In all the work you are doing, work the best you can. Work like you are working for the Lord, not for people.

Colossians 3:23

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 an action packed year planned 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

Autumn Term

11.9.17 - Yr1 & Yr2 Welcome meeting for parents 9am

12.9.17 - Polling day for school council representatives

13.10.17 - Non-uniform day (donation of unwanted gifts)

16.10.17 - Pupil progress meetings (pm)

19.10.17- Chester Zoo

20.10.17 - Finish for half term, Harvest Festival and Say no to Racism own clothes day

31.10.17 (Tuesday) - Children return to school

10.11.17 - Friendship assembly 9am Years 1, 3, 4 (parents of those years groups welcome)

24.11.17 - Non-uniform day (donation of chocolates)

8.12.17 - Non-uniform day (donation of bottles)

13.12.17 - Yr1 & Yr2 Christmas Performance for parents 2pm

15.12.17 - Christmas Jumper Day, Santa Dash, Christmas Fair!!!!!!!! 

20.12.17 (Wednesday) - Finish for Christmas 1.30pm

Spring Term

8.1.18 - Children return to school

5.2.18 - Other Faiths week

9.2.18 - Finish for half term

19.2.18 - Children return to school

12.3.18 - Pupil progress meetings (pm)

16.3.18 - Non-uniform day (donation of chocolates)

20.3.18 - Easter service (Juniors) 7pm in Church

21.3.18 - DT day- rockets

23.3.18 - Easter bonnet competition, Raffle, Finish for Easter 1.30pm

Summer Term

What have we been up to during the Autumn term?

School Council 

At the beginning of the year we thought about how we are a democratic society and how our school shows democracy through the school council. We were all given the opportunity to submit an application to become the year 2 representatives for our school council, the school council then shortlisted 4 candidates after reading these. The candidates made a speech to our class, setting out our aims and goals. Our class then had a difficult job. They had to think very carefully about who they thought would be best candidate to represent year 2. On Tuesday 12th September we went to the polls where we were all given the opportunity to vote for who we thought would do a great job for our class and school. Our two new councillors have been decided! Good luck to you both.

Place Value

We started the year learning about numbers and the value of the digits that make them. Our first activity was to create a museum using a variety of resources as a prior learning task to show what we already knew and understood.

Canonical Partitioning

First we identified the numbers that we were working with on a hundred square. We made this number using base 10 and recognised that this is the whole number. We learnt that a two digit number can be partitioned into tens and ones. We used base 10 equipment to show the tens and ones as the two parts.

Chester Zoo

Year two visited Chester Zoo to find out about different types of animals, this will help us when we write animal information texts. We saw animals from all around the world and looked carefully at African animals because our next geography topic is about Africa. When we returned to school we looked carefully at the different colours, shapes and patterns on each animal and reproduced these in art lessons.

Animal Art

Following on from our trip to the zoo and as part of our geography topic about Africa we decided to use the ipads to investigate the pattern, colour and texture of animals found in Africa. We made notes about this to use when we produce our own animal prints.

Show racism the red card!

Our school supported the show racism the red card initiative. We thought about what racism meant and what we should do to stop it. We wore red or blue clothes to show our support.

Nature Art

We began by looking at the different seasons. We used mother nature to help us in our art work. First we used flowers to help us with our shading technique. Then we had great fun looking at the different types of leaves and their shapes and lines. Next we produced leaf rubbings using autumn colours, to promote teamwork we worked with a partner and took it in turns to hold the leaf still and shade it in. We thought about special times in Autumn like harvest and what they mean, then we made pumpkin masks following instructions.

Ordering and Comparing Numbers

We have been learning about the language we can use to order and compare numbers and the symbols that represent this vocabulary. We thought carefully if a number is greater, less than or equal to another number and how we could make them equal if it they were not. We also thought about what needed to be added to make a number that is greater than. We proved our decision using concrete equipment or pictorial representations.

Friendship Week

Every year we think about the importance of friendship and how we can all be good friends to each other. During this week we work with lots of different groups and people to help us improve.

Superhero School!

Altru Drama presented a play called Superhero school which taught us all about what bullying is  and how our actions can upset people whether we mean them to or not. We realised that we must think about the things we say and do.

Friendship

This week our school has thought about friendship and how we can all be better friends. We also investigated bullying learning what the definition is and what we should do about it if we are victims or bystanders. This was shown clearly through the play that Altru Drama performed called Superhero school and our session with Bully Busters! We also all came to school wearing odd socks to celebrate the fact that we are all different but all equal!

Remembrance Day

Year Two carried out a beautiful collective worship for Remembrance Day. We showed great respect and love.

Liverpool - What was life like around 100 years ago?

We began our History topic working with Barry from Altru Drama. We learnt and performed Liverpool the Pool of Life. This set the scene giving us information about Liverpools history from King John to the three graces ending with a rousing version of Ferry Cross the Mersey! We all learnt so much! Thank you Barry!

Judaism

As an introduction to studying Judaism we visited the Princes Road Synagogue in Liverpool city centre. This is the oldest synagogue in Liverpool. We learnt many facts from the guide.

We also had a visit from Mr Cohen who told us all about what happens during Shabbat in a Jewish home. 

