Hello everyone, welcome to our Panther page.

We are one of three classes in Key Stage 1. In our class there are 30 Year 2 children

Here you can see what we've been doing and find out about what we're learning.

Mrs Claxton and Mrs Armstrong teach our class.
     

  Miss Lebeter,          Miss Radford,       Mrs Wilson   and  Ms Cargill help us too.

Our topics for the Summer term are:

Trading Places – The children will learn about the 7 continents of the world and investigate the country of Brazil.  They will be learning about Brazilian culture and about the Brazilian rainforest.

Two Queens -The children will study and compare the reign of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. They will learning about the Royal Family and the wedding taking place in May.

What a fabulous day at Sherwood Forest

Orienteering, potion making, colour collecting, blind fold wearing, shelter building, water dodging, ice- cream eating and playing....a busy but fabulous day!

Wow! What a surprise!

We had a surprise visitor in school on Thursday who was truly larger than life!  Paul 'Tiny' Sturgess who is a huge 7 feet tall came to our school to show us a basketball masterclass.  Paul has played in America for the Harlem Globetrotters and is now working all over the world.  We had a brilliant day and learnt some new tricks!

Having a go at Judo!

On Wednesday we had a workshop session with Steve from Skegby Judo Club. We learnt about the discipline needed to participate in this sport and how to perform some holds and throws. We had great fun and lots of us were excited to take part in more after school clubs in September.

Our annual football rounders tournament

On Wednesday afternoon all of Key Stage one took part in a rounders competition. We split into 8 mixed teams and competed against each other to score as many rounders as they could. The children showed great team work skills, working together to stop their opponent scoring as many rounders.

Learning about healthy choices 

During sports week, each class had a workshop about eating and staying healthy. We took part in activities to help us understand how to eat a healthy diet and the effects of different foods on our body. We also learnt that we need to exercise for an hour a day! We enjoyed taking part in some fun activities in the sunshine too.

Dancing to the Greatest Showman!

During sports week we took part in a dance workshop with Cara. We learnt a dance routine to 'This Is Me' and had a wonderful time performing with the whole school at the end of the day. They performed amazingly well, after just a half hour session to learn the dance.

Class council minutes   8.5.18

In class council today, we watched Newsround and talked about the why our feet sometimes are smelly! We watched a dramatic video of the volcano that has erupted in Hawaii over the weekend and we learnt why volcanoes happen. It was incredible to watch the lava flow but we talked about how awful it was for the people who had lost the homes because of if. 

We then went onto talk about any problems at school that we would like sorting. 

A few of us were still  feeling a little lonely and ignored by others at play times, so we talked about being the best we can be, putting ourselves in others’ shoes and playing games where lots of friends can join in. The class all offered to play with one child when they said that they were lonely! How kind ! The class mentioned that some children were not playing carefully with the toys at lunchtime and so we spoke to our Midday Supervisor who is going to encourage the children to play carefully with the toys.

We have asked our school council representatives to speak to school council about when we can possibly have a few new toys for lunch. 

Easter Workshop

We had a fabulous day learning about the Christian Festival of Easter. We made chicks and rabbits, which represented new life, our own gardens of Gethsemane, Easter cakes and baskets and learnt from Pastor Simon about how the festival came about. 

Class council minutes   21.3.18

In class council today, we watched Newsround and talked about the life of the scientist, Stephen Hawking. We agreed that he had shown amazing perseverance in his life and we were inspired by the determination he had shown. We were fascinated by how he learnt to communicate by using his eyes and his computer!

We watched the story of two children who helped save their Grandma’s life when they found her unconscious. They put her in the recovery position after learning first aid at Cubs. Amazing!

We then went onto talk about any problems at school that we would like sorting. There have been a few problems over the football at lunchtime and after some discussion, we decoded that a break from the football would be the best thing. The fine weather is coming, hopefully and we are looking forward to having lots more space and equipment to play with once we are able to play on the grass again.

A few of us were feeling a little lonely and ignored by others at playtimes, so we talked about being the best we can be, putting ourselves in others’ shoes and playing games where lots of friends can join in.

We have asked our school council representatives to remind everyone to have good manners when they are collecting their cooked dinner from the cooks.

To finish, we chatted about what we loved about our school…

“People eat most of their dinner because the food is delicious!”

“The teachers are kind.”

“We like talking to our new friends on our dinner table now that we have swapped around”

“People play better games now.”

“People in our school are lovely!”

Counting our steps for Sport Relief

This Friday (23rd March) will see the return of Sport Relief and we are hoping to do our bit by tracking our steps.  Every day this week we will be going out to do laps of the school field and/or playground to try and log as many steps as we can.  Up to yet we have done ten laps of the school playground!

Music Day - 12th March 2018

We had a great time on our Music Day.  Our activities included playing keyboards, percussion instruments and the piano as well as singing action songs and performing in front of our friends.

Lyra comes to visit!

