Welcome to Larch 2!

2026 – 2027

Mrs Stockton - Class Teacher
Mrs Skelton/Mrs Peet - Teaching Assistants

Autumn 2

Significant People

Autumn 1

Bright Lights, Big City

What a wonderful end to our first half term in Year 2! 

We celebrated with a lovely Paddington tea party, where we even got the chance to try out the fantastic vehicles we have been working so hard to create! 

A huge well done to all our Year 2 children for their super effort, amazing ideas and wonderful achievements this half term. You have worked so hard and should be very proud of yourselves! 

Have a lovely half-term break, Year 2! You’ve certainly earned it!

Year 2 have been exploring a fun, fast-paced action song called Tony Chestnut, using their voices to bring the music to life!  They have been developing their singing skills, focusing on clear pronunciation and enjoying the clever wordplay within the lyrics.

The children have also been learning to play the glockenspiel and exploring call-and-response through singing, actions and instruments. 

What a fantastic way to develop musical skills, creativity and confidence while having lots of fun! Well done, Year 2!

A huge well done to our Dojo winners this half term!  You should be very proud of your achievements!

We also want to say a big well done to all of our Year 2 children who have made such a wonderful start to the new school year. We are so proud of your hard work, positive attitudes and fantastic efforts! 

Keep up the amazing work, Year 2! You should all be very proud of yourselves! 

Year 2 have been busy completing their wonderful vehicles for Paddington! After attaching the axles and wheels to the chassis, they have put their creative skills to work decorating their vehicles, and they look absolutely fantastic! 

What amazing imaginations and creativity! We are so proud of all their hard work and fantastic designs. Well done, Year 2! 

We’re sure Paddington will be delighted with your wonderful creations!

Well done, Year 2! We have been busy making bread, just like the bread Paddington uses to make his delicious sandwiches!

The children carefully weighed the flour and added yeast to help our bread rise. We also added a little salt, sugar and lukewarm water before mixing all the ingredients together. Everyone enjoyed kneading the dough before leaving it to rest and then baking it in the oven.

Alongside our baking, we have been learning where flour comes from. The children discovered that wheat grows in the fields and that each ear of wheat contains around 40 grains. The wheat is taken to a mill, where it is ground into flour. We learned that flour is used to make lots of different foods, including bread, cakes and biscuits.

What a wonderful way to combine our learning with some hands-on fun! I wonder what Paddington would think of our delicious creations! 

Year 2 have been busy measuring and sawing their axles ready to fit onto their vehicles!  The children carefully measured their dowels and practised using the saw safely. They made sure to use a clamp to hold the dowel securely in place while sawing. The children showed great care and concentration as they developed their practical DT skills. Well done, Year 2! 

Year 2 have been busy painting their vehicles ready for decoration! The children chose a wonderful array of colours, and it looks like Paddington will soon have a whole rainbow fleet of vehicles to travel in!

The children showed great care and thought carefully about which part of their box would form the chassis of their vehicle. They remembered to leave this section unpainted so that they can attach their axles and wheels in the next stage of their DT project. Well done, Year 2! We can’t wait to see the finished vehicles!

Year 2 have been learning all about what life was like in 1666, when the Great Fire of London happened. 

We looked carefully at a range of images and worked together to sort them into those showing life in 1666 and those showing life today. The children were surprised by some of the differences, including the lack of electricity, modern devices and flushing toilets!

The children did a fantastic job of spotting the differences and using their historical thinking skills to imagine what everyday life might have been like over 350 years ago. Well done, Year 2! 

Year 2 have been enjoying lots of fun tag games in PE! We have been focusing on developing our speed, agility and teamwork skills while learning how to work together as a team.

The children have enjoyed a range of exciting tag games and have shown fantastic enthusiasm, teamwork and encouragement towards one another. Well done, Year 2! 

On Thursday 8th October, Year 2 took part in the National Literacy Trust and British Council’s Take 10 to Read campaign as part of the National Year of Reading 2026.

We enjoyed taking some time out of our busy day to relax, enjoy a book and celebrate the joy of reading together. The campaign encouraged children and adults across the country to “take 10 to read into whatever you’re into!”

Year 2 loved getting involved and showing just how much we enjoy reading. Well done, Year 2!

In PE, Year 2 have been practising their infant agility skills. We started with aiming and throwing, developing our accuracy and coordination. We have also been practising running races and long jump, working hard to improve our speed, balance and jumping technique.

Well done, Year 2, for showing fantastic effort and enthusiasm! 

In Computing, Year 2 have been investigating Information Technology (IT) and discovering how it is used all around us.

This week, we learned how barcodes work. We discovered that a scanner reads the barcode and that the scanner is a piece of IT because it is connected to a computer. The computer follows an algorithm to find the item linked to the barcode and then matches it to the correct price.

