I just wanted to say a massive thank you for all the lovely cards and gifts I received today, I am very grateful.

I hope you all have a lovely summer!

Love

Miss Newns

Monday 20th July 2020

We have reached the end of the year and here is my final picture! The lovely Miss Carter treated us to a visit to a wildlife park, whilst she was admiring exotic animals like giraffes and lions...I spent my time feeding the goats! They are soooooooo cute!

Anyway...

Well, what can I say...it's been quite a year! When I think back to September 2019 and meeting you all for the first time, I couldn't have imagined what our year together would have brought!

It has been so wonderful to see you all again during the transition days (I managed to hold my tears back, but I did have a lump in my throat seeing you all run in to school so excited!) and catch up with the adventures you have been having since we last saw each other. 

Monday is our last day together before the Summer holidays and it marks your last day as a Year 2 pupil! However, I am so grateful that it does not mark our last day together, as we will be resuming the journey we started together in September 2019 when we all move together up in to Year 3 and the juniors! I'm going to have to start being grown up and sensible!

I'm sure I've said it a million times and in a million different ways, but I really can't reiterate enough how impressed and proud I am with you all and your families for what you have dealt with and achieved this year. It has really been an unprecedented time and you have all taken to the challenge with the resilience and determination I saw in you when we were in school. 

It has been an absolute pleasure being your Year 2 teacher, you have made me smile everyday and I can not wait to see you all in September. 

For the last day of Year 2, I have provided a small task if you want it, which asks you to reflect on your Year 2 memories.

I hope you have a throughly enjoyable and restful Summer holiday and keep being amazing!

Miss Newns

Family Learning Grid

Sorry everybody, I just noticed the Family Learning Grid wasn't included in this week's resources!

Please find it below.

Many apologies.

Miss Newns

wc 13th July 2020

I can not believe we have reached the last full week of Year 2! 

I'm sure I've used every possible synonym to express how proud I am of you all for the resilience you have shown and the incredible variety of learning you have experienced. 

This week, as we wind down towards the end of the year, I have found a couple of booklets for you to complete over the course of the week. This is all explained on the daily outline.

I am also really excited to see you all during our transition days (be prepared...I may cry! Tears of joy at seeing you all again!) but I think it is going to be lovely hot weather, so please make sure you are wearing sun cream, you have a hat and a water bottle. We are hoping to be outside for the session so we need to stay safe.

I hope you have an enjoyable last week!

Miss Newns

Monday 6th July 2020

So many of you have been cycling around and learning how to ride your bikes...so I thought I would follow in your footsteps! Unfortunately, I don't think I have been as successful as you! This bike was bought for me by my lovely friend for my birthday last November. I have been dying to get out in the nice weather on it. However, this bike has a unique feature...the pedal and pedal arm keep coming off! I will be cycling along quite nicely and then it starts to unscrew and before you know it, I'm cycling with one pedal! It also changes gears whenever it feels like it and makes a really enjoyable squeaking sound! The picture above was taken when I went out for a ride through some local fields 5 minutes before I had to walk it back home with the pedal in my hand!

This week our topic is 'Fantasy Worlds'! I hope you enjoy your learning and if you need any support or have any questions then please feel free to email me.

Only two weeks left now and as we near the end of the term (and indeed the year!), may I again say how proud I am of you all for your hard work, resilience, adaptability and effort. What you managed to achieve each day never fails to impress me. Well done.

I am really looking forward to seeing you all soon Topaz class, I am expecting you all to be a lot taller, with more hair and less teeth!

Have a lovely week!

Miss Newns

Monday 29th June 2020

Hello Year 2,

I hope you have had an enjoyable weekend and survived the extreme heat of last week...and then the showers!

It has been lovely hearing about all the different places you have been visiting and receiving some recommendations! I haven't been been able to explore as much as I was due to being in school more now, however I did visit a beautiful place the other week called Silent Pool. It is a spring fed lake at the foot of the North Downs. The water is so clear and you are able to see fish swimming about! Above is a photo I took when I went.

This week our topic is 'Inventions Through Time' so I hope you enjoy the learning I have planned for you.

As always, if there are any problems or questions please contact me via the school email on the webpage/daily outline.

Have a great week.

Miss Newns

Monday 22nd June 2020

Hello and welcome to a new week of learning that hopefully will be 'out of this world!'

As always if you have any questions feel free to get in contact.

