Class 2 (Y1&Y2)

Class 2, Halwill Primary School - Welcome! 

 

Class teachers – Mrs Laura Beer and Mrs Jeanette Neale 

 

Hello and a very warm welcome to our Class 2 page.  We are excited to be working as a job share for Class 2, alongside Miss Tomi Farrow and Mrs Emma Tickner as teaching assistants. We are looking forward to combining our strengths to support the children to have a fantastic learning journey in the year ahead.  We have a wide range of experience of the primary curriculum and have passion for the power of learning through play and hands on experience to strengthen learning and develop independence across all areas of development.  This continues the work of Miss Rhianna Preece with zoned areas of ‘continuous provision’ within the class; empowering the children to work on challenge activities, investigate, follow their interests and build on social skills alongside formal class sessions and guided teaching.  Children entering Year 2 will be very confident in these routines and those joining from Reception, our new Year 1s, will find lots of familiar aspects from Class 1 such as role play, construction area, investigation station, craft corner and outside learning.   

 

Children now in Year 1 and Year 2 have worked closely with each other over the last year and are already a strong team.  We believe the new Year 2 children will really blossom; sharing their mentor roles with their new classmates.  Class 1 and 2 will continue to work closely together; we will have shared team assemblies, daily phonics and reading activities where we will work in smaller targeted sessions including Mrs Debbie Elkins as one of the group leads.  Mrs Matthews will lead a combined P.E. session each week and the classes will also combine for enhanced provision such as ‘Wild Tribe’ – this year led by ‘Mrs McT’  – Mrs Sabine Maclein Thorne who teaches across the federation and is mainly based at St Giles Primary School. 

 

Please see our timetable for our planned core teaching activities across the week.  Particularly, please note that P.E. will start on the second Monday back (Monday 14th September) – initially in the hall but please can all children bring full P.E. kit each week (to include warm jumper / hoodie and trainers) to allow sessions to move outside if appropriate.  Please note also that ‘Wild Tribe’ sessions will take place this first half term on Friday afternoons and involve outdoor activities in all weathers.  Arms and legs must be covered for protection but no jeans please.  Older clothes and waterproofs are recommended.  Welly boots / outside boots are needed also.  Please be mindful of the weather re: appropriate hats / sun protection as required. 

 

Further to the timetable, please also see the long-term plan for the term.  We are always happy to share more detail with you but key topics for the forthcoming months include investigating history facts and skills through changes in nursing and hospitals.  We will be learning about the work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole and taking advantage of the wonderful resource of our neighbouring ‘Winsford Centre’ who have invited us to glimpse Halwill past right on our doorstep!  This supports the work on the local area in geography also.  Science will include observing and recording seasonal changes throughout the year and follows specific topics starting with Animals – grouping and learning about their different parts.  Children will be developing their computing through weekly lessons beginning with ‘Technology around us’.  The focus for art is portrait creation and will include study of a range of artists and techniques including Quentin Blake.  Later in the term our  DT focus will include development of skills for textiles.  Music teaching includes focused lessons in addition to a singing assembly weekly. Children can participate in instrumental lessons through our experienced peripatetic instrument teachers (please see newsletters for details).   Religion and Worldview lessons this year focus on festivals (primarily the significance of Christmas and Easter to Christians) but also includes the study of worldviews and festivals of people from other faiths including Judaism and Islam. 

  

Personal, social and emotional development is at the core of our ‘Carey Qualities’ and underpins all our class learning.  We also use a fun programme of lessons to focus on key questions, starting with topics: ‘Me and My Relationships’, ‘Valuing Difference’, ‘Keeping Safe’, ‘Rights and Respect’, all very much supportive of our school ethos.  

  

Maths and English skills and their development – both formal teaching and learning through play – are always given high priority within the curriculum and the children are well used to, and enjoy the routine, pace and challenge of daily phonics sessions to reflect the importance placed on early reading skills as key for our children’s progress.  All children are well established in our ‘Read, Write, Inc.’ programme and we are very grateful for your continued support with this at home through reading the book they have been working on in class sessions, even if this seems a little repetitive.  Also, please do support reading of their linked ‘book bag’ book alongside shared reading of your child’s choice of school library book.  As you will be aware, our school priority of reading is reflected in our target of every child reading at least five times a week at home and a further 5 reads at school and for these reads to be recorded in the reading diary by both adults at school and at home.  Please see the reading diary note for more details and support on this and we would be so thrilled if you can continue to support your child to achieve this challenging but extremely worthy goal. 

  

We are fortunate to have Mrs Catherine Gee working within the federation.  She is a lead advisor for the Jurassic Hub which is at the forefront of maths development in young children.  Along with many other schools, the Carey Federation is part of the Maths Mastery programme and this runs alongside, and additional to, the daily national curriculum lessons.  We also have access to ‘Doodlemaths’ – for home and school use so this will continue to be available for home learning.  More on this, and other home learning opportunities to follow soon on Dojo. 

 

It always feels that there is a lot of newness at the start of the year and we appreciate that there is a lot of information here!  Please bear with us as we share and embed routines with the class over the next few days and weeks. 

   

A few key points to remember as we start the new academic year; 

• We are an ‘allergy aware’ school and continue to ask you to not include nut-based snacks in bags and packed lunches. 

• We provide a healthy snack for the children by way of fruit or vegetable, but we are aware that several children often like to bring their own snack, especially if they favour a particular fruit which might not always be available, or if they are staying for an after-school club.  Please remember that our breaktime snacks especially must be ‘healthy’ snacks (i.e. not crisps or biscuits). 

• Similarly, we continue to advocate water as the best drink for all children.  Reusable water bottles can be re-filled at any time from the school dispenser and water is always available at lunchtimes. 

• We will share successes and updates – including support with home learning – on our Dojo platform.  Do be aware though that this isn’t checked continuously so please continue to use the School Office for non-learning communication such as absence reporting, collection arrangements and general queries or to arrange individual meetings with us or Mrs Alford.   

• Medicines – All medicines need medical forms and so please bring these to the school office.  For short term medication, a daily review of this form will be required.  For long term medications such as asthma inhalers, please contact the office team who will ask you to complete relevant paperwork to ensure that we are able to administer these medications.  

• Do please label everything! 😊 

 

We are very much looking forward to working with you all and welcome your support and input. If you have expertise / strengths to bring to these curriculum areas, we would certainly love to hear from you!  

We believe that education is a partnership so please do not hesitate to contact us - to celebrate successes or with any concerns or queries. Please talk to staff on duty in the mornings at the entrance doors, or to the office team if you need to get messages to us. 

We will bring children out at the end of the day so please feel free to talk to us at school pick up to share updates regarding day-to-day well-being. For longer conversations please contact the office to arrange in-person or telephone appointments.   

 

With best wishes, Laura Beer and Jeanette Neale  

Class 2 – Timetable

Class 2 Long Term Planning