We then had lots of fun role-playing a shop! One child chose items while their partner acted as the till, using the barcode information to find the prices. We even challenged our partners’ maths skills by choosing more than one item and asking them to work out the total.

Well done, Year 2! You were fantastic at combining your computing and maths skills!

In Science, Year 2 have been learning all about materials and why different objects are made from different materials. We explored a variety of materials and investigated their different properties and features.

We classified the materials using words such as shiny and dull, hard and soft, and thought carefully about why particular materials are suitable for different objects.

Well done, Year 2, for being such fantastic scientists and using your observations to classify and describe materials! 

To celebrate National Poetry Day, Year 2 have been learning and reciting the wonderful poem The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear. 

We also learned some Makaton signs for key words from the poem, which helped us to remember the words and made our performance even more fun!

Mr Coleman came to watch our performance and thoroughly enjoyed it. We were very proud of ourselves for remembering the poem and performing it so confidently.

Well done, Year 2! What a fantastic performance!

What a wonderful outdoor adventure Year 2 had at Rosliston Forestry Centre!

The children had a fantastic time exploring the beautiful woodland and taking part in a range of exciting activities. They enjoyed playing woodland games, going on paw print and poo hunts (pictures, of course!), and building cosy dens for some cuddly forest friends, including a rabbit and a badger.

The children also became tree experts for the day! They learned lots of fascinating facts about trees and had the opportunity to share their knowledge of evergreen and deciduous trees. They particularly enjoyed creating their own bark rubbings, discovering the different textures and patterns found on the trees around them.

After all that exploring, we enjoyed a well-earned lunch together before heading to the park for some fun and relaxation. It was lovely to see the children enjoying some downtime, playing together and making the most of the beautiful surroundings.

What a thoroughly beautiful place Rosliston Forestry Centre is! We had such a fantastic day filled with adventure, discovery, and learning. Most importantly, we made some wonderful memories that Year 2 will treasure.

This week, Year 2 have been learning about the difference between safe and unsafe secrets. We discussed how a safe secret usually has a happy outcome, such as keeping a surprise birthday party a secret, while an unsafe secret can make us feel unhappy, worried or uncomfortable.

The children were given a variety of different scenarios to discuss and sort into safe and unsafe secrets. These included keeping a surprise birthday party secret and a babysitter allowing them to stay up late but telling them not to tell anyone. Year 2 did a fantastic job of explaining their thinking and recognising when a secret should be shared with a trusted adult.

Year 2 have been enjoying the beautiful autumn sunshine on the trim trail!  The children had lots of fun climbing, balancing and challenging themselves while showing great consideration and respect for one another. It was lovely to see them encouraging their friends, taking turns and enjoying the outdoor space together. Well done, Year 2! 

Year 2 have made a wonderful start to their maths learning this half term as we have begun our works on place value. The children have been learning that the value of a digit depends on its place in a number and have enjoyed exploring numbers in different ways.

We have also been introduced to Tiny the Turtle, our new maths friend! Poor Tiny often makes mistakes in his maths, so the children have been fantastic at spotting his errors and helping him to correct them. Tiny reminds us that learning takes time and every step counts, which is a wonderful message for us all as we continue our maths journey!

What a special treat we had from Mr G, our local ice cream man, today! He kindly gave every one of us an ice cream, and we all agreed that it was absolutely delicious!

We are so grateful to Mr G for such a lovely surprise. What a wonderful way to start the week!

Year 2 have been learning all about the features of non-fiction books! We explored a selection of non-fiction texts and worked together to identify and label important features, including titles, title pages, contents pages, pictures and labels, captions, glossaries and indexes.

We enjoyed being book detectives and discovering how these features help us to find information and understand what we are reading.

Well done, Year 2! 

Larch Class have made a wonderful start to the year! 

We are so proud of how well everyone has settled into Year 2. It has been a fantastic first couple of days, filled with smiles, enthusiasm and lots of lovely learning.

Well done, Larch Class! We are looking forward to a brilliant year together and lots more fun learning ahead.

We began the week using our inference skills after discovering a mysterious suitcase containing a marmalade-covered invitation for Paddington to attend a very special tea party. Some of the words were covered in marmalade, so we had to use the clues in the suitcase to work out where the tea party would be held.

Inside, we found a toy black London taxi, a red double-decker bus, a train ticket, a Union Jack flag and two postcards – one of Buckingham Palace and one of Tower Bridge. We carefully examined the clues, shared our ideas with our talk partners and explained our reasoning.

After lots of thoughtful discussion, we decided that the tea party must be held at Buckingham Palace! 

What a fantastic start to our learning!