Happy New Year and Welcome back!

It was lovely to see everyone return to school on Monday and hear about many of the exciting things you have been up to during the holiday.
In English we have started our unit on writing letters, we began with a 'thank you' letter to Santa or a family member for a favourite Christmas present. This week's grammar focus is capital letters (yr1) and using commas correctly when writing lists (yr2). Spelling focus is the correct spelling of the days of the week, ensuring a capital letter is used. In Maths year one have been working with numbers, finding 1 more and 1 less, 2 more and 2 less and relating this to written number sentences. Year two have been working on place value, understanding the value of different digits in 2 and 3 digit numbers. In RE this term we will be learning about special books and stories, in particular the Bible but we also be finding out about special books and words from other faiths.
The children enjoyed their first hockey session with Nikita from Colchester United on Tuesday and they will be doing Dance on Thursday afternoons. Weather permitting, Tuesday PE will be outside so please ensure your child has trainers and a tracksuit.
Fortnightly Home Learning Tasks will continue in the red books, this week's is about the children's own special  books, stories, poems or songs. In addition to this the year two children will be bringing home a Grammar task and Maths activity linked to the week's focus, as explained in Mr Wainwright's letter. Details of this will be in the Home/School planner. Year One children will be assigned relevant activities on Active Learn and phonics activities as appropriate.
Our new theme is Canada and the Arctic, Fridays promise to be lots of fun when the children will be doing Art and theme related activities with Mrs MacMorrin.
Thank you for your help with developing the children's independence by saying 'goodbye' at the outside door allowing children to come into class by themselves.