Year 2

In Year 2 the children are beginning to be much more independent learners. They learn to discuss and evaluate their own work and become more responsible for their own learning through checking and editing.

In Numeracy they continue to learn to count, read, write and order numbers to 100 and beyond and round numbers to the nearest 10.  They develop their mental calculation skills to include knowing number bonds to 20, doubles to 10 + 10 and the corresponding halves.  Parents can also help so much with their first steps on the times table ladder by practising at home as well.  They learn to add and subtract two-digit numbers through various informal methods of calculation including partitioning and recombining tens and units.

In Writing the children learn to punctuate sentences with capital letters, full stops and question marks and begin to use commas in lists.  They write simple sentences using some prepositions and connectives that signal time and begin to use conjunctions to write compound sentences.  They start to make more interesting word choices and give detail to engage the reader’s interest. They learn to apply their knowledge of story elements such as setting, dialogue, characterisation, story language and structures, so that their own writing begins to ‘sound like a story’.  They practise handwriting in the cursive script and have weekly spelling tests.

Year 2 is a very exciting year for reading and the children make huge amounts of progress in their ability to read and understand longer and more complex texts.  Parents need to continue to read with their child every day but the focus begins to change to building reading comprehension.  Asking questions about what they have read, what has happened in the story, the characters, places and events and what they think will happen next, will all help the children to successfully complete written reading comprehensions at the end of Year 2.

Interesting history topics in Year 2 include learning about people who have blue plaques in the local area. In geography children learn about Sussex and visit Goodwood farm.  To tie in with our topic on ‘seaside holidays’ we all go on an end of year trip to the beach!

At the end of Year 2, the children will complete end of Key Stage 1 SATs assessments in Reading, Writing, Numeracy and Science.