Welcome To Year 2

Statement of Intent KS1

In Key Stage One we are passionate about supporting children to continue to develop their love of learning.  Our children’s wellbeing is at the centre of our curriculum, we understand that they need to feel safe, loved and secure within the environment in order to access a high level of learning. We teach topics in cross-curricular ways and are committed to providing hands on learning opportunities, enabling children to shape their own learning journey. We aim to foster children’s independence, resilience and perseverance and ensure that through our high quality provision they are able to consolidate and enhance a range of skills in all curriculum areas. Our inclusive approach enables us to foster our children’s curiosity and imagination as well as their academic achievement.

Term 6

RNLI Trip

We had a fantastic trip to Whistable, visiting the RNLI station and learning all about how the charity helps people in trouble out at sea. We also spent time sketching the boats near the harbour and even had a play on the beach! The children were all extremely well behaved and showed respect throughout our trip.

Circus Day

We had a wonderful Circus Day when Lucas Jet came into school to do some performances and teach us tricks! We spent the whole day doing circus themed activities such as: learning about the history of the circus, playing with circus equipment, doing a circus workshop, doing circus mindfulness, circus themed poems and word searches and circus themed arts and crafts. It was a fantastic enrichment day and the children learnt so much!

Tent Week

To celebrate the end of Year 2, the children enjoyed a fantastic Tent Week, focused on the theme: I’m a Herne Infant, get me out of here!’ The children participated in lots of fun, enrichment activities such as a rounders tournament, a talent show, assault courses, dipping hands in mysterious bowls to find stars, quizzes, toasting marshmallows and popcorn over a fire, water fun and a whole year group water fight! The children referred to our school Christian Values throughout the week and were really proud of themselves for participating in all of the challenges.

Hernefest 2021

We had an absolutely wonderful evening at ‘Hernefest’, celebrating the end of Year 2 and the end of our journey at Herne Infants. There was lots of fun things including face painting, hot dogs, ice cream, bubbles, games, music and dancing! It was such a fantastic way to round up the year with our teachers and friends.

Term 5

Herne Book Week 2021

We really enjoyed our Herne Book Week, where we used the story ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker to theme our learning. We linked the story with our English, Art and Outdoor Learning across the week.

Some of our favourite activities during the week were using viewfinders to draw specific parts of illustrations, writing our own adventure stories, going on our own adventure to Curtis Woods and listening to lots of our favourite stories read by different adults in school.

We dressed up as our favourite story characters on Thursday and enjoyed showing our outfits off in class!

Curtis Wood Spring Walk

We had a wonderful walk to Curtis Woods to look for signs of Spring. We saw bluebells and new leaves growing, we heard birds chirping and it felt warmer than when we went last time in the Autumn. We linked our trip with learning how to use a compass, and followed a route on a map around the woods and played some games using directions! We collected some twigs, moss and other small items to put in our tuff spots and explored these further during our COOL time.

Dance Competition

This term all of our Year 2 classes have been practising a performance for our annual dance competition.

This year’s theme was ‘Weather’, so all classes chose a weather related song, the choices were as follows:

Otter Class – I’m Singing in the Rain

Fox Class – Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Badger Class – Purple Rain

The children loved learning and perfecting their routines and were super excited to perform in front of a judging panel and the other classes.

Term 4

Great Fire of London!

This term, we been learning about the Great Fire of London! We have explored how the fire started, what happened during the fire, how it ended and how London was rebuilt as a result. We linked our topic to our Writing, History, Science, Outdoor Learning, DT, Art and Music. Here are some of the activities that we enjoyed doing:

• We created storyboard of the events of the fire and wrote detailed recounts in Writing
• We learnt about Samuel Pepys’ diary and tried writing our own diary entries
• We created silhouette art using pastels
• We studied Tudor houses and did some detailed sketches, focussing on pencil techniques
• We learnt the song ‘London’s Burning’ and practised singing it in rounds
• We baked bread, imagining that we were Thomas Farriner (don’t worry, we made sure we turned the oven off!)
• We investigated flammable and non-flammable materials in Science
• We made our own 3D Tudor houses, which we then used to recreate London streets and safely set fire to them to watch how quickly the fire spread.

Wellbeing Wednesdays

We have enjoyed the introduction of Wellbeing Wednesdays this term in Year 2. Each week we talk about our quote of the week and plan some fun activities in our classes. Some of the activities we have done are:

Otter Class: We made friendships bracelets for our friends and some of us chose to make salt and food colouring Easter pictures. We also made medals for ourselves, reflecting on things that we are ‘amazing’ at.

Fox Class: We have enjoyed making portraits of our friends or ourselves and some of used playdough to make different expressions to think about our feelings. We have done some arts and crafts such as creating some butterfly art using sequins and designing our own medals to show what we feel we are amazing at.

Badger Class: We have enjoyed making arts and crafts including painting and sun catchers. We spent one afternoon in the Wildlife Area going on a bug hunt and making small animal shelters. We have also enjoyed spending some time with Pixie, the school dog.

Term 3

Africa Topic!

In term 3 we really enjoyed our ‘Amazing Africa’ topic. We learnt about a small area in Ghana called Teshie, comparing and contrasting it to where we live in Herne Bay. We enjoyed many cross curricular activities, linking our learning to many subjects including Geography, Music, Art and Design Technology. Here are some of the exciting things we did:

• We learnt about a traditional African story called ‘Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain’ and focused our writing around this.
• We wrote fact files about African animals.
• We created a sunset painting with silhouettes of African animals.
• We learnt about and designed our own African warrior masks.
• We planned, made and evaluated our own African animal puppets.
• We learnt about the human and physical features of Teshie, exploring the similarities and differences to Herne Bay.
• We learnt how to play a djembe drum, playing simple rhythmic patterns.
• We learnt a few traditional African songs.

Term 2

Bonfire Night Theme Day

To celebrate Bonfire night, we had a special Bonfire themed day on the 5^th November. We learnt all about Guy Fawkes and The Gunpowder Plot, developing our understanding of why we celebrate it. We also created some firework art and we learnt about bonfire and firework safety, making posters to teach other people about how to stay safe on Bonfire night. In the afternoon, we had a fire in the Hive, toasting yummy marshmallows and making delicious popcorn. We also lit sparklers on the playground, which was great fun!

Curtis Wood Autumn Walk

We love exploring our surroundings and had a fantastic trip to Curtis Woods this term, looking for signs of Autumn. We noticed the trees dropping leaves, leaves changing colours, conker shells on the ground and we definitely felt that it was colder than when we last visited! We collected some sticks, leaves and acorns to bring back to school to explore during our COOL time and we of course did lots of tree climbing and den building!

Maths Week

We really enjoyed taking part in Maths week in November! Each day we had a different challenge to complete in small groups. The challenges were:

Monday Mazes

Tuesday Puzzles

Wednesday Code Breaking

Thursday Tessellations

Friday Riddles

The children enjoyed exploring lots of different areas of Maths, and completing challenges that are different from the things we normally do in our Maths lessons. It was great fun!

Term 1

What a fantastic first few weeks we have had welcoming our Year 2 children back to school! We have enjoyed getting to know each other and working together on many exciting activities to help us settle back in to school life, including making bunting all about ourselves, drawing self-portraits and creating art work on our class animals (otters, foxes and badgers) as well as continuing to challenge our own learning in ‘COOL’ time. We have been particularly impressed with how our children have been showing the characteristics of effective learning such as perseverance, creativity, teamwork and curiosity in all sessions and we are really excited for the year ahead.