My photo this week is of me taking a moment to gaze out in to the woodlands as I sat at the top of a water tunnel!

I hope you have had a lovely weekend and enjoy your week!

Miss Newns

MESSAGE:

As part of our English learning for next week, I would like the children to make a small amount of play dough. This is a really simple recipe but I wanted to give you a bit of warning to ensure you had the ingredients available.

To make one ball of play dough you will need:

• 8 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp table salt
• 60ml warm water
• food colouring
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil 

If you want to make more than one ball then you will just need to scale up the recipe accordingly.

We will be making the play dough on Tuesday 23rd June, so you will need the ingredients ready for then.

Many thanks.

Miss Newns

Monday 15th June 2020

Whilst on a walk the other day the most beautiful dragonfly was fluttering around me by a little stream! I managed to get this photo when it finally landed on a nearby plant!

Hopefully, you have all enjoyed your weekend now that the weather has improved again slightly!

Please find all the learning for this week. Unfortunately, the remote server has decided to take a break over the weekend! As a result, I have been unable to upload the family learning grid, however, as soon as this is fixed I shall put it on this class page.

As always, if you experience any problems, do let me know. I have put my availability on each daily outline and I will be available to make calls this Wednesday so I may speak to you soon.

Enjoy your week!

Miss Newns

MESSAGE

There may be a problem with the English link? If your are having trouble opening it, I have added an additional link below for you to use:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci1l3iTONKU

Monday 8th June 2020

Well done everybody for all your wonderful work last week, it seemed that lots of you enjoyed the topic and I received some fantastic learning. I hope you enjoy your learning for this week, our theme is 'Around the World'. I have again been around the world (or rather around Sussex!) and am still discovering places I never knew existed! I wonder if you will find out about some unknown places this week?

Enjoy!

Miss Newns

MESSAGE:

Apologies, some of you have had difficulty opening the 'Daily Outline' document today. This is because my silly computer keeps changing the file format when it saves! I shall endeavour to check this one last time before I upload it to the webpage in future!

There have also been some issues regarding the 'White Rose Hub Maths' now that the free resources have expired. We as a school, have now subscribed so I am able to provide you with the resources. I have now accessed these for you and put them on the webpage below under 'Monday'.

I will be uploading them as separate documents from now on but you will still need to access the video via the White Rose website, which will still be on the Daily Outline document.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Miss Newns

Summer Term 2 - Monday 1st June 2020

Welcome back everybody and I hope you enjoyed a well deserved, sunny half term break!

This half term will continue as before, with daily learning posted to the web page for you to work through.

Remember, please only do what you feel is appropriate and use it as you see fit.

I love hearing from you all so keep the emails coming in and enjoy this week's learning!

Miss Newns

Tuesday 19th May 2020

Just a quick message to let you know that you can now find the family learning grid under Monday's section for this week and I have also managed to upload the photos of your lovely learning and beaming smiles from last week, which can be found at the end of last week on the web page.

Monday 18th May 2020

Welcome to our final week of the first half term! You have all been working incredibly hard through some tough times but the quality of your learning that you are sending me continues to be of an amazing standard! I can not express how much I enjoy reading your emails and love seeing you proudly holding your learning in photos. Well done everybody, you definitely deserve the half term break!

I have uploaded the learning for the week, however due to a brief power cut last Friday, I have been unable to upload the photos of all the lovely learning from last week and also the family topic grid for this week. As soon as I am able to gain access to them remotely, I shall put them on the webpage.

​​​​​​​For now though, I hope you enjoy this week's learning and the tranquil picture I took on one of my many walks...I am going to be extremely fit by the end of this!

Take care.

Miss Newns 

Monday 11th May 2020

Welcome to Week 4 and I hope you have all had a lovely bank holiday weekend enjoying your VE Day celebrations and the sunshine!

As you can see from my latest photo, I have been out on more of my walks and enjoying the peaceful, lapping sounds of the local lake!

However, my peace was somewhat disturbed this evening by my neighbour calling me in a panic as there was an injured pigeon sheltering on her doorstep! She kindly requested I deal with it for her due to her fear of birds! So, armed with a towel and a box I went to carefully move the bird out of harms way! As I sit writing this, Peter the pigeon is tucked up safely in a box waiting to be collected by a member of the RSPCA!

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy your learning this week, and as always, please only complete what you can. 

Miss Newns

End of Week 3 Summer 1

Well done once again for all your hard work this week and for being so creative.

