Year 2 - New York and Toronto classes 2024-2025  

Welcome to Year 2!

New York

Our names are Mrs  Sullivan, Miss Thomas and Miss Fox we are very excited about being your teachers and teaching assistants in New York class.

Toronto

Our names are Mr Duncan Miller and Mrs Linda Pierce, and we are very excited about being your teacher and teaching assistant in Toronto class. 

Newsletters

 Term 1 September 2024 - Newsletter

PE Lessons

For PE, children should wear shorts, leggings or jogging bottoms that are plain and dark in colour - dark blue, black or grey. They should not have large logos on. Every child is given one coloured PE t-shirt when they start the school; subsequent PE t-shirts need to be purchased. The colour of the t-shirt represents the colour of the House every child is placed in: Cheng Ho (green), Estervanico (yellow), Sir Francis Drake (blue) and Louise Boyd (red). 

Trainers are needed as footwear for PE and must also be a dark colour. No hoodies are to be worn for PE. 

If you wish to contact the class teacher in regards to your child's learning, please do so on the class email addresses, these emails are monitored once a week during term time only. They are a useful way to share non-urgent but useful information that does not require an immediate response:

Mrs Sullivan: newyork@shirehampton-jun.bristol.sch.uk

Miss Athanasis: toronto@shirehampton-jun.bristol.sch.uk

For urgent matters either see the class teacher at the start or end of the school day or contact the school office.

Term 1 Overview

Our first term in year two was a smashing success! The children have settled in well to their new classes and are thoroughly enjoying new learning.

In English, pupils have studied the Three Little Pigs and written their own exciting versions of the story. We performed the story in our assembly too; thank you to all the parents who could join us for this.

We were fortunate to have a visit from Noah’s Ark Zoo in Term 1; children got to meet and hold some living creatures, whilst learning about how to identify different living things. Children were amazed by the ‘Zoo who comes to you’ who put on a wonderful performance using puppets.

October also meant the beginning of Black History month. In year 2 we focused on celebrating our sisters – learning about inspiring black and mixed heritage women in our history lessons. We will continue this in term 2.

The children got to experience a historical WOW day, whereby we dressed up as historical characters and took part in a wide variety of historical activities, based on a variety of historical figures. We studied archaeologists, engineers and sports stars, before taking part in some brilliant activities. We also had an opportunity to dress up as what we wanted to be when we grow up during our career’s week; we had such a range of careers and it was terrific fun for all.

We hope that you have a restful and fun half term and we look forward to welcoming you back in Term 2. 

Miss Athanasis & Mrs Sullivan

Term 2 update

What a busy term we had! We started with learning about firework safety and taking part in the school’s act of Remembrance, we also dressed all in yellow for Children in Need day.

Our learning this term included learning more about materials and their properties in science, learning a poem written by Julia Donaldson and we then wrote our own poems. We also improved our skills with the 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

As the term came to a close we were very excited about Christmas! We wrote letters to Father Christmas, took part in our fab production to parents- Where is Santa? We also celebrated at church and had a fab year 2 Christmas party.

Another successful term for year 2, looking forward to more adventures and new learning in term 3!

Term 3 update!

Another term filled with learning and fun! We have loved learning the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what a lot of different things he ate. We then wrote own versions- ask the children to tell you!

We had a lot of fun making out own money containers in DT, learning and practising new sewing skills. We were very impressed by their designs and confidence in having a go. The results are really pleasing too!

In science we conducted an experiment to find the best growing conditions for plants. The plant in the cupboard grew particularly strangely! We realised that they definitely need light to grow well! During STEM week we had a visit from Mad Science and learnt more about freezing.

We have had music lessons this term and learnt how to play the Djembe drum, we also learnt to follow a beat and more about dynamics.

Finally this term, we have been improving our skipping skills, trying to skip for longer and do different tricks!

 Term 4 update!

As always, a busy term in year two. We have really enjoyed learning the poem The Owl and the Pussy Cat in our English and we know to off by heart now! We have also written our own nonsense poems following the same format.

In maths we have been learning all about money- a very important life skill! We know the different coins and notes and are starting to understand how to get change for the items we would like to buy.

During our PSHE lessons we learnt more about how to keep ourselves safe at home and what dangers to look out for.

We loved dressing up for world book day and enjoyed being read stories by the lovely children from year 6.

We have ended the term with an amazing visit to the SS Great Britain where we learnt all about the fantastic engineer Brunel and what it would have been like on board crossing the Atlantic to New York! Nice if you were first class not so nice in third!

A great term and more to look forward to after the holidays when we start our long-anticipated swimming lessons. Enjoy the Easter break everyone.

Term 5 update!

We have had another busy, fun-filled and non-stop learning term in year two!! We have now started our swimming lessons, which the children are really enjoying, especially in the warm weather. It is lovely to see so many of them gaining in confidence and swimming for the first time. Whilst the children who could already swim are improving their strokes and stamina- expect lots of badges and certificates for distances in term six!

We loved having parents join us for our family challenge, thanks to all those who came to help the children make bug hotels. It was great to see so many of you and the children benefitted from so much support! We then had a great time putting our bug hotels in suitable places in The Green Space, hopefully we will have lots of bug guests when we revisit them next term.

In DT this term we have been learning about healthy eating and what makes a balanced meal. The children then learnt how to chop, slice, snip and grate different food ingredients to make wrap fillings. We thought carefully about which combinations of ingredients went together. Of course, the best part was the tasting and evaluation of our final products!

Our writing this term was all focussed on the fable- The Boy Who Cried Wolf- we wrote our own versions of this classic story and thought about how to make them really interesting for our readers. They all still finished with- No one will believe a liar even when they are telling the truth!

We are now ready for a restful holiday and then a busy final term in year two, how quickly this year has flown by!

Term 6- final update!

A final term which has been just as amazing as the whole year! We can't believe how fast time has flown and how much progress the children have made with their learning over the year.

We started the term with our fantastic trip to Weston-Super -Mare. The children thoroughly enjoyed every part of the day, which included journeying on the train, a donkey ride, ice-cream and plenty of time to play on the beach with our bucket and spades. The weather was great and the whole day was just a great experience, we have based our writing around the day for the rest of the term.

We continued to enjoy our swimming lessons and have been impressed by the children's increased water confidence and we even had time to practice some water safety- learning about the different flags the lifeguards use on the beach- should be helpful during the summer holidays!

The children are excited for their move to year three and are well prepared following their successful move-up days. 

We would like to thank all parents and families for their support this year and wish you a fun and relaxing summer holiday.