Year Two 2023 - 2024

Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back to Holy Name! We hope you have had a lovely holiday and are looking forward to another fantastic year of learning together. The children have been settling into their new routine very well and we are already impressed with their good manners and eagerness to learn. I am very glad to be working with this amazing class.

I am delighted to reintroduce myself – Ms Donnelly – as your child’s teacher for the coming academic year. Your child will be working alongside myself and Ms Johnson; our wonderful class Teaching Assistant. Children are also working in small groups for Literacy and so many other brilliant Holy Name staff will be working with our class to help maximise progress.

This letter contains some key information regarding P.E. timetabling, reading, homework and some other requests.

P.E.

Children will partake in P.E. lessons on Wednesdays and Fridays. On these days, please send your child to school in school P.E. kit (black or navy joggers or shorts, a plain white T-shirt, a school uniform jumper and trainers). For those children with pierced ears, studs should not be worn on P.E days for safety reasons.

Reading

Regular home reading is of the upmost importance for children’s progress. Please listen to your child read at home regularly. Reading with understanding is vital so please talk to your child about what they have read to check and enhance comprehension. Discussion questions are provided in the back of the book though any element of the story could be discussed. After reading, please fill in your child’s reading record.

Children will have two books to read in their reading packs;

Read, Write, Inc. Book Bag Book

This book will be closely linked to the topic they are reading and writing about in Literacy lessons that week. This book won’t be directly practised in Literacy lessons so children may need support with reading this book.

Read, Write, Inc. Storybook

This is the book that children will have been reading and writing about in Literacy lessons the week before. Having practised reading this book many times in school, children should be able to read their Storybook independently.

Please feel free to read other texts with your children at home. Linked below is a really useful website with thousands of award-winning children’s books available as both text and audiobooks. It is completely free with no log-in required and can be accessed on mobile.

https://sooperbooks.com/

Please ensure that children bring their reading pack to school daily. Reading records will be checked on Friday so it is especially important that children bring their reading packs on this day.

Homework

Homework will be provided weekly and may take a range of forms. While we encourage children to complete homework, it is not compulsory in Key Stage 1 and there will be no sanction for incomplete homework. Children will be rewarded with House Points for completing homework.

Homework will be set on Fridays. Please can children hand in completed homework by Wednesday for it to be marked before the next homework is set.

Other requests

Please could all children bring a water bottle to school with their name written on it.

Please could all uniform be labelled with children’s names to avoid items becoming lost.

Wherever possible, please could school lunches be chosen at home. Children who have not chosen their lunches at home will have the opportunity to choose during morning registration. However, the more lunches that are ordered at home, the more time we will have in the morning to enjoy our class story. This is important for fostering reading for pleasure and for exposure to award-winning literature.

We are looking forward to a super year ahead. If you have any queries or concerns, please talk to us directly at the end of the school day or by contacting the office.

Once again, welcome to Year 2. Let’s work together to make this the best year ever!

Yours sincerely,

Ms Donnelly and Ms Johnson