Woodpecker Class
Woodpecker Class 2024 - 2025
Class Team
Class Teacher: Mrs De-Keyzer
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Priest & Ms Lehane
Hello everyone and welcome to the Woodpecker Class page. I am really looking forward to our first term together and getting to know you all.
Please have a look below to find any important information you may need for this term and more. There will always be updates on this page as they are needed and I will add the link to a post on our Class Dojo Page, if there is something I think you need to see urgently. I will also post at least weekly on class Dojo to share with you our key areas of learning in Woodpecker Class and what exciting things we are getting up to with photos and snippets of the children's work.
Please do not hesitate to ask me if you have any questions or please get in contact with the school office who will be able to pass any messages on.
Mrs De-Keyzer
Our Classroom
Term 2 Overview
This overview gives you a short snippet of what the children's learning will be based around this term.
Term 2 timetable
Reading
Reading underpins everything we do throughout our curriculum so at this stage it is vital pupils have underpinned basic phonic skills to be able to access our ever challenging curriculum. I expect each pupil to read everyday, for at least 5 minutes and to discuss what they have read with an adult as per our home school agreement. There will be key questions that you can get an adult to ask you inside your reading records. They must also have their reading records signed daily when they read (Our TA's, and I will be checking this each week) so they can move up our Reading Rocket Challenge and receive certificates and prizes! If it is not signed they will not move up and therefore prizes and certificates will not be given. The children must put their books into the box in the classroom daily, it is their responsibility to do this, we will not be chasing them to do it everyday as they now know the routines and expectations in school. As a school we are driving mastering the skill of fluency in reading at the moment so books will only be changed 2-3 times a week and they do need to be re-read ( twice through for shorter texts) to build on speed and understanding. The children will also have the opportunity to visit the library on a Friday where they can choose a book of their choice to take home. Please make sure if they take a book out, if they want to swap it, it has to be in school on a Friday only. Please do not bring them in earlier than this. Alternatively, they can be left in bags so they are ready to swap on a Friday.
In year 2, we expect children to master their phonics and move onto Accelerated Reader where comprehension and fluency can be developed further on our excellent whole school approach to reading. When they get an accelerated reader book they will have their zone, username and password in the back of their reading records. This comes after phonics, only when we feel a pupil is secure in phonics and ready and they successfully complete a star reader assessment. Please do not quiz at home. This needs to be done in school. Once at this stage, pupils have the opportunity to choose their own accelerated reader book within their own zones, which gives them more ownership of their reading and a larger variety of texts within school.
For pupils on AR only
Times-tables
This year our focus is on learning our 2, 5 and 10 Times-tables, including knowing them in and out of order and the corresponding division facts e.g 2 x 3 = 6, 6 ÷ 2 = 3. It is no longer just counting up in steps like 2,4,6,8 ( although we need to know this too).
Pupils will have their Times-table Rock Star logins in their reading records within the first week, so please make the most of using these for rapid recall practise. I will set where I think they should be practising in garage mode. This is the only mode that can be set, the rest of the games are random selection, so do make sure they play in the correct part if they want to focus on the ones I have set, otherwise it can give random calculations or they can get too challenging and too fast.
Maths
At Woodchurch we follow White Rose Maths. Please see our year 2 overview for the year below. As we cover each unit if we feel more time is needed in certain areas, timings will be adjusted or more time will be spent on specific areas, depending on what the class needs at the time.
Phonics & Spelling
The children will still continue with whole class phonics throughout terms 1 and 2 to complete the Floppy's phonics programme. They will be continuing from where they left off in year 1 with some consolidation in the first two weeks on split digraph. This includes using their phonics to segment words into written form correctly.
In year 2, the children begin to focus on taught spelling rules. The children will learn one rule per week using our whole school approach to teaching spelling through Spelling Shed.
Pupils will receive new spellings every week on a Monday and test on a Friday.They will receive 10 spellings per week linked to the rule or some tricky words included within this to revise them. We always have time to practise and revise these throughout the week as part of our practise sessions and during early morning work. Pupils will have spelling shed logins in the back of their reading records by the end of week 1, so that they can practise their spelling rules through interactive games online throughout the week at home. I will upload these each week, we will be monitoring the progress in spelling, as it is part of our whole school agreement for core skills practise.
Spellings may be grouped on ability, so not all pupils may have the same spellings as another pupil. Spelling lists will be inside their phonics folders on a Monday. We will not be checking phonics folders everyday to see if spellings are in there. It is the children's responsibility to ask if they need them if they have not got them after Monday.
Connected Curriculum
This term our main driver topic is Movers and shakers.
This project teaches children about historically significant people who have had a major impact on the world. They will learn to use timelines, stories and historical sources to find out about the people featured and use historical models to explore their significance.
Here are some of the texts we will be using throughout this topic...
Prayers
These are the prayers the children will recite together before lunch and at the end of the school day as part of our routines.
Important Documents
Links to websites the children will use at home and in school
Please only complete quizzes in school.
The three words needs updated regularly which I will do as and when required.