Ellington Primary School

January News

Happy New Year!

What a brilliant start we have had to 2026. It was lovely to hear what a wonderful Christmas everyone has had and all of the exciting things the children got up to over the festive period. They have come back to school refreshed and ready to learn!

In English, we have already completed our first unit of Spring term focusing on the story Traction Man by Mini Grey. The children came up with some wonderful ideas about the adventures of Traction Man using our prediction and inference skills. We explored retelling the story using our best superhero storyteller voice during a voiceover task. We then learned lots of new grammatical tools to help us write some fantastic newspaper reports about all of the heroic acts of Traction Man! My favourite part of this unit was the children coming up with their own newspaper names, there were some good ones!

This week, we have moved on to another new story, The Tin Forest by Helen Ward. So far we have explored the text and created our own settings that could replace the tin forest from the story.

In Maths, we have been working hard on our addition and subtraction skills using 2 digit and 1 digit numbers including crossing tens. We then moved on to some division including remainders. Some very tricky concepts but the children have shown great resilience and understanding during their tasks. We have also begun to work on shape by looking at lines of symmetry.

In History, we have started our new topic ‘How did we learn to fly?’. So far, we have looked at the lives of the Wright Brothers and Bessie Coleman and how they have been historically significant. We recreated the first flight of the Wright Brothers through a drama activity where we looked at the perspectives of different people involved. The children worked well in their groups to come up with some wonderful ideas about how each person would be thinking and feeling.

February News

What a busy time we have had since our last newsletter!

In English, we have finished our work on The Tin Forest by creating some wonderful alternate settings for the story. We had lots of imaginative settings including a chocolate race track, a glass village and a cardboard desert! The children worked very hard on making sure they included lots of literary tools in their stories to make them interesting and exciting to read.

This week we have started another new writing unit based on the story ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ by Drew Daywalt. We arrived to find our classroom had some misplaced crayons and sign saying ‘we quit’. The children then did a fabulous job of summarising each issue that the crayons had with Duncan and then we worked in groups to do some drama based on the story. We had a brilliant time watching each other perform and there were some wonderful storytelling skills on display. We will continue to work on this story and end by writing a letter to try and persuade the crayons to come back!

In maths, we have been working on wider maths skills including money and shape. This week we have looked at how many pence we would need to have the equivalent amount in pounds. We have also looked at how to read temperatures using thermometers.

We explored the big question ‘Who is Muslim and how do they live?’ in our RE unit at the end of Spring 1. The children were very respectful when learning about the Islamic faith and came up with some really thoughtful ideas when we explored how they practised their faith. We explored life at the Mosque, Islamic prayer and festivals. We ended the day by creating some decorations for the Islamic holiday Ramadan.

We had a special visitor in our classroom on Thursday this week when Vicki from Fonetti joined us to show us how to use the reading programme. We can’t wait to use this in school to help us improve our reading and comprehension skills.

There are lots of exciting things happening in Year 2 this half term that we can’t wait to share with you!