Class 2

In Class 2, Year 3 and Year 4 are taught by Class Teacher Molly Phipps, supported in the mornings by the Class TA, Corinne Walters. Mornings begin with reading quizzes from our Accelerated Reader Scheme, reading with adults, Times Table Rockstars or a daily Geography or History challenge to build on our learning in those subjects and to help us “think like a geographer” or a historian. Mornings in Class 2 see children taking part in Maths and English lessons, as well as daily spelling sessions, taught following the Sounds-Write approach, where we extend the phonics knowledge gained in KS1, to being able to read and spell polysyllabic words and apply phonic rules to new vocabulary across foundation subjects and Science. We interrogate new vocabulary and break it down to understand the morphology and etymology of words.

A daily class story from our Reading Spine takes place in the school library, instilling a love of reading. The teaching of Reading in follow up sessions, is based on the class reader and includes language comprehension and vocabulary work. Informal book club sessions take place weekly to allow children to discuss authors they have enjoyed and make recommendations to their peers. The class bookshelves invite children to choose from a range of text types, authors and genres to build their love of reading and encourage them to explore new books.

Maths lessons are taught as whole class sessions, where year group objectives are aligned to allow children to recap prior learning and make connections to new learning. Regular Maths On Track sessions allow children to practise new and past learning. A weekly ‘Mastering Number’ session enables children to build their fluency, with multiplication and division facts, and their application to mathematical concepts. 

In English, our writing units are based around high-quality texts from our Writing Spine, through which we teach fiction and non-fiction language features, underpinned by grammatical structures. Our writing units each run across 2-3 weeks and include opportunities for independent writing in different genres. Some of the texts we will be inspired by this year are ‘The BFG’, ‘Escape from Pompeii’ and ‘Cloud Tea Monkeys’.  

The children are set weekly homework of TTRS, reading and spelling. For spelling homework, the children are giving an individualised list of ‘focus 5 words’ that they need to practise and the words are only changed once the child is able to show that they have used each word 3 times in their writing that week.

Science and all foundation subjects are taught on 2 year rolling programmes as a whole class and a carefully structured curriculum ensures progression of skills and vocabulary across all of Key Stage 2.