Hedgehogs - Year 2

Welcome to Hedgehog class! On Monday and Tuesday, we are taught by Mr Lester, who has been teaching at Bedwell for 6 years and is brilliant at drama and computing. On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays our teacher is Mrs Rose, who has been teaching at Bedwell for 10 years. She really likes science and storytelling, and is determined to make our lessons as much fun as possible!

Home learning ideas:

  • Constant practice of reading and phonics is just about the most valuable thing you can do at home. Try to read with your child as often as possible and talk to them about what they’ve read. We've put together some advice and guidance on using the books your child will bring home, here.
  • In history, we are looking at the history of flight, so it would be great if you could share memories of any flights you have been on in the past. What were the planes like? Where did you go? What was the journey like? If older family members have memories of what flights were like 40 or 50 years ago, that’d really help!
  • Visit the air museums at Shuttleworth, Duxford or Hendon to see first-hand how planes have changed over the last 100 years, or take a trip to Stansted or Luton airports to find out what real modern day planes look like.
  • It’s Safer Internet Day on February 11th, so this is a good opportunity for us all to talk about the way that we stay safe online. This year’s focus is on avoiding online scams - you can find our more at saferinternet.org.uk/

Our latest news:

  • We worked really hard over the past half-term to put together our Christmas Show. We took on a variety of roles and everyone had some lines to learn. We are sure you will agree that everybody did a fantastic job and the show was sensational! After finishing our own show, we headed to Milton Keynes to see how the professionals do it, watching their pantomime version of Peter Pan. We loved getting involved in the performance, cheering, booing and shouting “Ahoy Smee!” in all the right places, and our behaviour was impeccable throughout the trip.
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  • We loved our Christmas Party in the last week of term, playing lots of fun games and munching our way through the food that we had all brought in to share!
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  • To finish off our topic on Incredible India, we organised a fantastic India Day which included everyone in the whole of Years 1 and 2! Across the day we took part in lots of different activities and workshops, including: writing our names in Hindi, learning Bollywood dance moves and cooking Indian breads. At the end of the day we shared lots of what we had done and got to try out our homemade roti breads, dips and poppadums. It was all delicious and we all agreed that we had had a fantastic day. 
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"Pupils are confident and have well-developed social skills… The school is a calm and orderly place in which to learn."

Ofsted report, 2022
We have been learning about... 

Instructions - We really enjoyed writing instructions using the book How to Make Friends with a Ghost by Rebecca Green as our inspiration. We used lots of bossy verbs to write sentences and explored the difference between statements and commands. We made sure that we used capital letters and full stops correctly, and have also worked hard to make sure that our handwriting is clear and easy to read.

 

Letter writing - This term we have been reading a fab book called Dragon Post, using this to explore the way that letters are written and organised. We have learnt about expanded noun phrases and used these to write a postcard home to our family - and we got very excited when we posted these in the post box!

 

Maths  - We have been working on our understanding of numbers to 100. We having looked carefully at how many tens and ones a number has and how this can be made in a variety of ways. We have then used these skills to support our understanding of doubling, using practical resources to support our work.

This term's topics

English - Our first unit of the term is built around the classic fairytale Rapunzel. We will collect descriptive language to describe Rapunzel’s character and will then use these ideas to write a short setting description. We will explore the difference between statements, questions and commands, and will use co-ordinating conjunctions to link ideas. We will finish the unit by writing our own versions of the story opening. After that, we will move on to look at non-chronological reports, using Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies as our core text. We will continue to develop our understanding of conjunctions, questions and statements, and will then use all these skills to write a report about an animal of our choice.

Maths - First up, we will be developing our understanding of money, exploring different ways to make a given total by combining different coins, and then becoming shopkeepers and working out how much change to give our customers. After that, we will be focussing on measures, measuring and comparing lengths, masses and capacities and then using these skills to solve problems. Later in the term, we will be moving on to look at statistics, starting by using tally charts and tables to collect information, and then presenting this data using pictograms and block charts. Throughout the term we will also be working hard to secure our knowledge of number facts, doubles and halves.

Science - We will be learning about animals from around the world. We will be learning to classify them into groups, recognising the difference between fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. We will also identify the differences between herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, and finding out what foods our favourite animals like to eat.

Humanities - In history, we will be looking at the first flight, made by the Wright Brothers in 1903, and exploring the ways in which planes have changed since then, looking at shape, design and the different purposes planes have been used for. We will think about the way the world has been changed by the invention of powered flight (and especially by reliable, mass produced aircraft) and plot key dates on a timeline. Finally, we will link this topic to our work from last term on the way the world has changed since our grandparents were young.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.

Early Years Admissions  

If you're looking for a place in Nursery or Reception, you can find out lots more about our school in our Early Years Prospectus.

We're always keen to show potential new applicants around - just get in touch with the school office to arrange a tour. 

Once you're ready to apply, head to the admissions page to find out more about the process - we run Nursery admissions ourselves, but from Reception upwards, these need to be made via Herts County Council.