As part of our “Safety Week” Sarah Saunders from the Dogs Trust and her dog, Lyra visited school. We had an assembly where she taught us how to safe around dogs. We learnt how to recognise if a dog if feeling worried or cross, when to leave dogs alone and what we should do if see a dog and would like to stroke it.

After the assembly, Sarah stayed and talked to us about the things that dogs need to stay healthy and happy. They were a healthy diet, routine health care, lots of sleep, love and attention, grooming and cleaning and exercise. Lyra slept peacefully through the talk! It was a great afternoon and we all learnt something new about dogs.

Collaborative Science - working together with Lynx Class - 6.2.18

Today we have been working with the year 3/4 children in Lynx class investigating how to make a mini explosion with different ingredients.  We talked about volcanoes and what makes them erupt before working together to create our own mini volcanoes.  The children led their own learning by deciding how much of each ingredient they would use and what would constitute a fair test.  We then used vinegar dropped into a variety of powders (bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, flour, sugar and salt) to investigate which one gave the best eruption!  On discussing our investigations the children were split - some decided baking powder mixed with vinegar was best while others voted for bicarbonate of soda and  vinegar.  We had a brilliant time.  At the  end of the lesson Mrs Debic used our suggestions to create a class volcano!!

These are some of the quotes from our children about the session:

"I enjoyed mixing all the ingredients"  - Jacob

"I loved the volcano exploding at the end"  - Thomas

"I liked seeing which powder would make the explosion" - Penny

"It was great working with the older children" - Ava

"I have enjoyed investigating!" - Leila

Class council - Thursday 25th January

Today in class council, we watched CBBC Newsround. We found out that there is a new Harry Potter app that’s on the way, similar to Pokemon Go. We thought it looked great fun! Today was Young Carers’ Awareness day so we chatted about what it might to be a carer and how their lives might be affected. We were happy to see that Kyle Edmund, the British tennis player was doing so well in the Australian Open Grand Slam. The funniest news was about a camel beauty competition!

In our class we currently have a pencil eater, who is ruining all our pencils and we have been trying to think of ways we can stop this from happening. We’re hoping this had stopped now. We have asked Ava and Freddie, our school council representatives to talk to school council about the toys at lunchtime. We really would like a few more toys to play with but not hoops. The hoops seem to be causing a bit of silliness.

Finally we finished our council by talking about what makes us happy…..

maths, privilege time, playing with my friends, when we solve hard problems, when we help other people,  when we have cakes for people’s birthdays and dancing to GoNoodle!

Maths Problem Solving Day

On January 19th we spent the day solving Maths problems. We had fun trying to solve the tangram puzzle and making our own tangram pictures, we had to see which Teddy we could take on holiday after we had solved the measuring problems and we wrote computer algorithms so we could get to the right place on the map. Some problems were easier than others, but we worked together and showed great perseverance trying to solve the harder ones

Art Week - 8th - 12th January 2018

We have enjoyed learning about the work and life of Jackson Pollock this week.  We have studied Pollock's life and inspiration for his work as well as replicating some of his art.  We have investigated the technique of 'drop painting' onto canvas, painting with string as well as rolling painting to copy Pollock's style.  It was great fun and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Class Council - Thursday 16th November

Anti-bullying week

During our class council meeting, we talked about Marathon runner Ben Smith has recently launched his own foundation ‘The 401 Foundation’ to raise awareness of bullying. A victim of bullying at school, Ben from Portishead, ran 401 marathons in 401 days around the UK to raise more than £250,000 for anti-bullying charities Stonewall and Kidscape. We talked about how Ben had done great things after having a bad time - beating the bullies!

How might bullying make us feel?

The children were thoughtful in their answers to this and they thought someone who is being bullied would feel lonely, hurt, sad and upset. 

Should we always speak up if someone is being bullied?

After the work the children have done this week, they all knew that they should speak up for if they see something that is not right. They talked about telling an adult/a teacher/their mum or dad. The children  were all clear that should try and do something to help, that they should not standby and watch bullying happen, they should do something about it.

We also remembered the motto on our new badges "Kindness is contagious" and talked about how we can show kindness every day. 

For the Enterprise sale we made Rock Reindeers, Halloween jellies and beautiful tea lights. They were very popular and we made a huge profit. Thanks for buying them!

To help your child at home....

• Come and talk to us if you have any worries or concerns.

• Read to them and read with them! Reading is a key skill in Year 2 and helps children become successful, independent learners. Listening to your child read at home at least 4 times a week will ensure continued progress. Please write in your child’s reading diary when they have read to you, as they will be rewarded for this.

• Please continue to help your child learn the keywords in their plastic packet.

• Count! Count in 1s, in 2s, in 3s, in 5s and in 10s, up the stairs, peas on the plate, pennies in the purse etc. Count over 100, from different numbers rather than from 1 eg 36,37 etc.

• Play the maths games on the Abacus site.

Homework

After Christmas children will receive a piece of homework fortnightly. This may be Maths or English work. We will send you more information nearer the time.