We will be very busy in class!

In maths, Year 1 children will be learning about Place Value and the value of every number up to 10, so they can visualise quantities in their mind's eye.

The Year 2 children will be building on their understanding of Place Value to 100, partitioning numbers into sets of ten and ones.  They will face the challenge of partitioning numbers into different groups of tens and ones, such as 62 = 6 tens and 2 ones, but 62 can also be any combination of tens of ones, for example 4 tens and 22 ones, or 3 tens and 32 ones etc. That is a challenge for all of us as it involves very good addition skills!

In the second half of this term, Y1 will be exploring addition and subtraction to 10, while Y2 will be adding and subtracting numbers to 100, rooting their learning in their knowledge of bonds to 10.  Please keep practising the number bonds to 10, as they are the key that unlocks so much mathematical understanding.  

In Phonics, Year 1 will be applying their super grasp of letter sounds, digraphs and trigraphs that they learnt in EYFS to read and spell new words and short sentences. They are moving on with their learning of Phase 5, during which they will  revise and learn all the ways to make long vowel sounds in words.  We hope the children will continue to love reading and develop their fluency through reading their home readers regularly.  The digraphs they will focus on during the first half term are:

 ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew and oe. 

During the second half term, we will be learning: au, ey, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, c, y and al.

Please help your child spot these digraphs in the words as they read their home-reading books.  Being a "digraph-spotter" is a very important skill! 

The focus of the Spelling for Year 2 is to identify vowels and consonants to see how words are constructed.  The children will be exploring different ways of spelling sounds in words, such as all the ways of spelling the "g" sound - "ge," "dge" etc.  This builds on all the work the children did when learning to read these groups of letters in Year 1.  The spelling patterns, digraphs and trigraphs the children will work on during the first half term are:

soft g, ge, dge, kn, gn, wr, ey, c saying s, il, o saying u, a saying o, and  a/al saying all.

In the second half term we will explore how to make various "s" sounds in words and how "or" and "ar" can make different sounds, depending on word structures.  There is also a focus on homophones, such as "sea" and "see."

Our work in English started with some strange footprints suddenly appearing in our book corner! Mr. Marshall apparently saw a strange beast in the classroom on Tuesday evening. The children have written questions to ask Mr. Marshall what he saw and have made Wanted posters using the descriptions of the beast from Mr. Marshall's responses.  Has anyone else seen this beast? 

Welcome to our Spring Term 2026.

This term we are answering the question, "Why do we get different types of animals?"  This will form our Science curriculum.

In English, we are beginning the term with a whole school book which every class is working from, called "Change Sings."  It is written by Amanda Gorman, who is a young American poet.  She was asked to read one of her poems at Joseph Biden's Presidential Inauguration, and has since written this poem, "Change Sings," for children, which is published as a picture book.  It has lots of ideas in it about how to ensure that our world is safe, fair and kind to everyone.

Our R.E. continues to build on the above themes, with a focus on Jesus' teachings and the miracles he performed.  If anyone doesn't like to see people being treated cruelly or suffering, it's Jesus! As a Christian school, we build on the firm foundations that everyone is our neighbour in God, and we are always trying to follow the example Jesus sets for us through his teaching and healing.

In PSHE, Year 1 are learning to take care of their health by washing their hands thoroughly, looking after their teeth and taking medicines only under adult supervision.

Year 2 children will be considering what jobs people do in society and why.  They will be thinking about their own personal qualities and how these might help them know what paths to follow in life.  They will be learning about money and how we earn it, save it, spend it and should be responsible with it.

Here is Haleemah's work about what Jesus looked for in the people he chose to be his disciples.

Spring Term Second Half

Currently in English, we are planning and writing our own versions of the story "I want my hat back."  The children have to come up with their own mysterious ending, and it will be fun thinking these through!

Our Year 1 Phonics continues to explore all the different ways the same sound is made in our language, such as learning that "ear" can make different sounds in "hear" and "bear."

Year 2 children are learning about apostrophes at present, which are important aspects of punctuation so that our writing can be fully understood.  Please remind your child that we do not use apostrophes for plurals, but only to show where letters are missed out or to show that an object belongs to someone.

In Year 2 maths, we are currently learning about multiplication and then we will move onto division.  We explore this through adding the same number multiple times and then move onto understanding that we can count in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.  We will aim to learn multiplication facts from these times tables.

With division, one helpful strategy is to draw diagrams which demonstrate how we can share a quantity out between a certain number of people.

The Y1 PSHE this half term will look at what we can do with money.  We link this to the concept that people earn money through having a job, or they may receive money as a gift.  We introduce the idea that we have to be responsible with money and save it up so that we can afford special treats or to go on holiday.

Our Y2 PSHE will be focussing on what helps us to stay safe.  An important element of this is internet safety, so we will be highlighting how we do not give away personal information online.  We will make it clear that we should not talk to people who we do not know online and we will also address how important it is to be just as kind to people on social media  as we would be in real life.    With all our PSHE, we always make sure that children know they can speak to any adult in school if they have any worries as a result of what we have learnt about in lessons.

Our R.E. this half term is about Easter.  We shall be learning about how Easter symbolism relates to new life and seasonal changes, as nature comes back to life in springtime. We will be ensuring that our children know the events of Holy Week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday, and that they understand that Easter is the most important Christian festival as we celebrate Jesus coming back to life on Easter Day.

In Science, our class is continuing to learn about animals and their young. We will be exploring the habitats of different animals and how animals are suited to their habitats.  We will also continue to observe and record changes in seasons.

We know that many of our children love History.  They will be learning about significant people, particularly about Learie Constantine who experienced hardship due to racial injustice, but managed to overcome this, so that he left an amazing legacy. 

Here are a few pictures of our fun times last year.  I hope we will be able to add many more from this school year, too.

To start, here are some pictures from our visit to the Hindu Temple in Preston and our visit to St. Leonard's church, Samlesbury, which all Class 2 children attended.

As always, Mrs. Carins and I (Mrs. Marshall) love our children.  This is why we do our job!