Hello and welcome to Year Two with Mrs Connell and Mrs Bonner.We will be filling this page with lots of information and pictures about our year!

General Information

The school day begins with registration at 8.55 a.m and we really appreciate prompt time-keeping to get the children off to a good start.

Reading books should be brought in daily as we hear pupils read on different days of the week. Please read a little each night with your child and ask them questions about each page as this really helps to develop their understanding of what they have read. It also helps to prepare them for SATS in May. Please also sign the diary as a record of how they got on.

Homework for English, Mathematics and Spellings are given every Friday to be handed in on Monday. We really appreciate you sitting with your child as the homework reinforces what they have been learning in class, handwriting and spelling are also very important to think about. 

Children keep their spellings for a week and are tested on Fridays.  Some of the spellings will be given in a sentence to check that the children can apply the spellings to their own work.

Dinners are free for all children in year 2. Could you please inform us if your child is changing their choice of dinner on a Monday to help us with ordering lunches.

We have enjoyed an action packed term already and we will be posting pictures and information about school trips and activities very soon- so watch this space and enjoy finding out what your children have been up to so far!

Important Dates and Events- Autumn Term

Wednesday 9th September - POLLING DAY

Today is the day that our whole school is voting for our class representatives for school council. Good luck!

Friday 11th September - MISSION DAY

Today we celebrate our school mission statement. We have been thinking all week about how we can carry this out every day and have created a beautiful display to go along with it.

Wednesday 16th September - PLAY IN A DAY

We will be working with a drama company to produce a small play about Liverpool over the past 100 years. This fits in with our History topic, What was life like 100 years ago?

Thursday 17th September - SPANISH CULTURE, St Robert Bellarmine Feast Day

Year two will be the first class to take part in our Spanish culture sessions. Over the next few weeks groups will be working with our Spanish teacher to discover what it's like to be Spanish.

Friday 18th September - Celebration mass for St Robert Bellarmine

We will be going to Church to celebrate the feast of St Robert Bellarmine.

Wednesday 7th October - Food Hygiene sessions

SAT'S BRIEFING NOTES

Thank you for attending the meeting today regarding arrangements for Year 2 SAT's. I know that due to work commitments some of you couldn't attend so I have attached the notes below and sent information home via your child.

Thank you so much for your support.

Look at what we've been up to!

SCHOOL COUNCIL - Polling Day

Congratulations to Anthony  and Olivia who are the school council representatives from year 2. We all enjoyed visiting the polling station and having our vote!

MISSION DAY

We have all looked carefully at our school mission statements, then thought about how we can carry these out every day. Then we displayed our ideas.

Oliver Jeffers

We started the year by looking at stories by the author Oliver Jeffers. We went on adventures with the boy and the penguin in Lost and Found and we thought of inventive ways to catch stars! We visited Chester Zoo because we loved the penguin character.  We got to see real penguins for ourselves before we wrote reports about them.

Life 100 years ago in Liverpool

Our Autumn history topic was based upon what life was like and famous events from around 100 years ago. We enjoyed this so much and completed a wide variety of activities. Take a look!

Play in a Day

We were lucky enough to learn about the history of our beloved city! It went back to the ice age and included the past 100 years. We loved learning about how King John persuaded people to move to Liverpool, our beautiful buildings that we call the three graces, the importance of the docks, The Beatles, War time and football!

Artefacts Investigation

We investigated a range of artefacts from 100 years ago and our suggestions for their uses were so amusing including lots of guesses that a bed pan is a pasta bowl or a big cup!

We looked at a carpet beater, cane, bed pan, coal, medals, a gas mask, a hot water bottle and a helmet.

Mr Birkett came to visit

Our site manager came to tell us all about his Grandfather who fought in World War I. He explained how his Grandfather fought with his three brothers who all left the Navy to join the army when war began. He had lots of artefacts to share including cap badges, photographs and silk postcards. 

