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School finishes for the summer holidays on Thursday 21st July at 3.15pm. We hope you have a relaxing summer break and look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday 6th September.

Year 2 Curriculum

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Years Curriculum

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Year 2 Curriculum

AUTUMN TERM
SUBJECT CONTENT
This term we will be building upon our understanding of maths from Year 1. We will start with lots of work on place value and develop our ability to use jottings to represent the numbers. We will learn to use efficient jotting for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and try to develop speed in our times tables. When we are secure with our methods we will apply this to solving problems. We will look at a range of charts and tables and answer questions based on them and we will develop our understanding about 2D and 3D shapes and their properties.
This term we will be studying the work of the popular author Michal Bond. If you aren’t sure who he is, he wrote the popular Paddington stories and it would be great if you got to know Paddington by watching the films. They are enjoyable and very funny! We will write a character description and we will research the city of London where Paddington lives. After this research, we will write a non-chronological report about some of London’s famous landmarks. Finally, we will make a marmalade sandwich as this is what Paddington loves to eat. We will then write instructions about how to make the sandwich. We will be developing our understanding of Alan Peat’s sentence types and learning some new ones to help make our writing interesting to read. Our second author for this term will be Nick Butterworth and we will read and enjoy the texts ‘After the Storm’ and ‘One Snowy Night’. Our reading and writing activities will be linked to this text.
This term we will be learning about materials and their properties. We will find out how the shapes of solid objects made from some materials can be changed by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching. We will be carrying out experiments to identify and compare the suitability of a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick/rock, and paper/cardboard for particular uses. During this unit we will be using a variety of investigative skills such as: performing simple tests, identifying and classifying, use observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions and gathering and recording data to help in answering questions.
Our learning challenge question for this term is “What is the significance of fire in the past?’ and our final learning outcome will be to set up a museum with all of the other classes in the school to showcase our understanding of Britain and the history of the world. We will open our virtual museum for our families, friends and the wider school community and are currently making some changes to how this event will work this year in light of the situation. In order to be able to do this, we will be learning about firefighters and their important jobs within the community today. Then we will research the role of firefighters in the past and how very different their jobs were then. This will lead us on to finding out about the Great Fire of London and the significant individual who wrote his thoughts about the events in his diary. We will learn about the notable artist Jackson Pollock who used paint to create pictures using his very individual artistic style. We will also learn a historical song all about the events of the fire of London. We will solve mathematical problems involving measures in maths as well as looking at charts and tables and write a description, a diary entry and a poem in writing.
During the Autumn term we will be focusing on Islam and thinking about the following questions: What can we learn from stories from the Prophet? What can we learn from Muslims in Sandwell? We will be inviting visitors and members of the community in to school to share their expertise.
During our lessons with the PE coach we will be taking part in a variety of games. We will begin by developing skills needed for a range of games and applying them to small team competitions. With our teachers, our PE will link to our topic work and we will learn to appreciate how fit and strong fire fighters have to be in order to do their jobs. We will use a range of apparatus in our lessons and learn how to use and handle it safely.
SPRING TERM
SUBJECT CONTENT
This term we will be learning to apply our understanding to solving problems. We have learned some really effective jottings for solving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division calculations and this should really help us with solving problems. We will be continuing to develop our fluency and quick mental recall of times tables and number facts and apply this to solving problems too. We have become really good at finding answers to a huge range of arithmetic calculations involving finding missing numbers in addition and subtraction, number sentences as well as fractions, place value and shape problems. Finally we will be learning to use mathematical vocabulary related to position and direction and statistics including learning to interpret a range of tables and charts.
This term we will be continuing to study the work of the popular author Nick Butterworth. We really love to read all about the adventures of Percy the Park Keeper and his animal friends in ‘After the Storm’ and ‘One Snowy Night’. After this we will be reading ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark’ by Jill Tomlinson. We are going to be writing for different purposes including setting descriptions, character descriptions and non-chronological reports. We will be continuing to develop our fluency in guided reading when reading a huge range of different texts and we will continue to find answers to questions about the texts and the ways in which they are written.
