Year Two is an important year for your children as they complete their Key Stage One education and take part in the National Statutory Assessments, (SATs) when children will be assessed on national age related expected knowledge and skills. Assessments take place during May (please avoid all unnecessary absence during April and May), in Reading, Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, Writing and Mathematics. Teacher assessment within these areas is ongoing and forms the basis of Year Two assessment, with formal ‘tests’ and ‘tasks’ also playing a part in the process.
All children in Key Stage One continue to have a daily afternoon playtime and will also take part in The Daily Mile with adults and other children. All of the children will also be involved in a Class Assembly, a class lunch and at least one performance during the academic year.
The Curriculum
See the Curriculum page on this website (on the Learning and Teaching tab) for more information on Collingwood’s Curriculum and for a breakdown of what children in each year group will learn about in each National Curriculum Subject.
During Year Two, English and Mathematics need to be consolidated, and good working habits embedded – vital requirements in order to cope well with the demands of Key Stage Two (Years Three to Six) as pupils growing independence and mastery of basic skills allows them to begin to take control of their own learning and to make more choices about presentation, materials and equipment.
English
See Key word lists in your child’s homework folder and spelling books and the end of year “age related expectations” statements for reading in your child’s communication book for more information.
Daily whole class lessons take place in English, including reading, writing, speaking and listening. Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation are very important and are tested in a separate national paper at the end of Year 2. Vocabulary has a high priority, which some children will find challenging, including giving definitions; exploring all key grammatical terms and uses eg a knowledge of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; past and present tense use; sentence construction and basic punctuation skills (knowledge of how capital letters, full stops, ?, ! are used). Children are required to demonstrate knowledge on sentence types and their differing punctuation.
Daily phonic work will continue as in Year 1, taught as a daily 20 minute phonics lesson, taught in smaller, similar ability groups to further extend skills in blending sounds for reading and especially segmenting sounds for effective spelling. Practice at home is essential if children are to master KS1 spelling lists. Your child’s spellings, and Key Words, which can be found in their homework folders and spelling books, will inform you, throughout the year, which phonics your child needs to work on at home. Any pupils who did not meet the expected standard in the National Phonics Screener during Year 1, will retake this during the week commencing 8th June 2020. This consists of 40 words shown to children 1:1 with a known adult, on flashcards – 20 of the words will be real words and 20 of them will be non-words that will test purely their decoding skills. All of the children will be made aware which of the words are non-words as they will have pictures of aliens beside them.
Each child in Year Two will be heard read weekly as part of a Guided Reading Group where skills needed for KS1 tests in reading comprehension will be regularly taught and applied. All children will also be heard read in school individually as many times as adult support allows. We will continue to assess reading skills to see when children need to move up to new colour book bands, and will communicate any changes to you in your child’s Communication Book. Please remember that “colours” are only changed once a child can read and understand the texts at a given number of words per minute.
Reading at home is essential for maximum progress. When reading with your child, please encourage them to point to the text. Point to some key words out of context for your child to identify or ask them to choose some words for you to say. Please make comments on the statements in your child’s communication book, when reading daily together at home. If your child is able, introduce silent reading for a session each week – ask questions about the story, characters etc afterwards to check understanding, define words etc – all vital comprehension skills which is a focus in SATs. Children should also now extend and widen their reading out of school eg by reading library books, comics and their own books. This evidence of “wider reading” is needed as part of end of KS1 reading assessment. You can support your child by ensuring that their reading book and communication book are brought into school every day and send them back into school to collect it, if they leave without it.
Maths
All children will continue to participate in daily maths lessons and daily FAST Maths sessions aimed at rapid recall of number bonds and multiplication facts. An important school focus continues to be that of problem solving and reasoning, (explaining how and why using mathematical terminology.) Children in Year Two are required to have rapid recall of at least 10x 5 x and 2 x multiplication tables and will begin to use division facts relating to these. All children are expected to know x tables to 12×12 by the end of Year 4 and will be tested on this nationally from May 2020.
Areas where you can support your child at home include:
- Fractions – finding 1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 1/3 of a shape or small number.
- Money – embedding coin recognition; totalling and giving change; learning to use decimal notation to record amounts over a pound.
- Measures – standard metric measures are fully introduced this year: estimating and measuring length using a metre stick or a centimetre ruler; learning to use the terms ‘m’ and ‘cm.’
- Estimating and measuring weight using kilos and grams; using litres for capacity. *This work will be extended during Key Stage Two.
- Time – Reading and making main clock times: o’clock, half past and quarter past/to. Counting in five minute intervals around the clock.
- Use of both analogue and digital clocks
- Shape – naming, sorting and describing the features or properties of the main 2D and 3D shapes; introduction of line symmetry and right angles in shapes.
- Data – collecting and representing information on sorting charts, pictograms, block graphs, tally charts; reporting back findings linked to data.
Topic work
Details of work to be covered this term in National Curriculum subjects other than English and maths can be found by clicking on the Topic Web link below.
Homework
Weekly homework will be set each Friday and will need to be in school by the following Wednesday so that it can be marked and returned. This will have an English Maths or topic focus. Spelling test will be undertaken on a Wednesday morning and new spellings will be in your child’s spellings book by Friday. PE is on Wednesday afternoon.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need further information in supporting your child at home.’
Mrs Hammond
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