Timeline Fun

How difficult is time? We had a variety of events from the past 100 years and tried to put them in order using the vocabulary before and after. We found this tricky until we added the year they happened in, we could then make timelines.

DT linked to Science

In Science we looked at materials and one section of our topic was about the properties of materials. We worked with a DT teacher to produce cars from cardboard, this was a good material to use because it was light, flexible and strong.

Friendship Week

During friendship week Craig, our school nurse, visited to talk to us about being a good friend. We thought about all of the qualities a good friend has and how we can be good friends.

Judaism

As part of our topic on Judaism we visited the synagogue in Childwall.  Michael told us about Jewish traditions and celebrations.

Christmas Madness

It has been a very busy time of year! We have performed 'Straw and Order' to three very appreciative audiences, this reminded us of the real meaning of Christmas. We sold our handmade stockings at the Christmas Fair and still had time to party! Merry Christmas everyone!

A visit from three famous boxers

Wow! We had a visit from three famous boxer's Stephen Smith, Callum Smith and Liam Smith! They all come from Liverpool and came to talk to us about their careers and how they became the best. They brought the belts that they won and explained that it is important to work hard and strive to be the best you can be, they said that it was important to do the same in school so that you have the best chances in life. We were lucky enough to take part in some training too!

Geography - Africa

It has been lots of fun learning all about Africa. We have found out where it is and how different it is from England. In English the book we have studied is Mufaro's Beautiful daughters which is a traditional tale from Zimbabwe and our next book Meerkat Mail is set in the Kalahari Desert!

Art lessons were amazing! We produced African sunsets using chalk and animal silhouettes, masks based on those made by the Kuba people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and canvas pictures of African animals inspired by the work of Edward Tingatinga.

We have learnt traditional songs in music and in computing we have used a search engine to research patterns then used a paint package to produce our own. Mrs Hardman worked with us to produce a dance using a variety of moves.

Islam

We have learnt all about Islam during this half term. We visited Al Rahma Mosque in Liverpool and had a workshop in school through this we learnt so much about the religion and what Muslim people believe. It was interesting to investigate a Mosque as a place of worship and the five pillars of Islam.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

We have been learning about a famous Italian artist called Giuseppe Arcimboldo. He is best known for creating portraits made entirely of objects like fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. We made our own works of art using real vegetables and fruit.

Balances in Design Technology

We worked with a DT expert to produce animal balances. We used two wooden blocks to ensure our animal could balance anywhere from the tip of our finger to the toe of our shoe! We practised skills of cutting, folding, gluing and measuring.

Healthy and Active 

As a school we dedicate two weeks of the year to concentrate on being healthy and active. This is made up of many fun activities, trying lots of sports, walking to school week, working with the school nurse and studying the supporting science topics. We also visit Tesco to find out about the foods we eat and where they come from.

Day One - We tried a variety of athletic activities including sprinting, long distance running, jumping and throwing activities. We were supported by leaders from our local secondary school.

Day Two - Football

We worked with a football coach to improve our dribbling skills and mini matches. We loved it!

Day Three - A visit to Tesco and a bit of rock and roll!

We began the day by visiting our local Tesco to learn about where our food comes from and the wide variety of foods that we can choose to eat to keep us healthy. We had a tour of the bakery, identified the fish on the fish counter and found a rainbow of fruit and vegetables before taking a look at the fridges and freezers in the warehouse! We got to taste a variety of foods, they were delicious!

Day Four - Gymnastics

We had a go at many different activities involving jumping, rolling and balancing.

Fundamental British Values

Each week one class researches a strand of this and presents it to the rest of the school in assembly. This week it was our turn, we learnt about the rule of law and how this applies to us. We know that we need to have rules and laws to keep us safe and happy and that it is important for us to not break the rules. As part of our work it was very important for us to recognise that if we do break the rules there are consequences to face and that we are in charge of what we choose to do.