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Year 2

Meet the Team 

2025-2026

Mrs Richards - Class 5 Teacher

Mrs Smythe - Class 6 Teacher

Mrs Thomas - Class 5 Teacher (M)

 

We are really looking forward to welcoming you all in to Year 2. We have lots of exciting and interesting things to learn this year and we can't wait to get started.

Homework - We would like Year 2 children to read at least 3x a week at home and record these reads in their diary. We would also like them to spend at least 10 minutes a week on garage on their Times Tables Rockstars account - this is personalised to your child so it will give them the questions the need to learn. We will also send out 1x Creative homework project for you to do alongside your child every half term.

PE Autumn Term 2 - Remember to come in your PE uniform on these days. 

Tuesday - Indoor  PE 

Thursday - Outdoor PE with Coach Hannah

Staff PPA time will be covered by Miss Dourneen on a Monday afternoon in  Class 6 and on  a Tuesday afternoon in Class 5. 


Important Dates for your diary

Monday 10th November - Odd Socks Day 

Tuesday 18th November - School Disco 4:30 - 5:30 (F2 - Year 2) 

Friday 21st November - Children in Need

Thursday 11th December - Christmas Jumper and Christmas Dinner Day

Tuesday 16th December - Year 2 PROUD assembly 9:00am

Supporting your child at home

 

Reading

The most important thing you can do with your child is listen to them read and find the time to share books together. Below you can find the video links to all of the sounds covered in the rocket phonics books up to orange level to support your children’s progress at home.

As a guide, your child should be on orange/turquoise books at the end of Autumn term to meet age related expectations and then on gold/white by the end of the summer term. Please also find a document with the common exception words below.

An introduction to phonics and the alphabetic code - 

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Pink A

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Pink B

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Red A

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Red B

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Yellow

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Blue

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Green

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Orange

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Please see the common exception words for Year 1 and Year 2, children have these in their diaries and you could support their learning at home by ensuring they can read and spell the common exception words.

 

 

Maths

At Old Basford, we use our Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) to ensure your child has speedy recall of essential maths facts. Your child should know them quickly as they will help them in all areas of maths. These again, are in your child’s diaries but you can also see them below. If your child is struggling, you could look at Year 1’s KIRFS to help build up their confidence. Please find the KIRFs for year 2 below.

 

 

 

Websites to help

Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com) ( Username and Passwords in diaries) 

https://whizz.com/year-2-maths-games/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=2

 

Spellings

 We learn lots of spelling rules through our phonics work each day in class and we also work hard to try and learn the Year 2 common exception words. Both the Year 1 and Year 2 words are stuck in your child's diary so they can practise these at home. You can also see them below. 

Autumn Term 2 2025

Week 5 - Assessment Week and Lunar Rovers. 

The children in Year 2 have worked really hard this week and had a go at some maths and reading assessments but the highlight of our week was making marvellous Lunar Rovers! On Friday, the children designed, made and evaluated their own Lunar Rover - they had so much fun and learnt lots of social skills like resilience and supporting others. Here is a picture of some of their rovers. 

 

Week 4 - Space Blogs!

This week we have started our new writing unit which is all about writing in the style of an Online Blog. We have had lots of fun using drama to act out parts of Bob's (The man on the Moon) day. We loved pretending to blast off on his rocket and checking moon craters for aliens! We then sequence events that happened in the story of Bob and the Moontree mystery before having a go at writing a blog entry on Friday. We tried so hard and both Mrs Richards and Mrs Smythe were very impressed. 

In maths we started our new unit on shape. We learnt about 2-D and 3-D shapes and we can describe 2-D shapes by using the words sides and vertices. We even found out about regular and irregular shapes. 

In our afternoon lessons we have been learning all about Katherine Johnson and about materials and their properties. 

 

Week 3 -Our Astronaut Art project has lift off! 

We have been working really hard on an art project over the last three weeks.Children learnt how to draw their own helmet and then designed and painted their own space world reflection in it. They used a splat technique to create a space background and a blank pen and water to create their own moon. The children are SO proud of their artwork. Please have a look at some pictures of them below. 

 

 

Week 2 - Odd socks, Anti-bullying week and Children in Need! 

We have started our work on subtraction this week, we began by subtracting ones and will build up to subtracting two, two-digit numbers. We have been using our maths pack to support us with our calculations. In our writing we are working on using conjunctions, questions and exclamations this week and we had a go at writing a character description about an alien pet parrot. 

We have had LOTS of fun in our afternoon learning this week, we have used drama to explore how our life would be different if we lived on the International Space Station. In art, we painted our astronaut pictures. We have explored different materials and their properties in science. We also had a ' 5 Ways to Wellbeing' workshop with Barbara, learnt all about Remembrance day and finally finished the week with Children in Need challenges from Pudsey Bear!

 

 

Week 1  - What a busy week we have had!

We started our week with a WOW day when we 'launched' our new topic 'Mission to the Moon'. We began by designing and making our own rockets. We then used pastels to respond to music to create our own galaxy pictures. We have used these to create a display in our classroom which you can see below. We also started to learn about the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.  In our maths work, we have been working on using a place value grid, equipment and the column method to add two pairs of two-digit numbers and in out writing work we have been working on writing character descriptions based on the book 'Man on the Moon (A day in the life of Bob). 

 

 

 

Autumn Term 2025

Our first topic in Year 2 is called 'Into the Woods'. We will be reading stories set in the woods such as The Gruffalo and Little Red Riding Hood.

We will be doing lots of lovely art work with Mrs Maker. As well as painting pictures of The Gruffalo, we will also be learning about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. We will be using some natural materials to make our own art work.

In Geography we will be drawing maps and adding a key, and we will also be finding out about different habitats. We will have fun being scientists by growing cress and looking at the conditions needed to grow a healthy plant.

Our first maths topics will be based around place value and simple addition and subtraction.

Please see below for our knowledge organiser with more details.

Autumn term-week 1

What a very busy three days we have had! The children have been amazing at learning the routines and rules for Year 2. They all looked so smart in the school uniforms, and we have been particularly impressed with their polite manners.

We have been completing work about the school rules, and thinking about aspirations for the year ahead. We have read the story 'The Colour Monster', and have been thinking about lots of different emotions. 

The children have all settled in so well, and we are looking forward to an exciting year ahead.

 Autumn term-Week 2

What an incredibly busy week this has been!

Firstly, thank you to all the parents that attended our parent meeting on Tuesday after school- we always appreciate your support.

This week Year 2 have had our 'WOW' day to kick start our topic 'Into the Woods'. We played a fun Grufflo racing game outside, in which the children had to work together in teams. And on Wednesday afternoon we all made delicious Gruffalo crumble. The children loved these activities, and particularly enjoyed eating the Gruffalo crumble.

In maths, we have started a unit of work on place value, and have been focussing on tens and ones.

In writing, we had a go at writing a warning poster for a mysterious creature that had visited our school field.

Autumn term-week 3

This week we have been learning about partitioning numbers in maths. We used part-part whole models to partition numbers practically, and have then been recording number sentences in our books.

In literacy we have been learning a text map to show us how to write a warning poster. The children have been great at learning the text map and also adding actions. We have also been writing simple sentences with noun phrases and conjunctions (and, because)

We finally managed to have an outdoor PE session on Thursday as this was the first Thursday afternoon without thunder and lightning! The children are learning how to throw and catch correctly. This week we used bean bags and worked with a partner.

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