Mayfield Primary SchoolYEAR TWO: SPRING TERM
OUR YEAR TWO DURING SPRING TERM
OUR CORE INTENTION IN ACTION
SPRING TERM 'WHEN I GROW UP...' THEME: DESERT ISLAND CHAMPIONS
A 'When I Grow Up' Spring Summary
When I Grow Up... started with a wander across the seas as our children took a 'Journey to the Desert Island' as our Stunning Start event to our Desert Island Champions theme. This term our children studied a wide range of achievements from individuals across time and countries as we sought to build our own island filled with people who could help us to make a special community. We studied people and actions relating to recycling, inventions and innovations, social change, local achievements (as this is our local study feature this year) and compassion for others amongst others.... Just before Easter, we welcomed families to join us on our desert island in order to see the people we have studied and the importance of their achievements and our final decisions at our special Parent Celebration.
Our English work during the term used some of the wider themes we have been studying. We wrote letters to some of our potential champions (such as Florence Nightingale and Rosa Parks) and we created instructions for our own desert island fruit salad when we thought about what we would need to eat there. In other areas, we also wrote special fairy tales with a unusual twist involving our main characters and the settings. We started the Mathematics term by looking at multiplication and division, we then looked at numbers in charts and spent time studying 2-d shapes together and then we worked practically with fractions as our final unit before the holidays.
The children focused upon the recycling and sustainability themes we have considered this term - during their Art and Design & Technology work - to create reusable beach bags. During the initial designs, we asked the children to apply their work with mixing colours and creating tones. We then moved onto the final creation of the bags during our textiles work.
We have continued to implement the model Music curriculum across school this term and it has been the musicianship/perfoming studies during the last few months. We have been using the glockenspiels to read and perfom using dot notations to perfom 3 note tunes. The children were great and are really getting to grips with reading this basic notation. We have continued to build upon and pursue our fundamental skills in Physical Education whilst developing our passing and moving into space within our invasion football games and skills sessions. During gymnastics we have been rolling and jumping when creating a movement sequence. It was great to see the many varying skills needed in each of these areas and how everyone was able to excel in some way for aspects of these. Brilliant!
History was once again a major driver for our studies this term. This term's work has been built upon the special skills, gifts, achievements and abilities of historical figures as the children were tasked with building a desert island into a new community with all the skills and qualities needed to build a fair and safe island. Inspired by what the children had learned about Amy Johnson and Dame Sarah Storey in Year 1, we moved into studies of Rosa Parks, Louis Pasteur, Nelson Mandela, Alexander Graham Bell and many more. We looked at their work and actions and how they influenced changes and the world today and altered the way we may live and think. Continents and oceans were the focus of our Geography work as we built upon the chidren's introduction in Year 1. During Autumn Term, we took a greater focus upon oceans so this time we looked in detail at continents. The children mapped out where our historical figures studied lived and where their notable events and actions took place, whilst continuing to develop their understanding of our world and our position within it.
We studied plants and humans from a growth point of view during our Science work and began to consider how we can keep healthy and what the effects of this can be upon our healthy growth as young people. In our Religious Education learning, we considered the importance of prayer to Muslims and explored how they pray five times per day. When studying Christianity, we learned to re-tell the Easter story and learned about its significance.
In our Computing, we had great fun sending and receiving mock emails from historic figures that we have been studying. Rehearsing electronic communication safety and skills within this context proved interesting and exciting and allowed us to complete our online safety focus within this. Considering what we would say to Nelson Mandela and Alexander Graham Bell was quite a challenging experience for the children. As mentioned above, our major PSHE & Relationships focus this term was about safe, or safer, online communication.