I hope you all enjoy a well deserved, restful bank holiday.

Miss Newns

Monday 4th May 2020

Hello everybody,

Well, the weather hasn't been as good but I was still able to get out and admire the beautiful bluebells that have carpeted my local area! I took this photo above as I was strolling through the woods on a slightly drier day!

Welcome to a fresh new week! It was lovely speaking to you all again over the phone and I continue to enjoy receiving your emails. I hope you have all had a lovely weekend and are ready for our VE Day topic.

As before, I shall be uploading some learning opportunities each day for you but I would like to stress again that there is absolutely no obligation to get everything completed. Please use these resources as and when you see fit according to your family circumstances. You are all doing an amazing job!

Just a few notices/reminders:

1. This week there will 4 days worth of learning due to the bank holiday on Friday.

2. Remember there are lots of alternative learning opportunities in the Home Learning Hub area of the website, including some wonderful resources from Mrs Lochhead for well-being.

3. We have set some fun challenges, details of which can be found in the newsletter, including a science experiment and a home tasking challenge!

4. Don’t forget Miss Carter’s wonderful singing assembly can be found in the Home Learning Hub each Monday. She would love you all to join her!

Finally as always, if there is anything you need please do email me, I’m here to help!

From Miss Newns x

End of Week 2 Summer 1

Thank you once again for sending me your lovely pictures and updates. Although it is lovely to see what you have been doing at home, you are more than welcome to just send me a little message to share anything you like!

I am just posting some more pictures that have been sent to me, with a slightly different focus this week. From speaking to you all, it seems that the children enjoyed scrolling through the photos just to see their friends, not necessarily to see their what they had been doing/learning. I am sure everybody is missing their friends (I know I am!) and so this might be a nice way to see them.

Thursday 30th April 2020

Hello everybody,

Just a quick reminder that I am in school Thursday and Friday, therefore I am unavailable via email for these two days.

Please do keep sending me anything you wish to as I will be checking them and responding from Monday.

Wednesday 29th April 2020

I just wanted to take a moment to say well done for all your continued efforts at home with your children and to say thank you for everything you are doing. You are all superheroes!

These are unprecedented times and we all find ourselves in a very different circumstance to what we are used to. With that, comes a whole host of emotions and thoughts that become more intense than usual. I wanted to reassure you that what ever you are doing at home to support your children’s learning, you are doing an amazing job. I read somewhere a brilliant phrase that helped me look at the situation differently; it said that parents are not home schooling, it is distance learning. I hope this way of looking at things will help to alleviate some of the pressure you may be feeling.

We as teachers are not expecting everything to be done and have reduced our expectations of workload, and altered our way of thinking to coincide with the lockdown limitations. Yours and your child’s emotional well-being is more important at this time and if you have a day or two where you or they need some time, that is ok. A great quote I saw says, “children learn from anything and everything they see, they learn wherever they are, not just in special learning places.” What ever your child is doing at home, be it the learning on the class web page or they own investigating at home, they will be learning. Please don’t feel you have not achieved something because you haven’t managed everything on the web page!

Keep going, take time to recognise what fantastic things you are achieving and remember to give yourselves a break…you are doing an amazing job.

Miss Newns

Monday 27th April 2020

Welcome to 'Week 2' of the Summer Term! This week, our family learning topic is 'Our Wonderful World', which I happen to think is a great opportunity to show how grateful we are for the beautiful flora and fauna around us. I have been particularly grateful for the pockets of green in my local area that I have been using for my daily walk. The other week, I came across this sculpture minutes away from my house (that I didn't even know was there until I explored a different route!) It reminded me of a sculpture artist called Andy Goldsworthy, who combines natural materials with man made shapes and designs. Perhaps this week you could investigate him and create your own natural sculpture from found materials. I hope you enjoy the topic, and as always, I am happy to receive any learning or questions via email.

End of Week 1 Summer 1

Wow Year 2! I have been blown away by everyone's hard work and creativity this week! Well done on what has been a very different and new experience for all! Thank you so much for sending me all your lovely learning and activities, it really is wonderful to see and it puts a smile on my face each time I see how much you are enjoying yourselves. 

Please don't worry or put pressure on yourselves to get all the learning done. I wanted to provide enough to be getting on with rather than too little, but be assured I am very aware of the range of circumstances at home and the emotions/challenges that go with these. The main thing is to ensure we are all happy and safe.

