Jellyfish Class

Welcome to the Jellyfish Class web page for 2025-2026!

A very warm welcome to our class page!

Jellyfish class comprises of Year 1 and Year 2 children. You can find relevant information regarding our class below. 

Our learning

As a school, we follow the Cornerstones Curriculum. Each ‘long’ term (so 3 times a year) the topics change. There is always one main topic (driver project) and several companion units.

In Terms 1 and 2 the driver project is a History unit called ‘Childhood’. This project teaches us about everyday life and families today, including comparisons with childhood in the 1950s. We will be using artefacts and a range of different sources to support our understanding. 

In Terms 3 and 4 the driver project is a Geography unit called ‘Bright Lights Big City’. In this project we will learn about the physical and human characteristics of the United Kingdom, including a detailed exploration of the characteristics and features of our capital city, London.

In Terms 5 and 6 the driver project is a History unit called ‘School Days’. For this project we will learn about our own school and locality, both today and in the past. We will also compare schooling in the Victorian era to our experiences today. 

English

Children in Jellyfish will continue to develop their phonetic knowledge following our Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme. We carefully group the children according to their phonic knowledge. This ensures each child is being supported, yet challenges, aiming for excellent reading progress. More information regarding RWI can be found under our Phonics and Reading area here on the website.

Children will have RWI lessons from Monday-Thursday. These lessons are followed by a whole class English lesson, where we will continue to focus on reading skills as well as developing our writing skills. Our English lessons are driven by The Power of Reading – a whole school learning and teaching approach which engages teachers and children in the English curriculum through the use of high quality texts and proven teaching approaches. These texts will vary and change across the terms. We will also be taking part in daily handwriting sessions, following Letter-Join's handwriting scheme. On Fridays alongside our whole class English lessons, we will also have a focus sessions on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG). 

Reading

Children will have access to two books to read at home. One will be an eBook set by their RWI leader to match their phonic ability. These will be set on Thursdays. Each eBook will be accompanied by a quiz, which provide opportunities for children to apply their phonic knowledge, as well as developing their comprehension skills. Children will also have a RWI Book Bag Book, a physical book that they will take home that is matched to the phonics they are learning. Book bag books are changed accordingly every Monday and Thursday. Therefore each eBook and Book Bag Book will stay with each child for a few days and should be re-read to support fluency in reading.

For those children who have completed the RWI scheme, they will then move onto reading AR (Accelerated Reader) books. These books are equally matched to the child’s reading ability, as an initial quiz provides each child with a reading level. The children will then get to choose a reading book within their book band levels, providing each child with autonomy over their reading.

Maths

We use Power Maths as the main driver in our Maths learning at Bethersden, supported with a range of practical activities to ensure that each child has a secure understanding of the concepts taught. We will be teaching each year group in isolation across the year, teaching the Year 1s and Year 2s separately.

Before Power Maths we have dedicated time to practise and develop our maths fluency. We will be using the Mastering Number program to do so, which aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. A key resource we will be using throughout these sessions include tens frames and counters and rekenreks.

Home Learning

Here at Bethersden our priority with home learning is reading. Please ensure you are reading with your child at least 4 times a week, these can be logged in your child's yellow reading record. If your child is accessing Read Write Inc. in school, a weekly eBook will be set for your child every Thursday. This can be accessed via Oxford Owl - you can find a link for this above. 

Your child also has access to Spelling Shed and NumBots/TT Rockstars (all login information for these can be found in their yellow reading records). Whilst assignments aren't directly set across these platforms, there are year group specific tasks they can engage in if they would like to. 

Home learning will be set termly for children and their families to work through over a number of weeks - introducing Bethersden Bingo! These will cover a number of curriculum topics areas, tasks will range from physical activities, discussions, questions to explore, projects etc. – all activities we hope you will enjoy! Once a task has been completed, cross it off the bingo list. 

We are looking forward to continued support with home learning. 

How can you support your child?

There are many ways that you can support your child to have a healthy, fun filled year in school!

• Please make sure that they are on time, have the correct uniform and have had a healthy breakfast.
• Read! Listen to them read, read to them, let them see you enjoying reading – reading in any form will help foster a love of books – something that we are passionate about at Bethersden Primary.
• Please ensure that they have the correct PE kit. Our PE days are Wednesday and Friday, so please ensure your child comes into school on these days wearing their PE kit.
• Provide a water bottle (hydrated brains are happy brains!) - Please make sure these are filled with water only and not squash/juice. 
• Please provide appropriate clothing, specifically for OPAL, as we will not let the weather stop us! Ensure wet weather clothing and wellies are clearly named and labelled. 

Contact us

We are always available after school if you need a quick catch up. If you need a longer or more private meeting, please book this in at the office and we will be happy to accommodate.

If you have a non-urgent message for the team, you could contact the school office and the message will be passed on to the class team.

Very best wishes,

The Jellyfish Team