DT and Science

We worked with Steph to make cars that could carry our toys. We began by choosing an appropriate material to make our cars and chose cardboard because it is light, flexible and easy to cut. We made the chassis by bending and gluing pieces of cardboard together, then we cut shapes to make the sides of our car and attached those. We used strips of card to strengthen the front, roof and top. Finally we decorated them in our art lesson.

Baptism

We have been learning about what happens during Baptism and identifying some of the signs and symbols. We had images taken from a Baptism and in a group had to put these in order and give a reason why we had put our image where we did. We were very good at identifying the stage and why we choose the picture to go with that stage.

Children in Need

As a school, we decided to support Children in Need. We all donated money to come to school in our pyjamas, we raised a huge £535! Thank you so much for all of your support!

Christmas at Saint Robert Bellarmine

It is a busy time of year for us in school we have been getting ready for the Christmas season with lots of exciting events.

Robin Hood

The lovely people from Altru drama came into school today to perform a pantomine for us to enjoy. We loved the story about how Robin Hood tried to help the poor and how strong and powerful Maid Marion was. It was fun joining in and being part of it all. Thank you Altru!

Christmas Art and Craft

Christmas Stockings

We designed and made Christmas stockings to sell at our Christmas Fair, we enjoyed choosing festive designs. We also made robin Christmas cards and reindeer masks.

Super Star

We have had a very busy week performing our nativity for a number of different audiences including the children in our school, parents and finally grandparents and the local pensioners club! We enjoyed our time in the spotlight and sharing this with you all. Thank your for your support!

Addition - Can it be done in any order?

Captain Conjecture said, "You can add numbers together in any order and still get the same answer!" We were not so sure about this so we decided to prove it! We used a part, part, whole diagram and counters to do this and we discovered he was right. This is called the commutative property.

Churros

Today we worked with our spanish teacher Mercedes making a traditional snack. A churro is a fried dough pastry sprinkled with sugar, these are normally eaten for breakfast and dipped in hot chocolate. We made the dough with flour, water and sugar then fried it until it became crunchy. When it was done we sprinkled them with sugar and dipped in chocolate. We thought they were delicious!

Adding 10

We investigated what happened to a number when we added 10 using base 10 equipment and place value charts. We found out that the tens go up by one ten and the ones stay the same. We proved this by testing this using a variety of numbers. 

Football Tournament at Liverpool Academy

Eight children attended a football tournament at LFC's academy. They had lots of fun playing matches against 6 other teams from nearby schools. We tried our best and worked hard. Well done!

Safer Internet Day 2018

Today we thought about how we can be safer when we are online, this is very important because we use the internet so often for lots of different purposes. We listened to a story called The Three Little Monsters and thought about what happened and why the monsters were upset. We learnt about what we have to do if there is  a problem and who can help us. We worked together in teams to complete a quiz. We were all good friends online.

Islam

We were lucky enough to have Layla visit us from AL-Ghazali Multi-cultural Centre. She told us all about the religion that she follows and explained what it means to be Muslim. She told us about the four pillars of Islam and what you have to do for each.

We were lucky enough to visit the Al-Rahma Mosque in Liverpool. The Imam was kind enough to show us around and tell us all what happens in a Mosque. The most important message we learnt was that of diversity. We live in a very diverse city, we are all different and we should celebrate and learn from that. Thank you so much for having us.

There's a buzz in St Robert Bellarmine

Our school became a hive of bee activity for World Book Day! As a school we decided to share Bee and Me as our whole school book. We enjoyed getting involved with the theme with black and yellow becoming our uniform for the day. We looked at the book and produced some wonderings and looked at the different sentences types we could write using the pictures. We are looking forward to working on this book next week too!

Computing with Gary Melia

We have been lucky enough to be working with Gary Melia in our computing lessons recently. We worked with him so that we understood how to keep ourselves safe online. He also helped us to use Scratch Junior. This computer programme helps us to learn how to code and debug. It was lots of fun and we can't wait to use it again.

Easter Celebrations

Thank you all for your support with our Easter Celebrations. We had a lovely last day looking at all of our wonderful bonnets and gardens. Have a lovely Easter!

DT - Balances

We worked with Steph to make animal balances. First we made a stand by bending and gluing cardboard then the balance was made using wooden blocks as weights.

Healthy and Active Weeks

We have a focused time in school to think about how we can make our lives both healthy and active. Each day we work with a variety of coaches, children from our local secondary school and expert teachers to try a new activity. I'm sure we will all find a new favourite sport by the end! We also work with our school nurse learning about eating healthily. The fortnight is rounded off with a fancy dress family fun run to raise money for our year 6 trip to Colomendy. 

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all of the children who graduated from Children's University. You should be very proud of yourself.

Active Sefton

The lovely people from Active Sefton came in to teach us all about eating healthily. We know what foods are good for our body and what we should try to limit. We ended our session by making delicious strawberry and banana smoothies.

Sports Day

Today was our annual sports day. The sun was shining and we all had fun. The whole class took part in flat races and obstacle race. We loved it! Thank you to all of our families who came to watch.

Bug Hunt

We investigated habitats in our grounds to find out about the animals and insects that lived in them. We didn't realise how many places there were to look!

Summer Fair

Thank you for supporting our annual Summer Fair, we really appreciate it! Year 2 enjoyed decorating bird houses to sell.