Below is some of the learning/activities that has been sent to me over the last few weeks. I shall try and upload a collection at the end of each week to celebrate what amazing things you are all doing at home.

Missing you all and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Stay safe and take care.

Miss Newns

Tuesday 21st April 2020

Well done everybody for all your learning from yesterday. Please find below the learning for today. The topic grid can still be found and accessed under Monday's learning.

Summer Term  - Monday 20th April 2020

Welcome back everybody! I hope you are all well and enjoying time with your families at home. I have been spending time exploring my local area and admiring the beautiful nature that is blooming...including these daffodils that I snapped whilst on a walk the other week!

However following our lovely Easter break, this week we will all be returning to our learning but in a slightly different way.

Each day I shall upload a daily outline, which will have a selection of tasks for you to complete, and the relevant resources to help you complete your learning.

If you have any questions or you would like to send me any of your learning, I will be available via email so please feel free to get in contact.

Miss Newns

25th February 2020

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed a calm and restful half term...shame about the weather! Fingers crossed for Easter!

We have come back with lots on enthusiasm and have already taken part in an exciting event...pancake flipping! The children did really well and I have added photos below for you to enjoy.

We are moving on to our topic of Australia this half term and we have already spent time looking at the map and learning about the physical features.

We will be continuing with out work on the operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in maths and challenging ourselves to learn our times tables more securely.

We have been reading Roald Dahl stories as a class and the children have enjoyed them so much, we are working on writing our own chapter for 'The Twits'! We are developing our own pranks to play on the characters and writing our own version.

We have our class assembly coming up next Friday, which will be about The Great Fire of London and we look forward to welcoming you at 9:15am.

Miss Newns

Thursday 13th February 2020

I have finally completed my new years resolution and managed to organise the photos for you all! My apologies for the delay in uploading them but it would seem my camera fancied a holiday and went elsewhere in the school!

Below should be a collection of photos from our forest trips and from other visitors and events for you to peruse!

It's been quite a half term, with lots of exiting learning about the Great Fire of London. The children have been keen to learn more and have asked lots of interesting questions relating to what they have seen around them.

Our class assembly will detail all our learning on this topic and we would love to welcome you on Friday 6th March at 9:15am to watch!

We have had an amazing Science Week and really enjoyed our session with Professor Bubbleworks today! We learnt about wind power and how to generate energy to power a rocket! In Year 2 we have been focusing on 'water' as part of our science week theme of 'Our Diverse Planet'. The children have though carefully about how to conserve our precious resource and have also conducted a couple of experiments to highlight how important clean water is.

We look forward to welcoming you tomorrow (Friday 14th February 2020) to come and see our exhibition of learning.

I hope you all have a peaceful half term and I look forward to seeing all the children back soon!

Miss Newns

Happy New Year!

Welcome back, it is lovely to see you all (feeling a bit more healthy compared to before!) and I hope you had a lovely Christmas and enjoyable new year.

The children have come back today with the most amazing attitude for learning and I can see already some children trying really hard with their choices to start the term as we mean to go on!

Last term was rather chaotic and jam packed, so I am sorry that I am only now managing to update the class page. There were lots of exciting events from last term that I have details and photos of, so my new years resolution is to get those uploaded for you!

However, this term we start our Great Fire of London topic! I have attached the topic web and home learning grid as usual, however I have also uploaded the spellings for each week this term. I am hoping this way everybody will get the spellings and they will not be lost in books or bags! Please continue to learn them week by week and complete the challenges in the purple books, which can be handed in on Mondays as before. I have also stuck them in the purple books for you.

Finally, I have also stuck a new set of reading stars in the reading diaries. When your child competes one, please sign it and I will tick it off too. They will then receive a raffle ticket and at the end of the term, they will be selected at random and a book token can be won!

Welcome back!

Welcome back everyone, I hope you had a lovely half term break!

Just a quick message to let you know that after reviewing the first half term's spelling arrangements, I have decided to change them slightly in order to make it more manageable for everyone.

Spellings will now be handed out on a Monday in the purple spelling books and need to be handed back in by Friday.

I will then mark them and stick in new spellings ready for Monday.

The children will also be tested on Monday.

I have put a new sticker in the books for your reference.

I hope this works better and I will review how it all goes this half term!