This term we will be learning all about animals including humans. We will be identifying a range of animals and their babies. We will classify and sort them according to their characteristics. We will be investigating and describing the needs of animals in order to stay alive. We will explore and compare the differences between things that are living, that are dead and that have never been alive. Throughout the term we will 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. Children will 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.
Our learning challenge question for this term is “Can we create a festival to share the culture of a different country?” and our final learning outcome will be to organise a festival to celebrate China. In order to be able to do this, we will be learning about life in China including what it is like for school children, clothing, places of interest and food. We will be introducing the topic by travelling to China on a simulated air craft! When we arrive in Beijing we will be introduced to the culture by tasting a range of foods. We will be learning about what Chinese people wear and making our own traditional Chinese outfits during INSPIRE sessions. We will also be continuing to apply reading, writing and maths across the curriculum. We will have the opportunity to create a small composition in music using instruments including boomwhackers.
This term we will be discussing Holy books and places of worship. We will be learning about how Holy books teach us lessons for example how to treat others. We will be learning about Holy places of worship and Holy books for Christianity, Islam and Sikhism.
This term we will be linking dance objectives to our curriculum topic by creating Chinese dragon dances to a traditional piece of music. We will also be learning different ball skills and applying them to competitive game situations.
SUMMER TERM
SUBJECT CONTENT
This term we will be continuing to apply all that we’ve learned to solving problems. We have learned some really effective jottings for solving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division calculations and this should really help us with solving tricky SAT’s style problems. We will be continuing to develop our fluency and quick mental recall of times tables and number facts and apply this to solving problems too. We have become really good at finding answers to a huge range of arithmetic calculations involving finding missing number problems. Finally we will be learning to use mathematical vocabulary related to position and direction and statistics including learning to interpret a range of tables and charts, reading scales and finding the difference.
This term we will be studying the work of the popular author Julia Donaldson. We really love the way she writes her rhyming stories and have managed to make links between many of her famous titles including “Stickman” and “The Gruffalo.” We are going to be writing for different purposes including a character description and our very own narrative. After out unit on Julia Donaldson we will study the work of another popular author Anthony Browne. We will be reading his story “Gorilla” and thinking about how this interesting character is actually not very much like a real gorilla at all! We will be researching real gorillas and writing a non-chronological report. We will be continuing to develop our fluency in guided reading when reading a huge range of different texts and we will continue to find answers to questions about the texts and the ways in which they are written.
This term we will be learning all about plants and the ideal conditions they need to be able to grow. We will conduct different investigations to make observations about plant growth. We will be planting different seeds and observing what they grow into when we look after them correctly. As our topic is based around healthy eating we will be growing a range of plants that provide us with food. During the summer term we will also be learning about the importance of hygiene, exercise and eating different food types in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Our learning challenge question for this term is “Can we help our families including our pets to become healthy through exercise and food?” and our final learning outcome will be to run a fitness event for our families, friends and the wider school community. In order to be able to do this, we will be learning about healthy foods and drinks and trying out different forms of exercise that can be done to help us to live a healthy lifestyle. We will be creating healthy snacks by following recipes and we will further our understanding of money by selling them to our families and friends and try to make a profit! We will be visiting “Sandwell Flyers Gymnastics Academy” where we will have a go at gymnastics and real trampolining. Finally during our fitness event we will be leading an aerobics workshop for our families, friends and the local community which we hope everyone will enjoy. We will create outfits to wear during this special event and work in teams to create our routines.
This term we will be discussing Holy books and places of worship. We will be learning about how Holy books teach us lessons for example how to treat others. During this term we will also have a focus on Christianity which will allow the children to learn about a range of stories, artefacts, religious places and celebrations.
This term we will be focusing on dance/aerobics to create our fitness routine to perform for our friends and family at the end of our topic. We will be linking several actions to perform a short sequence to a piece of music making sure we move at the correct time to the beat. We will also be working with the sports coaches to practise a range of athletics skills to prepare us for our sports day during July.