Following the success of last year’s Year 2 boys’ activity afternoon, we extended the scope of the afternoon this year to include both boys and girls in Years 2 and 3. Prep and Senior School staff laid on a varied programme of taster sessions for some of our co-curricular clubs, with Mr Carpenter running a Karate session, touch rugby from Mr Hoffman, art inside and out from Mr Heath and Mrs Davis respectively, drama with Mrs Hillier, and some creative ICT with Mr Berry. The children certainly seem

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During the Spring term the children will develop their phonic skills, reinforcing their knowledge of phonemes, vowels and syllables. In grammar, we will be examining compound words, antonyms and the use of different tenses. Writing skills will be built-on through story settings, developing known stories and writing book reviews. We will continue to use comprehension as a way to encourage the children to examine the texts they are reading and to develop their understanding. The children will be given the opportunity to work with greater independence and encouraged to practise their handwriting skills.

The study of Judaism was brought to life for the children in Year 2 this week when they set about making Challah bread. The children had previously learnt about Shabbat and the eating of this special bread in the Jewish faith. They enthusiastically mixed ingredients, kneaded their dough and shaped it into plaits.

A real  hands on experience which ensured fun learning!

Children in Year 2 were delighted to be visited by Mrs Beard and her beautiful daughter, Elsie.

As part of their science topic, "Health and Growth", they had been finding out exactly what a new baby needs to develop. Mrs Beard kindly brought her baby in for children to ask lots of questions about what care Elsie has needed since birth, and what she can now do for herself. The children benefited greatly from this first hand experience and thoroughly enjoyed having a very special visitor.<

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At the start of the new academic year the children will spend part of the syllabus revising their learning from Y1. We will be reinforcing their knowledge of long vowel sounds, syllables and compound words. In grammar we will study antonyms, the use of singular and plural, adjectives, and when to use questions marks and commas correctly. We will spend time looking at stories and the children will be able to demonstrate their comprehension skills; they will also have the opportunity to predict and substitute story endings. We will continue to encourage independent writing through different story themes and also through poetry. In Year 1 the children have greatly enjoyed the introduction of learning to join their writing and they will continue to practise this together with their letter formation.

Years 1,2 and 3 worked extremely hard to produce a lively and imaginative display based around the theme of Noah’s Ark for the Summer Arts Festival and Open Day.

Year 1 enjoyed studying the work of Renoir and looked in detail at his work “Les Parapluies”. They painted their own version of the picture and then used marbling and bubble painting to create their own raindrops.

Year 2 helped to bring the display to life by making some realistic 3D animals and a large ark for Noah and his wife. Their pastel drawings depicted key elements of the story and a large rainbow helped to bring all the work together.

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This term, Year 2 will be looking at a range of fiction texts, including fairy tales and traditional stories. We will also look at the components on non-fiction books, including labelling, diagrams, captions, indexes and contents pages. Our phonic work this term will consolidate previous work on letter blends and high frequency words, and we will introduce suffixes and homophones. Grammar work will include sentence and punctuation revision. The children will be encouraged to use exclamation marks, speech marks and commas in their independent writing. We will continue to encourage joined up handwriting and will practise the main letter formations.

At the risk of reinforcing a few gender stereotypes, head of prep PE Mr Hoffman organized a programme of fun activities for the Year 2 boys on Wednesday afternoon, reflecting something of the extracurricular and sport programmes open to them as they join the upper prep in September.

The afternoon was spent learning karate with Mr Carpenter, senior school RE and law teacher; Quick Cricket with Mr Walker, who teaches one of the Year 4 classes; Tag Rugby with Mr Hoffman himself; and finally fire building with senior school head of history Mr Hawkins. The boys all had a great time and are looking forward to the move into Year 3.

Year Two enjoyed a trip to Legoland this term. The day included a structures workshop which linked closely with design technology. Children were encouraged to build their own sttructures which were then tested for stability on an earthquake simulator. The children also enjoyed the many rides and other activities on offer and were rather reluctant to leave when it came to home time!