Welcome to Year 2

Reading

Once children have achieved the required standard for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and are confident with all reading and writing of the phonemes, they then move onto learning spelling patters and rules.

Any Year 2 child that did not pass the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check will need to re-take it in June. This is a statutory requirement for all children in all schools.

We use the Big Cat reading scheme by Collins which follows the UK band band colours. This is to expose the children to a wide range of text types, characters and settings.

Oxford Level: 1 | Band: Lilac (Age appropriate for Reception)
Oxford Level: 1+ | Band: Pink (Age appropriate for Reception)
Oxford Level: 2 | Band: Red (Age appropriate for Reception)
Oxford Level: 3 | Band: Yellow (Age appropriate for Reception)

Oxford Level: 4 | Band: Light blue (Age appropriate for Year 1)
Oxford Level: 5 | Band: Green (Age appropriate for Year 1)
Oxford Level: 6 | Band: Orange (Age appropriate for Year 1)

Oxford Level: 7 | Band: Turquoise (Age appropriate for Year 2)
Oxford Level: 8 | Band: Purple (Age appropriate for Year 2)
Oxford Level: 10 | Band: White (Age appropriate for Year 2)
Oxford Level: 11 | Band: Lime (Age appropriate for Year 2)

We follow the Government recommended Letters and Sounds programme for phonics. More information can be found here: http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

We also use a website called Monster Phonics to support the children with their phonics learning. This website uses colour coding, monster pictures and actions to support children with remembering the sounds. The children use the monsters to help them with learning and recalling each sound.

Phonics

At New Horizons Children’s Academy we teach synthetic phonics from Nursery upwards moving to spelling rules in KS2. The following information is broken down into the different phases of learning throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1. Please use this SWAY to support you to aid your children with their phonics, reading, writing and articulation at home: https://sway.office.com/pWPp2FpwFMtwcD9g?ref=Link

Most children will begin Year 2 secure in Phase 5 of Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised and ready to begin Phase 6.  By the beginning of Phase 6, children should know most of the common grapheme- phoneme correspondences (GPCs). They should be able to read hundreds of words, doing this in three ways:

• Reading the words automatically if they are very familiar;
• Decoding them quickly and silently because their sounding and blending routine is now well established;

• Decoding them aloud.

Children’s spelling should be phonetically accurate, although it may still be a little unconventional at times.  During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.   Children will learn spelling patterns for the past tense, investigate and learn how to add suffixes, develop strategies for spelling long words and learn to tackle the difficult bits in words.  Children working below age-related expectations will be supported in small groups to work on Phonics.

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised:

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme for phonics. More information can be found here:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/

Phonics Play:

We also use a website called PhonicsPlay to support the children with their phonics learning. This a great resource to try out and covers all the Phases from 1 – 6 as well as some really exciting games to consolidate your child’s learning.  At the moment, this website is currently free –so please log on with the following code and explore!

Homework

Children are provided with a home reading book at their level. They are expected to read this daily. Please write in your child’s contact book when they have finished reading their book so that the teacher knows to change it. Your child will receive weekly English and Maths homework. This is based on the learning that they have completed that week in class. It is sent home on a Thursday and needs to be returned the following Tuesday.

Year 2 SATs Tests

In May, Year 2 children sit statutory tests to support with building up a picture of their attainment and progress over the year. Your child will sit these tests in their classroom and will be unware that they are ‘tests’. They are then marked by teachers in school and each child is given a standardised score. They will sit two Maths papers and two reading papers. A meeting to explain what happens during the SATs will take place later in the year. The PowerPoint presentation for this meeting will be on our website under the ‘Our Community’ section.

Curriculum Website Links

The below websites may be useful for supporting your child further with their learning:

Letters and Sounds (Phonics games) http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

Phonics Play (Phonics games) http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Oxford Owl (Online reading books) https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

Letter Join (Handwriting) http://www.letterjoin.co.uk/

Pronunciation of phonic sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s

Spelling Shed https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb

TT Rockstars https://ttrockstars.com/ 

White Rose Maths Reasons Problems https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/classroom-resources/problems/

Educational Top Marks Games https://www.topmarks.co.uk/

Jungles and Rainforests https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/geography/physical-geography/15-cool-things-about-rainforests/

Castles https://www.theschoolrun.com/homework-help/castles

Range of topics areas http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/

Plants https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/animals-and-nature/plants/

Bugs https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/insects/15-facts-about-bugs/

Beaches http://www.onegeology.org/extra/kids/earthprocesses/beaches.html

Pirates https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/history/pirates/