Welcome to Year 2!

I am Miss Mc Ardle, the Year 2 class teacher. The children in Year 2 are fantastic learners and we are having lots of fun learning different knowledge and skills in a wide range of subject areas. Please find out about our curriculum below...

English

The children will explore a range of different genres and texts. Through these different texts, the pupils will exercise a variety of skills including: word reading, comprehension, grammar, spelling, drama/performance, text mapping, planning, editing, re-drafting and character building. Each half-term, we will focus on specific genres to ensure that a wide breadth is covered throughout the year, exposing the pupils to different text styles, purposes & audiences, text features,  grammatical structures and genre-appropriate vocabulary.

These genres will include:

retell a story with a familiar setting

retell a story from a different point of view

setting description

author fact-file

instructional writing

list poems 

*In addition to the ones stated above, the children will also practise and revise other genres that were covered in earlier school years. This will enable the children to apply, extend and improve their reading and writing skills.

This year, the children will also explore a number of whole-class novels which will provide pupils with the opportunity to focus on the different genres named above as well as the advanced grammar, spelling and punctuation in given contexts. The whole-class novels will cover a variety of themes that will be linked to areas across the wider curriculum, including: History, Geography, Maths, Science and PSHE.

The selected class novels include:

Autumn 1 - Dogger

Autumn 2- Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion and The Wolf's Story

Spring  1 - The light house keeper's lunch

Spring 2 - The Big Book of Beasts

Summer 1 - After the fall

Summer 2 - George's Marvelous Medicine. 

Spelling

As the curriculum focuses heavily on spelling, we are encouraging the children to practise their spelling rules at every opportunity. The pupils are actively encouraged to read whenever possible, to expose themselves to new and more adventurous examples of vocabulary that they will the be able to use in their own writing. The children have been given copies of the statutory spelling list for Year 1-2. They should revise Year 1 spelling list and will be continuing to learn spellings from the Year 2 list this year.  The children also need to ensure they are revising Year 1 common exception words and learning the Year 2 common exception words this year. The children will participate in weekly spelling tests based on the list they have been provided with. Any opportunity to practise the list at home with your child would be extremely beneficial to their progress. 

Reading

As a class and whole school, we LOVE reading.  To nurture this love for reading, the school have kindly allowed the children to choose a library book and they have time to read these each day. The children have also been given home reader books linked to RWI and their phonetic knowledge. The children are encouraged to read these books daily in order to develop their fluency of reading. 

The children also  have a  daily guided reading session that lasts for thirty minutes. During these sessions, children focus on a text within the RWI and facilitate discussions by asking questions surrounding sequencing, retrieval, inference and predictions. 

Maths

During the year the following topics on Maths will be covered in Year Two:

Autumn:

• Place value of two digit numbers
• Addition and Subtraction
• Multiplication and Division 

Spring:

• Money
• Fractions
• Properties of 2D and 3D shapes
• Measurement - time, mass, capacity, weight and temperate 

Summer:

• Statistics 
• Direction and Position

In school we focus on learning the skills in our Maths lesson but also being able to apply it to real life problems and open investigations. 

Science

Throughout the year as part of the curriculum in science the children will be studying four areas; 

Living things and their habitats

• explore and compare the differences between things that are living, dead, and things that have never been alive  

• identify that most living things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants, and how they depend on each other  

• identify and name a variety of plants and animals in their habitats, including micro-habitats  

• describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, using the idea of a simple food chain, and identify and name different sources of food

Animals including humans 

• notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults  

• find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival (water, food and air) 

• describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food, and hygiene.

Everyday Materials 

• dentify and compare the suitability of a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick, rock, paper and cardboard for particular uses  

• find out how the shapes of solid objects made from some materials can be changed by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching.  

Plants-

• observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants  

• find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy.  

Geography

 The children will develop their Geographical understanding of locational and place knowledge, human and physical Geography and Geographical skills and field work through: 

Autumn: Physical features within their locality

Spring: Comparing their locality with a small non- European area. 

Summer: Fieldwork 

History 

The children will develop their Historical skills of chronology, Historical enquiry and interpretation though;

Autumn: Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks 

Spring: The First Flight

Summer 1: The Stone Age

Summer 2: The Neolithic revolution 

Religious Education

In Year 2, the children will cover different topics in RE throughout the year following the schools 'Come and See' curriculum. The topics that the children will cover include:

Beginnings; God is present at every beginning.
Signs and symbols; Signs and symbols used during Baptism.
Preparations; Advent and preparing to celebrate Christmas.
Books; the books used at church.
Thanksgiving; Mass is a special time to say thank you to God, especially Jesus.
Opportunities; Lent is an opportunity to start anew in order to celebrate Jesus' new life.
Spread the word; Pentecost is a time to spread the good news.
Rules; Reasons for rules in the Christian family and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Treasures; God's treasures; the world. 

In addition, the children will also learn about different faiths and understand the importance of respecting other faiths. The children will take an active part in daily collect worships sessions. Within the collective worship sessions, the children will have the opportunity to plan and deliver the session to their peers within the classroom. 

Physical Education

Children will take part in a wide range of PE lessons this year and will have sessions from many sports coaches in school. Below is the PE timetable for the year:

Autumn One:

• Gymnastics - Beth Tweedle Total Gymnastics 

Autumn Two: 

• Football - Liverpool FC

Spring One:

• Rugby Tots

Spring Two:

• Rugby Tots

Summer One

• Gymnastics - Beth Tweedle Total Gymnastics 

Summer Two: 

• Dance

Art

The children will complete three art topics throughout the year using the art design process in order to develop their artistic understanding and skills.

Autumn - Drawing through a study of Beth Krommes.

Spring - Painting through a study of Vincent Van Gogh

Summer - Printing through a study of Karen Lederer 

D.T

The children will complete three D.T topics throughout the year using the D.T process. This will be linked to other areas of the curriculum so that their projects will have a purpose.

Autumn: Textiles - Design, make and evaluate a puppet to preform a puppet show for younger children

Spring: freestanding structures - design, make and evaluate a zoo enclosure for an animal. 

Summer: Food and nutrition 

Music

During the year, the children are listening to learning new songs from different parts of the world. They will also have the opportunity to accompany the songs using different instruments and playing a variety of rhythms. Also, during the second half of the Autumn term, the children will be preparing for their Christmas play which will be a lovely celebration of the Nativity story in addition to the children showcasing their immense musical talents.

Computing

Throughout the year, the children will be learning different computing skills;

Autumn - effective searching

Spring - coding and online safety

Summer - Presenting ideas

PSHE

Our PSHE topics throughout the year will cover a wide range of topics-

• Keeping ourselves safe
• Healthy eating
• Physical Activity
• Citizenship/Global Citizenship
• British Values

We will also be participating in the following SEAL Topics-

• New beginnings
• Say no to bullying
• Getting on and falling out
• Relationships
• Going for Goals
• Good to be me
• Changes