Whitchurch Primary School

Spring Topic Letter 2018

January 2018

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for the exciting and busy term ahead. Mrs Down and Miss Puxley’s teaching days will remain the same this term and Mrs Exworthy, Mrs Craig and Mrs Carlton continue to support the children. Our topics this term are ‘Contrasting localities in England and China’ and ‘Francis Drake’ and we will link this to other subjects as the term develops. Please find the Topic webs with more information attached.

Contacting us:

As always, your child’s well - being is our priority. If we have any concerns about your child we will contact you. If you have any questions or queries at any time please feel free to come and discuss these with us. If it is difficult for you to come into school and you have concerns please phone or email: or Please check the school web site on a regular basis and follow the parent link to Year 2 to see photos of the children’s learning.

Parents Evening this term is the 6th and 7th of February.

Home learning:

As last term, children are expected to read at home at least 3 times each week. Please record this in their yellow reading diaries. Our weekly curriculum information sheet and ideas for home learning will be given out on Mondays as before and if your child chooses to use their home learning book we will enjoy looking at this on a Monday too. It is useful if children bring their home learning books on a Monday even if they haven’t used it that week, simply to avoid the information sheet getting lost.

Independence and resilience:

Thank you for your support in continuing to build the children’s independence. We will continue to work on this during the Spring Term. We will also be focusing on our resilience skills when things are tricky or don’t go quite right the first time. This is an invaluable skill which children can find challenging as they become less reliant on adults.

Star of the day:

Every day we will be looking for a child who is “Star of the day”. Their photo will be added to the stars of the week board and they will be awarded 3 house points and a sticker. We are looking for the following qualities:

I can listen.

I will be ready to start the learning task as soon as I am asked.

I have the resources I need to complete my learning.

I can manage distractions and concentrate on my learning.

I can ask and answer questions.

I know that it’s ok to be wrong about something or make a mistake. I know I can learn from this.

I can persevere even when I find the learning difficult.

I can ask for help when I am stuck.

I complete my learning tasks to the best of my ability.

I show fairness and consideration to others.

P.E.:

P.E. is on Thursdays and Fridays. Children will bring their PE kits home on Thursdays and we ask that all children come to school in their PE kit on a Friday with their school uniform and shoes in their bag.

We hope to support our learning this term with a number of visits to explore the local area and hopefully a visit to Buckland Abbey to support our work on Francis Drake (more details to follow). We will also be welcoming a visitor to talk about the Chinese New Year.

If you have any skills or time that you would like to share with us we are always keen to involve parents in our learning. Please speak to a member of the team if you wish to help.

Yours sincerely

Hannah Down, Gill Puxley & all of the year 2 team.