Year 2 - Miss Smith

When children reach Year 2 they begin an exciting year of learning, containing more formal approaches balanced with practical activities. As a Teacher I try to incorporate different learning styles to engage all the children.

Daily Structure

In the mornings we focus on Numeracy and Literacy whilst in the afternoons we have other subjects including Handwriting, PSHE, Art, Geography/History, ICT, Dance/Gym/Athletics and Music. Specialist teachers are involved in the teaching of PE, Science and French/Spanish.

Literacy

We follow the RWI scheme of work, focusing on a new sound each week e.g. ch, ir, ee.  Each Monday ten spellings - which are linked to this sound - are sent home for children to learn by the Friday.

On Thursdays and Fridays we have creative writing which includes story writing, poetry and instructions. During these two days we also learn about grammar and focus on punctuation. The children read books from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme every day with the teacher.  These books are also sent home every evening for reading with parents.

Numeracy

We follow the Collins Numeracy scheme of work, alongside which we do practical activities and mechanical Maths. Our themes in Maths are:

• Using and applying mathematics
• Counting and understanding numbers
• Knowing and using number facts
• Calculating
• Understanding shapes
• Measuring and handling data

The children particularly enjoy our 'Round the World' times tables game which we do every afternoon!

Humanities

Our Geography and History topics include:

Autumn - The Migration of the Swallow to Africa // Guy Fawkes

Spring - The Weather // The Great Fire of London

Summer - The Park // Florence Nightingale

Our Art is linked to these topics and is also seasonal.  I have a particular passion for travel and bring my knowledge and artefacts into the classroom whenever possible.  

Extra Curricular

During the Great Fire of London topic, the children enjoy a trip to the Fire Station to see how times have changed!  Apart from this, we have termly school trips, either as a class or with the rest of the Prep school, linked to particular areas of the curriculum.  There is a large selection of extra curricular activities available for the children; ballet and guitar are just two examples.