire service has changed since 1666. We learnt about how the uniform keeps the firefighters safe when they are putting out a fire (Mrs Askew even got to try it on!). We even got a chance to use the hose to put out the pretend fire on our London street (we found it a lot easier to put the fire out then they would have in 1666!)

Art Week:

In Art week, we have been exploring sculpture and 3D. First, we explored the different techniques we could use to shape clay, such as rolling it, using our hands and mark making. We then practised using the 'score and skip' method to join two pieces of clay together by making our own pinch pot. To link it to our Learning Challenge question of 'What caused the Great Fire of London?' we each designed a 1666 London house and then had a go making it out of clay using all the techniques we had been practising.