Week beginning 5.12.16
Date: 11th Dec 2016 @ 8:55pm
We have had a super week in year 2. This week we have spent a lot of time rehearsing for our nativity in preparation for our performances next week. Just to remind you, the performances are both at 2pm on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Well done to all of the children for working so hard to learn their lines, as well as the actions and words to the songs. We have our dress rehearsal on Monday morning and I am sure that the children will put on a fantastic show.
This week in phonics our focus was on 'al' words, where the 'a' in 'al' makes the /or/ sound, such as in ball, walk and talk. Well done to our Star Speller Archie! Many thanks again with your help with spellings and homework.
In maths this week we have been telling the time! It is always a tricky concept, but the children have worked hard this week! See if you can ask them what time it is! In literacy the Capital Letter Police have been in to make sure we are using capital letters and full stops! It is important in year 2 to get the basics right as well as developing linguistic skills and sentences.
We have also made some fantastic christmas decorations which will be coming home later this week! In RE we have been sequencing and writing the nativity story as we build up to Christmas and in music we have started to learn our Christmas carol in preparation for the carol service.
Last week we sent home the results of our termly assessments. These tests are used to assess what the children know at this point in the year and assess what they have learned in the autumn term. They are used to show us where there are any gaps in knowledge and to guide our teaching in school, or to see where we may need to focus. Expected means that at this point in the year your child is on track to meet the expected standard of year 2 at the end of the year. Emerging means that your child may not be quite at the standard, but that they are working towards that standard. The reading and maths scores generate a 'standardised score' and if that is 100 or above, then it is considered 'expected.' Anything below that (even if it is only very slighly below) is emerging i.e. working towards expected. The grammar result was out of 10, so it may appear that this score is very low... do not panic... it doesn't mean they are way off the expected standard! The grammar result doesn't generate a standardised score. (If they got 6 out of 10, it was considered expected.) Similarly with the spelling, the result is out of 20 and the children needed to achieve at least 12 out of 20 to achieve an expected score. I hope this clears up any confusion, but if you would like to clarify this any further with me, then feel free to come in and ask. These tests are used to guide our teaching and target our support. If your child struggled with the spellings, it may be that you need to have a look at the year 2 common exception words, which were on the back of your target booklet from parents' consultations. We are very pleased with the progress the children have made, shown in the tests. I hope this helps.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Mr McAulay