Butterflies (Years 1 and 2)

Hello, my name is Mrs Speller and I am the Class Teacher in Butterflies Class. Miss Whitehouse and Mrs Mabb are the Teaching Assistants.

We are so excited for the start of the school year and our new class - Butterflies. We will be adding exciting things we have been doing each week to the school’s newsletter.

Over the course of the year, we will be learning about a range of exciting topics through these enquiry questions:

Term 1: How has childhood changed over time?

Term 2: Why is London our capital city?

Term 3: What was it like to live in Victorian England?

Term 4: How is the world divided?

Term 5: What walked the earth in prehistoric times?

Term 6: How do we know what the weather will be like today?

Reading

In school, children will read daily during reading practice sessions. The books they read in these lessons will be linked to their phonics knowledge and will run on a 3 day cycle. The children read it once to decode it, the next day focusing on prosody and the third day focusing on comprehension before bringing it home to read to you. Please use this as a chance to celebrate your child's reading and how their phonic knowledge is progressing. Alongside this, children will bring home a story to share with you. This one should be read by you to your child to foster their love of reading. Please record when your child reads in their reading record book.

Writing

Within our writing, we will be using Talk For Writing to guide our own learning journey linked with our topic. This style follows immersion, imitation and then innovation. This will be on a two-to-three weekly cycle. Over the course of each term, we will be writing a range of both fiction and non-fiction pieces, for example we are writing our own autobiographies and we will be writing non-chronological reports. 

Phonics

We will be teaching phonics and reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. It is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) developed for schools by schools. Based on the original Letters and Sounds, it has been extensively revised to provide a complete teaching programme.

When teaching phonics we teach children the pure sounds. For example, instead of saying the letter name like ‘em’ for M or ‘muh’ we teach the sound /m/. This then supports the children when reading as they will be able to correctly sound out the word to blend the sounds together to read the word.

If you would like to hear the pronunciation of each sound in phase 2 and 3 please see the link below:     

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ 

At the start of term 2, we will be running a Phonics Parent's Workshop to introduce you to Little Wandle SSP.     

Maths

In both Key Stage 1 and 2, we will use Power Maths as a foundation to our learning. We will enrich the children’s mathematical knowledge through reasoning, problem solving and investigative activities.

Our Term 1 learning will be focused on Number and Place Value.

PE

We are lucky enough to have Mr Andy Booker, a qualified Sports Coach, come into school every Wednesday to deliver PE across the school. In addition to this, we also do PE on Fridays, offering the children an extensive programme with opportunities for all to participate and compete in school sport and physical activity.

PSHE/SRE

Across both Key Stage 1 and 2, we will be using a programme called Jigsaw to support the teaching and learning of PSHE and SRE. Jigsaw is a unique, spiral, progressive and effective scheme of work, aiming to prepare children for life, helping them really know and value who they are and understand how they relate to other people in this ever-changing world.

Homework

In Butterflies Class, we will be setting homework weekly reflecting something we have been learning in class, alternating between English and Maths. This will be sent home on a Thursday to be returned the following Wednesday. Please read with your child three times a week and record this in their reading record book which should be brought to school daily.