Miss Newns

Monday 21st October 2019

We had a fantastic time at the forest on Friday, particularly as the rain seemed to hold off! We enjoyed looking at the beautiful Autumn scenery and looking for chestnuts on the floor. We hid them and challenged ourselves to find them later in the day! We had a long "stomp" through the forest and had a real sense of achievement when we reached the top of the really steep hill! Finally, we made some little hedgehogs out of clay found in the forest.

I have attached a few pictures of our day below.

Year 2 have been working really hard this half term and have really enjoyed their topic of space. I have been really impressed with all the additional investigating they have done to learn more and the pieces of home learning that have come in too.

This week, we are going to be writing our own version of 'The First Hippo on the Moon', which has been our book in English. We will also be testing ourselves to see how we are doing with our place value and times tables.

The children have also been working very hard learning some songs and poems for our Harvest celebration, which will be at the Baptist Church at 9:30am on Wednesday. We look forward to seeing you there.

Finally, I also look forward to meeting as many of you as I can at parents evening on Wednesday or Thursday this week. I really have been very impressed with all of Year 2 so far this half term and I look forward to sharing their achievements with you and setting some challenges for them to work on!

Miss Newns

Thursday 26th September 2019

The children have been working hard this week and we are getting used to life in Year 2!

We have been very excited by the alien space ship crash landing in our outdoor area and we have received two letters from him! The children were all keen to help him rebuild his spaceship to get him home to his home planet! So that is what we are going to do next week!

Please may I ask that the children bring in a cardboard tube for next Tuesday 1st October. This could be a Pringles tube (or equivalent crisp brand!), a kitchen roll or wrapping paper roll cut down to a smaller size. The children will be following instructions to make the alien a new space rocket and then learning how to write instructions afterwards.

Thank you for your help.

Miss Newns

Thursday 19th September 2019

Thank you to those who were able to attend our Year 1/2 coffee morning yesterday, it was lovely to meet you.

Hopefully, you can now access the PowerPoint presentation that was used yesterday via this web page. There were a couple of questions at the coffee morning regarding spellings so I thought I would just put the information on here for clarity.

Spellings will be handed out on a Friday and stuck in to the purple home learning book. These can then be learnt at home and returned to school by the following Wednesday. This gives me enough time to stick in the new spellings and mark the previous ones. The children will then be tested on the Friday and new spellings handed out for the process to repeat.

I was also made aware that the maths website on the home learning grid requires you to subscribe after answering a certain number of questions. This has been introduced since we discovered the website and so I would advise another good website to use is this one:

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/index.html

Miss Carter has asked in her capacity as English coordinator, that I upload a useful website and document for recommendations for reading books. The website is as follows and the document has been uploaded below:

https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/reading-lists-for-ks1-school-pupils/suggested-reading-list-year-2-pupils-ks1-age-6-7/

These first couple of weeks in Year 2 are a big transition for the children so it is my aim to get these procedures set up but please don't worry at the moment if things are forgotten as we are all still getting used to our new routines...including me! There is a little more ownership and responsibility assigned to the children in Year 2 but it will take time for this to become secure, so please don't worry. Should there be any further queries of concerns do feel free to contact me via the email link.

Having said that, so far the children have shown an amazing approach to their learning and a generally keen attitude in all areas. 

This week in particular has been rather exciting and unusual due to the alien crash landing in our outside area! The children were very keen to investigate the scene and help the alien who might be scared and alone on a strange planet! Today, we received a letter from him and have written him a reply to reassure him!

Please find below the coffee morning PowerPoint, the reading book recommendations document and our crash landing photos.

Miss Newns

Welcome!

Hello and welcome back!

It seems like it was only yesterday I was waving everybody off on their summer holidays...and now we are back! I hope you have all had an enjoyable break, whether it was fun filled or relaxing and peaceful.

I am really excited to be in Year 2 this year and have lots of creative and fun ideas, which I hope the children enjoy and benefit from. The first day of term has been fantastic and the children have shown how keen they are to learn and share their ideas! It has been a lovely first day for me in Year 2 and I look forward to the rest of the year.

There will be a letter coming home next week with further housekeeping details for you information, a home learning sheet for the children to work through and a topic web (which outlines what curriculum areas we will be covering). Finally, there will be an opportunity for you to come in and meet the teachers for a coffee morning in a few weeks time.

If there is anything you wish to discuss, please feel free to email me using the form below or pop in to the office to arrange a meeting face to face.

Many thanks

Miss Newns