1. Year two
A guide to this year

2. Introduction Our aims:
To provide you with an outline of the year two curriculum,
Inform you of the end of key stage assessments,
Offer guidance as to how you can support your child at home

3. What’s changed? Maths, English and Science are at the core.
All other subjects are taught alongside these and schools have much more flexibility regarding the cover of them.
Changes mainly focus on the ‘higher’ expectations in various subjects: the curriculum in a lot more demanding.
In maths, for example, there is much more focus on arithmetic and fractions. In English, there is more attention paid to studying spelling and grammar: including knowing the different technical vocabulary.
Children achieving well will no longer move onto the next year’s curriculum but will be given more in-depth and investigative work to allow greater mastery and understanding of concepts.

4. Tests your child will take
We already use a variety of testing and assessment to track progress and the children will become familiar with these.
They will see testing as part of their normal classroom routine.
We do not mention the word SATs to the children in the Summer term but simply tell them that their work will be done in a special booklet instead.
We will not even tell you that the SATs are being done.
Children will undertake tests in Reading, Maths and Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation.
All results are looked at and used to inform decisions- they are not the be all and end all! The results given at the end of the year are based on teacher assessment that has taken place all year round.

5. What do they look like? Reading

11. Spelling, grammar and punctuation

14. Writing Writing is looked at across the whole year.
The main areas of focus are:
using the four sentence types and the correct punctuation
conjunctions
contractions
possessive nouns
accurate structure, including language suited to purpose
adjectives and adverbs for detail

15. Writing exemplars: narrative

16. Writing exemplars: information

17. Writing exemplars: description

18. Maths Arithmetic Paper

19. Maths reasoning paper

22. Support in reading Reading is extremely important.
As we already mentioned, reading little but often is better for your child than reading an entire book.
We send home two books each week and we would expect that your child reads them at least twice.
Stay positive
Discuss the book
Encourage expression
Look out for interesting vocabulary including those with suffixes

23. Support in writing
When your child does their spelling homework, encourage their creativity when it comes to writing the sentences.
Get them to expand by adding adjectives or telling us where or when something takes place. See if they can use conjunctions to create a compound sentence or ask them to use some interesting vocabulary they found in their reading book.
Let them have a go first.
Then go back and look at them together- is there any basic punctuation missing? Are there any Year One and Year Two common misconception words that they should be spelling accurately written incorrectly?
Encourage other opportunities for children to write: letters to family or friends, shopping lists, stories or poems, notes or reminders.

24. Support in maths
During key stage one, there is a big focus on basic number skills. This means securing a good understanding of place value and recognising and using number bonds to 20, including able to quickly recall the total of any two numbers up to 20
e.g = 14
Practising these regularly is essential!
Encourage them to:
tell the time,
count in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s forwards and backwards
count out your money or change in the shop,
look for shapes in and out of the house,
identify, weigh and measure quantities in the kitchen

25. handwriting
Many of the children have already developed excellent letter formation and are adhering to the school’s handwriting policy.
Some still need to continue to practise their letter formation, concentrating on starting at the right place.
Those who are using the flicks, need to work on their joining and concentrate on joining accurately. They must learn whether the letter uses a vertical or horizontal join.