During our first RE topic, Year 2 will be looking at a unit called ‘Gospel’.  Pupils will learn that Christians believe Jesus brings good news for all people, and that Jesus is a friend to the poor and friendless.  They will learn that for Christians, this good news includes being loved by God, and being forgiven for bad things. Christians believe Jesus’ teachings make people think hard about how to live and show them the right way.

During Autumn 2, we will be looking at the question, ‘Do religious symbols mean the same to everyone?’ We will begin by sorting symbols for different religions including Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The children will explain the meaning of some Christian symbols, and use symbols of Judaism to design a Mezuzah. They will explain the colours of the church year and identify symbols specifically connected to Christmas.

Accordion content

Writing

Your child will have about an hour of English teaching every day. In addition, children will have further sessions to develop specific skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, handwriting, speaking and listening. Children cover a wide range of skills in their English lessons. They develop their understanding and appreciation of books, improve technical skills of handwriting, grammar and punctuation and learn to express themselves in a variety of styles and for a variety of audiences. This is achieved both through writing and also through speaking. Activities will also be planned to improve personal listening skills. Wherever possible, we will teach English in a real context often linked to work in other subjects such as science, geography and history. This term, the children will study units looking at chronological writing, story settings, character descriptions and letter writing. These units will be planned to relate mainly to our topic work on living by the coast.

Reading

The children’s reading will be monitored on a regular basis. The children will read individually to an adult where possible and they will also be part of a guided reading group which will be led by the class teacher on a frequent basis. We have 3 guided reading lessons each week focusing on a variety of reading skills such as: literal retrieval, inference, prediction and summarising.

Phonics

Each child will attend a twenty-minute phonics session four mornings a week. Their phonics lessons follow a specific phonic sound or sounds each week. We will begin by revising some of the Year One common exception words and also some of the sounds that the children learnt in Year One. A list of the words we are learning in class each week will be sent home for your reference and for if you would like to work with your child to help them to spell these words.

Mathematics is timetabled for an hour each day. We will continue to plan and teach mathematics as a discrete subject, whilst taking every chance to use numeracy skills in other areas of the curriculum. There is also an emphasis on mathematical reasoning and the ability to explain mathematical processes. Each morning at 8.40am until 8.55am the children will be involved in mathematical tasks which will develop number skills.

The children will learn more about: place value; addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; problem solving; 2D and 3D shape, position and direction; measures including time; statistics and fractions. 

Autumn 1:

In the first half term, we will begin our topic about living things. We will learn about the 7 life processes and then sort objects using the characteristics of living, never alive and no longer living. We will also learn that all living things live within a habitat. Our learning about living things will continue in the summer term.

Autumn 2:

In the second half term, we will learn about being healthy including exercise, happy minds, staying safe, hygiene and what constitutes a balanced diet with a range of food groups. We will look at human lifecycles and the stages of development.