Welcome to Chestnut Class.

Year 1 and Year 2

Hello! 

My name is Mrs Stubbs and I will be teaching in Class 2. I am returning to teaching after a few years off, looking after my two children and living abroad. I am excited to be teaching Class 2; my previous experience was in Year 1, so I am happy to be back in KS1. I am looking forward to my first full year at Bickerstaffe and can’t wait to see the progress the children make. My favourite lessons to teach are maths and science, and I love being in the outdoors so will be spending as much time in our lovely school grounds as I can.  

Below are some details about our school day and information about homework. 

School Day: 

We start each morning with the register and updating our calendar. Some days we have a book vote in the mornings, to decide which book we will read in the afternoons during our Reading for Pleasure time. We make our votes using tens frames, so this is a good chance to sneak in a bit of maths into our morning! Some mornings we have handwriting to complete in our places, other times we complete handwriting on the carpet. 

In the mornings we have phonics in small groups with myself, Mrs Kelly, Mrs Smith and Mrs Byrom, and our whole class English lesson. After break we have spellings, Mastering Numbers and maths taught in individual year groups.  

We teach foundation subjects in the afternoons. We rotate history and geography, art and DT on a half termly basis.  We also teach music, computing, PE (twice a week), RE, PSHE and computing. Science is taught on Friday mornings.  

PE is on Tuesday and Thursdays.  

Homework: 

Reading 

We will send home the RWI storybook they have read that week in their phonics group, plus a home reader that is matched to their current stage and is phonetically decodable. It is important, especially for year 1 children, to re-read their book up to 3 times to support fluency and develop their comprehension. 

Books will be sent home on Thursdays. We will collect reading bags in on Wednesday and keep overnight. 

Spellings 

We will be focussing on HFWs in Class 2 this year. The spellings have been split into 5-word groups to allow more focus on these words; spelling them swiftly and accurately will support their writing. There will be ‘review’ weeks which will allow us to recap words the children have struggled on most and need more practise with. 

We will have weekly spelling checks on Thursdays. A spelling book will be sent home with the week’s spellings in (please do not practise in the books) and we will complete the spelling checks in the back of the books so please ensure these are in your child’s reading packets.  

Maths 

A set of maths tasks/sheets will be sent home at the beginning of term, linked to what they have previously learnt in class. Please complete one a week and return to school with their reading packet. I will also send a list of key skills, mostly counting or times tables, to be practised regularly at home.  

Below are some links to songs we have/will be using in class to support their times tables: 

Year 1 and Year 2: 

Counting from 20 -1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS60rraBhz4  

Counting in 2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvTcpfSnOMQ  

Counting in 5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemjeA2Djjw  

Counting in 10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftati8iGQcs  

Year 2 only: 

Counting in 3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_cn87hOCDM  

2x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGWMPqh04o4 

5x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfRVYPcfecE 

10x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxMJUHBslY  

If you have any enquiries about homework or anything else, please get in touch via Class Dojo or contact me to arrange a time to meet at school. 

Many thanks for your help and support so far this year,  

CHATTY FRIENDS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TjcT7Gto3U

Y1 have been learning their chatty friend digraphs the past few weeks in phonics. These are: a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e.

This video will be helpful to remind them that vowels can make two sounds. The chatty friends make the long vowel sound.

We also say 'Wheres my friend? She's on the end!' when spelling words with them in. We explain that they are friends but too chatty, so the e has to sit on the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS60rraBhz4

Here is the counting down from 20 song that we have been using in class this morning so you can use it at home with your children

TROLL SWAP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3k3nH_eZA
Here is our focus text, Troll Swap. We have finally finished our story and we will now begin preparing for story writing. If you could listen to this at home and support your child in retelling the story, that would help massively!

Rachael Stubbs 

Class 2 Teacher