Year Two Curriculum NewsletterAutumn 2024
Joy Excellence Service
"Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them."
Psalm 126:5-6
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
In our first term of Year 2 at Our Lady of the Rosary, pupils will learn about our class saint ‘St. Francis of Assisi’, and link this to Pope Francis’ teachings of looking after our common home - the earth. The pupils will also explore what it means to be a part of our community. We will be following the theme of beginnings, and learn that God is present in every new beginning. We will be exploring how to know and love Godexploring the scriptures, creation, the trinity, Jesus Christ, Son of God and the Holy Spirit. We will explore the Church, prayer and what it means to love God and our neighbour. During Advent we reflect upon the expectations of Christians and how we can apply key messages to our lives.
RSHE
This term we will hear and experience the Gospel story of Jesus, welcoming people to Him in spite of others telling them to stay away. Through times of discussion, imaginative reflection and creative response, we will learn that we are created by God out of love and for love. God teaches us that we are each created individually by him and that he wants us to talk to him and treat him as our best friend. He teaches us that he has created us, his children, to know, love and serve him.
ENGLISH
Pupils will continue to enjoy a variety of texts and authors. Our focus texts include ‘The Emperor’s Egg’ by Martin Jenkins and ‘The Diary of a Killer Cat’ by Anne Fine. We will compose writing linked to our key texts including descriptive writing, instructions, a story and poetry. We will also be learning new spelling, punctuation and grammar skills as well as applying those that we have already learnt. We will develop our editing skills as writers and work on producing effective and coherent writing for a range of purposes and audiences. As a whole class, pupils will read a range of extracts and literature that relates to our topics as well as interests within the classroom. We will analyse these texts and practice our comprehension skills, learning new ways to understand vocabulary, retrieve information, summarise, infer and make predictions.
MATHS
Our maths learning will consist of arithmetic, key skills and problem-solving sessions. We will cover a wide range of topics in the autumn term whilst revisiting and reviewing prior learning. Our initial focus will be on number and place value – learning to understand numbers and represent these in different ways. We will be using concrete resources to support us in our learning as well as learning how to draw these representations pictorially. Other topics this term will include addition and subtraction, where we will learn numerous efficient strategies and learning about 2D and 3D shapes.
SCIENCE
During the autumn term we will explore the topic of ‘Living Things and Their Habitats.’ We will learn about the various animals that live in different habitats and how these animals are suited to these habitats. We will describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of animals and plants. We will describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, exploring food chains. We will use a variety of scientific skills including questioning, observing and recording.
HISTORY
We will delve into the lives of significant individuals in history such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell. We will compare the work that these individuals completed and how important they all are in our society today. Within this we will discover the changes in medicine throughout history and touch on how this was important during the Covid- 19 pandemic. We will also study the Great Fire of London and the significance of this event. We will learn to identify the differences and similarities between ways of life in different periods by comparing our life today to those in London of 1666. We will explore the use of sources and place some key events in chronological order.
ART/DT
In art, our topic is sculpture where we will learn about different techniques. We will use a variety of materials and resources to explore and talk about textiles. We will be making choices about colour and texture for our own artwork. We will study the work of Faith Ringgold and Anni Albers and use these to inspire our sculptures. In design and technology, our topic is ‘Textiles’.
Through this unit of work we will explore and use different textiles. We will experiment and explore a variety of different techniques to join textiles. We will look at current products and evaluate these, using our own research to create our own finger puppet.
MUSIC
Our first topic is focused on the song ‘Hands, Feet, Heart’ – a song that celebrates South African Music. We will listen and appraise the song and play games to explore the dimensions of music –rhythm and pitch. We will learn to sing, play instruments and improvise and compose alongside this song.
Our second topic is ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ which is a Christmas song. Throughout this topic we will continue to listen and appraise other styles of music whilst further exploring the dimensions of music.
P.E.
In our first gym unit we will focus on the skills of balance in a topic called ‘Toy Box’. We will learn different ways to balance and will combine these skills through a range of floor work, low apparatus and larger apparatus. Our second gym unit ‘Jungle Trip’ is focused on travelling in different ways, using a combination of floor work and apparatus. In our outdoor PE this term we will be focusing on outdoor athletics and will be exploring orienteering.
COMPUTING
In the autumn term, we will be exploring coding whereby we will learn about how algorithms work and how to create our own algorithms. We will also be completing a unit based on touch typing where we will learn how to type in an efficient way. Online safety will underpin all of our computing learning. We will be learning how to use various technologies safely and learn how important it is to keep our information safe.
