English - Writing

This Summer term, our pupils will embark on a literary journey through four engaging units. Beginning with Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers, children will develop their narrative writing skills by creating their own 'losing/finding' stories. They will learn to ask questions, use descriptive adjectives, and retell stories using past tense verbs. They will also explore imperative verbs for instructions and learn to sequence events, potentially creating a 'How to be a Pirate' guide and their own lost and found narratives.

Moving on to The Magic Bed by John Burningham, the focus shifts to fantasy and imaginative writing. Children will make predictions, use expanded noun phrases for setting descriptions, and learn about proper nouns. They will sequence story events and use adjectives and adverbs to enhance their own fantasy narratives, culminating in writing their own magical adventure story.

Next, pupils will delve into history with The Great Fire of London. They will research London landmarks and compare past and present London using different tenses. Activities will include creating persuasive posters, writing speech bubbles and diary entries from the perspective of Londoners, giving advice in speeches, and creating a fact file about the event, leading to their own information booklets.

Finally, inspired by Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, children will explore the world of inventions and explanations. They will learn to use conjunctions to give reasons, write short explanations in the present tense, and use a range of verbs to describe processes. They will also create advertisements using different sentence types, write letters of advice using commands, describe inventions using noun phrases, and write their own explanation texts.

Computing

The unit for the first half term is, 'We are detectives', pupils learn about databases. Using pirate data, they explore how information is structured into records and fields. They organise this data using cards and a computer program. They also input data into a spreadsheet and use filters to find specific information. This helps them solve clues and understand how computers manage data, including discussions on online privacy.

After half term the unit is, 'We are animators', children will learn about creating stop-motion animations. They will plan their animations using storyboards and make their own characters and backgrounds. Pupils will film, edit, and add audio to their animations using appropriate software. Throughout the unit, they will review each other's work and give feedback, understanding how animation works.

Maths

This Summer term, Year 1 and 2 maths covers 5 blocks.

Money introduces recognising coins and notes, counting money in pence and pounds, combining pounds and pence. Children will learn to choose different combinations, compare amounts, make a pound, calculate with money, and find change.

Fractions begins with understanding parts and wholes, equal and unequal parts. It covers recognising and finding halves, quarters, and thirds. Children explore unit and non-unit fractions, find the whole from a fraction, learn about the equivalence of a half and two-quarters, find three-quarters, and count in fractions up to a whole.

Time includes learning months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Children will tell time to o'clock, half past, quarter past/to, and to 5 minutes. They learn about minutes in an hour and hours in a day and solve time-related problems.

Mass, Capacity and Temperature involves comparing mass using non-standard units, measuring mass in grams and kilograms, and solving problems with mass. Children compare volume and capacity and measure in millilitres and litres, applying operations to solve related problems. Temperature is also covered.

Position and Direction teaches positional language like left, right, above, below. Children describe movement (forwards, backwards, left, right) and turns (half, quarter, full, three-quarter), including clockwise and anticlockwise, combining these to describe journeys.

Music

We start the Summer term exploring the song 'Who stole my chickens and my hens?'. This unit is built around a fun song with easy to pick up lyrics and a lively melody. The song provides plenty of opportunities to practise beat work, rests, and explore the ‘skipty’ (dotted quaver-semiquaver) rhythm. As well as learning the song activities include learning a simple clapping game that can be played in pairs, creating body percussion patterns, and composing new lyrics. There are numerous games to accompany the song that can be found online that you can take into the playground.

Most children will be able to:

• Listen to and copy short rhythm patterns by ear.
• Mark rests in the song with actions, their voices, and instruments.
• Sing the rhythm of the melody accurately.
• Compose new lyrics and create short body percussion patterns to accompany the song. 
• Play a partner clapping game while singing a song.

After half term the song changes to 'Come dance with me'. This lively warm-up song works well with movement and provides a good springboard into composing new lyrics and actions. The call-and-response nature of the song translates well into instrumental work, with pupils creating their own percussive responses and playing simple rhythm patterns on tuned instruments.

Most children will be able to:

• Copy call-and-response patterns with voices and instruments.
• Echo sing a line independently with teacher leading, then move on to pair singing in echo format.
• Create musical phrases from new word rhythms that children invent.
• Sing either part of a call-and-response song.
• Play the response sections on tuned percussion using the correct beater hold.