Welcome to Year 2!

Teacher: Miss Sweeney

Autumn 2026

Hello and welcome to Year 2!  I know that we are going to have an amazing year together full of learning, love and laughter. We will be doing lots of fun and interesting learning and getting to know the Year 2 classroom routines. 

English

This term, Year 2 will be diving into the wonderful story of The Bog Baby during their English lessons. The children will explore the story, characters and key events before retelling the tale in their own words. Alongside developing their storytelling and writing skills, we will be revisiting and building on the learning from Year 1, with a particular focus on strengthening phonics knowledge, spelling and sentence construction. This will give the children the opportunity to apply their phonics skills in their independent writing while developing confidence in expressing their ideas and creating engaging retellings of the story.

During this unit, we will be recapping all of our Year 1 phonics and sentence writing skills and retelling the story in our own way. We will aim to include:. 

- Capital letters

- Finger spaces

- Phonics

- Full stops

- Adjectives

- Adverbs

- Commas

- Conjunctions

- ?!

Maths

This half term, Year 2 will be developing their understanding of number, beginning with place value before moving on to addition and subtraction. The children will learn to recognise the value of each digit in a two-digit number, partition numbers into tens and ones, count forwards and backwards in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, and compare and order numbers up to 100. They will then build on this knowledge to solve addition and subtraction problems, recalling facts to 20 and using related facts to 100, adding and subtracting two-digit numbers and ones, tens and other two-digit numbers, and exploring the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. Children will use practical resources, pictorial representations, mental strategies and written methods to develop fluency, reasoning and problem-solving skills, in line with the Year 2 National Curriculum objectives. We will be using lots of practical resources and using our learning to solve real life problems. To support us in our learning we will be using Base 10, place value charts, ten frames and part-whole models.  Below are the objectives we will be learning and the order that we will focus on them. 

Topic

Our topic for this half term is... The UK. This half term, Year 2 will be exploring ‘The UK’ in Geography. The children will develop their knowledge of the United Kingdom by identifying the four countries of the UK — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — and locating them on a map. They will learn to name and locate the capital cities of each country, use maps and atlases to identify key geographical features, and begin to understand the similarities and differences between different parts of the UK. The children will also explore the surrounding seas and oceans, use simple compass directions and geographical vocabulary, and develop their skills in observing, describing and communicating geographical information. Through practical activities, map work and discussion, they will build a strong foundation for understanding the geography of the country in which they live.

Science

This half term, Year 2 will be exploring Materials in Science. The children will investigate and compare a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick, rock, paper and cardboard. They will learn to identify and describe the uses of different materials and begin to understand why particular materials are suitable for specific purposes. Through practical investigations, children will explore how materials can be changed, such as by bending, stretching, twisting and squashing, and will develop their scientific enquiry skills by asking questions, making observations, carrying out simple tests and recording their findings. This unit supports the Year 2 National Curriculum objectives to identify and compare the suitability of a variety of everyday materials and to find out how the shapes of solid objects made from some materials can be changed by actions such as squashing, bending, twisting and stretching.

Religion

This half term, Year 2 will be focusing on the Term 1 objectives from the Lighting the Path RE scheme. Through engaging stories, discussions and activities, the children will develop their understanding of key religious ideas and beliefs, while making links to their own experiences and the world around them. They will have opportunities to ask and respond to questions, share their thoughts and ideas respectfully, listen to the beliefs and experiences of others, and begin to recognise how faith can influence the way people live. Our lessons will encourage the children to explore, reflect and develop their understanding of religion and worldviews in an age-appropriate and meaningful way.

PE

This half term you will need to come into school wearing your PE kit on our PE days which are Monday and Friday. In PE you will be learning about invasion and team games  skills with Mr Cassey outside and circuits skills in the hall. 

Homework

Reading – 10 minutes a night

Listening to your child read for 10 minutes a night makes a significant difference in their progress and attainment. It helps them practice key reading strategies and skills, develop their comprehension skills and supports their overall fluency and accuracy, which are vital skills they need for the future. Every Friday an eBook will be assigned to your child’s online account based upon the sounds they have learnt in phonics that week. The children will have practiced this book in their guided reading sessions so will be familiar with the text. The purpose of them practicing it again at home is to become more familiar with these sounds and fluent when reading them.

Your child will also choose a reading for pleasure book. This is a book that you can both read and enjoy together and encourage reading for pleasure. This will be a physical book that your child takes home and they will be given the opportunity to choose and change every Friday. As it is a reading for pleasure book, it is not necessarily aimed at your child’s reading level, therefore can be challenging, which is why we are asking for an adult to read this and your child to join in where possible. The reading for pleasure book is important as it is how we will help build a love of reading together.   Please ensure your child brings this back to school every Friday ready to change in our school Library.

Reading eggs – once a week      https://readingeggs.co.uk

Reading eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning.

My Maths and Mathseeds – once a week       https://mathseeds.co.uk/

Every Friday, your class teacher will set home learning for your child on MyMaths.co.uk. This will be based upon what they have learnt that week so your child can practice the skills taught at home to reinforce key strategies.  

Mathseeds is an online website that your child can use to develop pupils’ confidence and fluency in Maths and the interactive lessons provide step-by-step examples to break down learning into manageable chunks. The log in for this is the same one you use for reading eggs.

Phonics home learning – once a week

Every Friday, we will send home a phonics sheet in your child’s book bag for them to practice over the next week. The sheet will have the list of sounds your child has learnt that week, words and sentences for them to read and write with these sounds in and then a list of tricky words that the children need to know. These words will be familiar to them and ones they have practiced in phonics sessions.

You can then practice these sounds further on fastphonics (www.readingeggs.co.uk/fast-phonics-games), which is the same log in as reading eggs.

Learning logs – Autumn  2, Spring 2 and Summer 2

Last year we introduced our project-based home learning to replace the homework board we previously used. Pupil, parent and teacher voice all showed that project based home learning was the preferred style of home learning as it gave children more freedom to learn about real life world events, share personal experiences and it has helped motivate them to engage in home learning as it is child managed. It encourages the children to be more independent, inquisitive and provides more opportunities for outdoor learning together. This can be completed in your learning log, a scrap book of your choice or it can be uploaded onto Seesaw.

Instead of completing these every half term, we have reduced this to three half terms a year to make it more manageable. They will therefore be given out on the first Monday of Autumn 2 (31^st October), Spring 2 (27^th February) and Summer 2 (12^th June).  We ask that their project is brought into school on the last week of that half term to share and celebrate with their peers. You will be given a sheet of paper that will be stuck in your child’s learning log that will outline what the project is and ideas of activities you can do.

KS1 Creative ideas: https://sway.office.com/izWF4eAOc7u0rCfS?ref=Link