As we reach the final week of term, it’s hard to believe how quickly the time has flown! Year 2 have worked incredibly hard this half term and have so much to be proud of. From exploring new maths concepts to developing their confidence in writing and reading, the children have shown fantastic effort, resilience and enthusiasm in everything they do. 

This week has been all about celebrating their achievements, reflecting on how far they’ve come. It has been such a joy to see their confidence grow and their personalities shine. 

English 

In English this week, we have been rewriting Traction Man to link with our exciting topic of The Harbour. The children were thrilled to reimagine the story and transport Traction Man from his usual household adventures to the busy, bustling setting of our very own Ramsgate Harbour. Instead of rescuing toys from the sink, Traction Man found himself saving boats from stormy seas, helping stranded sailors and protecting the harbour from danger! 

Throughout the week, we focused carefully on developing our writing skills. The children worked hard to include expanded noun phrases to add detail and description, such as the enormous crashing waves and the rusty old fishing boat. They practised using conjunctions like and, but, because and so to extend their sentences and explain their ideas more clearly. We also applied our knowledge of punctuation, ensuring we used capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks accurately to make our writing clear and exciting for the reader. 

It has been fantastic to see the children’s creativity shine and their confidence grow over the course of the week. They have shown great enthusiasm and pride in their work, and they thoroughly enjoyed bringing their harbour adventures to life right here in Ramsgate. 

 

Reading 

Reading at 3: Every Friday at 3, our doors will open for you to come in and enjoy a quiet read with your child. This will be for the full 15 minutes, and we kindly ask that children are not taken home early during this time. 

Reading folders: Some children are bringing home two books – one of these will be a Read Write Inc (RWI) home book, which we ask them to read three times throughout the week to help build fluency. These books will be changed by an adult. The second book (with the coloured sticker) should be changed independently by your child – ideally first thing in the morning. Some children have moved onto the Accelerated Reader programme and will be able to change their books once they’ve completed the quiz online. 

Maths 

In Maths this week, we have been learning about statistics, focusing on pictograms and bar charts. The children have been developing their skills in collecting data, organising it carefully and presenting it clearly. We began by interpreting pictograms, making sure we understood what each symbol represented and using this information to answer questions about the data. The children practised finding the most and least popular categories, comparing amounts and working out how many there were altogether. 

We then moved on to bar charts, where we explored how to read the scale on the vertical axis and ensure the bars were drawn accurately to match the data. The children worked hard to understand that bar charts must have a clear title, labelled axes and evenly spaced bars. They enjoyed creating their own bar charts based on class surveys and asking thoughtful questions about the results. It has been wonderful to see them growing in confidence when interpreting and presenting data. 

RE 

This week in RE, we have been learning about the life of the Buddha and exploring why he chose to give up his comfortable life in the palace to help those who were less fortunate. The children were fascinated to learn about Siddhartha Gautama’s early life as a prince, how he was protected from sadness and suffering, and how his experiences outside the palace changed his understanding of the world. 

We created a timeline of his life, identifying the key events that led him to make the important decision to leave the palace and search for answers about suffering and happiness. The children reflected thoughtfully on his choices and discussed what it means to show compassion and kindness to others. We also considered how his teachings continue to influence people today. It has been lovely to see the children engaging in such mature discussions and sharing their own reflections about helping others and making positive choices. 

Home Learning 

During the half term we would love you to keep diary entry of all the fun things you get up to! Have fun and as always present it in anyway you like.  

Red words: Please recap the red words you have learnt and practiced as we will be constantly going over them after half term! 

 

Dates to remember 

Monday 23rd February – All children back into school at the normal time 

Monday 23rd February – Friday 27th February – Bring in any unwanted world book day costumes 

Wednesday 25th February – Year 3 Swimming begins and will happen every Wednesday throughout term 4 

Friday 27th February – Second hand world book day costume sale from 3pm by school gates 

Monday 2nd March – Secondary School Offer Day 

Thursday 5th March – World Book day, children to dress as their favourite book character 

Monday 9th March – Book fair in school this week 

Friday 13th March – Chilton Speaker Final 

Thursday 19th March – Team Sky to Quex Park Forest School 

Friday 20th March – Team Ocean to Quex Park Forest School 

Friday 20th March – Red Nose Day (Wear something funny for money) 

Monday 23rd March – Rock your socks for Downs Syndrome Awareness (Wear bright or mismatching socks to school) 

Monday 23rd March – Year 3 Roman Dress up day 

Tuesday 24th March – Team Periwinkle to Quex Park 

Thursday 26th March – Team Teal to Quex Park 

Friday 27th March – Viking Speaker Final at Royal Harbour 

Friday 27th March – Parents come into school to look at children’s books prior to Parent Teacher Consultations 

Week Beginning 30th March – Parent Teacher consultation week 

Wednesday 1st April at 9.05am– Easter Bonnet Parade for Team Periwinkle, Team Ocean and Team Cornflower 

Wednesday 1st April at 2.45pm – Easter Bonnet Parade for Team Teal, Team Sky and Team Sapphire 

Thursday 2nd April – Chilton Fundraisers Sponsored Eggscellent Event - Non-Uniform to be worn with further details to follow next term. 

Thursday 2nd April - Last day of term. School to finish at 3.15pm 

 

The Year 2 Team 
Miss Maddy Kennedy – Team Sapphire – maddy.kennedy@chiltonprimary.co.uk 
Mr Josh Belsey – Team Cornflower – joshua.belsey@chiltonprimary.co.uk