It was an absolute pleasure to welcome the children into their new classroom last Friday and their behaviour was impeccable. We had a lovely day, with the children all contributing and helping to develop our class ‘rules’.

We were very proud of how well the children coped with the day, finding their way up the stairs and behaving beautifully during our Act of Worship. This took place in the school hall for the first time in what feels like forever and it really was great to see all the Key Stage 2 children together again.

We spent the afternoon investigating a box of clues for our ‘Quest’ and will be investigating this further this week.

During both this week and next, we will focus on the ‘Quest’ wordless book by Aaron Beaker, using this as our theme for a number of different activities. You may recall that we had a similar approach last year with the first book in this trilogy, ‘Journey’. In our English sessions, we aim to create our own stories, linked to ‘Quest’ and sharing the story through drama and question time.

Guided reading this week will begin with The Hodgeheg by Dick King Smith, starting with whole class reading to build familiarity, and then using questions to discuss the narrative and language features. The children will then complete independent work to confirm their understanding of the text.

In Maths this week we will be focusing on place value, revisiting some of the year 2 concepts, including representing numbers to 100, and tens and ones using addition. Times tables will be an ongoing feature, with the children completing a times table challenge each week.

Mrs Johnson will be teaching our RE this year, starting with People of God and what it is like to follow God. This week Mrs Johnson will be introducing the story of Noah and discussing the concept of covenants.

Mrs Tompsett will be working with the class on Tuesday this week, investigating board games (as part of our ‘Quest’ topic) and we will also be using design techniques to create 3D castles.

Maple class have PE on Thursdays and Fridays, both sessions will be with Mr Luckhurst.

Although homework will not commence until next week, Reading Records went home on Friday and will generally be changed on a Monday and Thursday. We would ask however, that children bring their books and Reading Records in to school each day and that they aim to read daily, ideally with an adult – details of this can then be recorded in the Reading Record. The books sent out last week were based on advice from the Year 2 team. However, we do understand that children progress at different rates during the summer holidays, so pleased do contact me if you feel your child’s book was either too easy or too difficult.

I am always happy to answer any questions you may have so please do contact me if you have any queries, using the class email address:

maple@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Best wishes

Mrs Smallcombe and the Maple Team