Team 2 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Team 2

The adults who help us in Team 2 are:

Miss Martindale - Class teacher

Miss Davies - Teaching Assistant

Miss Graham - Teaching Assistant

Miss Wheadon - Teaching Assistant 

To keep up to date with the latest news and work from Team 2 follow us on Twitter @PrimaryKingsway, @KingswayYear2 and on Class Dojo.

Reading

Reading is essential to all curriculum areas and we spend time focusing on reading every day. Our reading lessons are Read Write Inc phonics lessons for all children during the Autumn term and for some children during the Spring and Summer terms. During Read Write Inc sessions the children learn new sounds and practice using the learnt speed sounds to read with fluency, accuracy and speed. They practice vocabulary and grammar skills throughout these sessions too.

In Team 2 we will start to teach VIPERS sessions during the Spring term, which consists of crafted units of reading and comprehension through high-quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts.  Children use these to deepen their understanding of vocabulary, inference, prediction, evidence, retrieval and summarising skills.

Children also experience the joy of reading through a whole class novel. The class novel is a time to come together around a powerful, relevant text that engages the children and promotes discussion. In Team 2, we read a range of exciting texts that convey meaning and teach our children about important values.

Reading at home is essential. Reading books go home on a Friday and are returned to school the following week. Children are encouraged to record their own thoughts, feelings and ideas about what they have read in their reading records as well as comments made by adults at home. Reading at home positively contributes to the children’s ability to read with fluency and also their ability to comprehend what they are reading so we do really encourage and appreciate your support with reading at home.

Writing

Our writing lessons follow Pathways to Write, which is a programme of study designed to empower children to become confident and successful writers. The units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of both fiction and non-fiction writing opportunities. The children are given the opportunity to really master skills taught and apply them to a final written piece at the end of a unit. Team 2 love being fully immersed into a variety of high quality texts which support their writing during English lessons.

Mathematics

Mathematics lessons follow White Rose Maths, which aims to develop children’s mathematical fluency and their deep, long-term and adaptable understanding of maths. The children can then use this knowledge and understanding to solve a range of maths problems. White Rose Maths adopts a concrete – pictorial – abstract method that enables all children to access learning and lessons are adapted so that all children achieve. To supplement maths lessons, we begin each lesson with dedicated time to master our fluency skills as well as revisiting skills previously taught each week using a maths flashback.  

The Wider Curriculum

In Year 2, children are taught a broad and balanced curriculum that includes all of the National Curriculum subjects. Over the course of the year, different subjects are prioritised at different times to ensure coverage and maximum attainment in all areas. The curriculum is exciting, dynamic and has been designed to build upon the children’s prior knowledge. 

Autumn 1:

This half term in Team 2 we will be studying Troll Swap, a fictional story written by the author Leigh Hodgkinson. The story is about characters who are not being accepted for who they are so they decide to swap places until they realise that they are missed and greatly valued. Pupils will learn about a very important message whilst immersing themselves within this text. Pupils will be taught to master skills such as the use of capital letters and full stops to correctly form sentences, use expanded noun phrases to describe and begin to use the conjunction ‘because’. Pupils' use of new and rich vocabulary will be developed and they will have many opportunities to practice using taught skills to support them with their final write of a story with a focus on characters. 

In Maths we will be exploring place value and the children will be exploring the place value of numbers up to 100. Pupils will then apply newly learnt skills to support their learning of the addition and subtraction of 2 digit numbers. Pupils will be taught these new concepts using concrete, pictorial and abstract methods and they will be encouraged to deepen their learning through the application of skills to reason and problem solve.

In Science, Team 2 will be learning all about animals including humans and will learn about the life cycle of a human and the importance of nutrition, exercise and hygiene to keep you healthy. 

Our driver project this half term is called ‘Movers and Shakers’ and it focuses on significant people and in particular significant explorers and activists, what they did and how what they did impacts life today. 

In Computing we will be learning about ‘IT around us’ and how IT should be used correctly and safely and in our Jigsaw lessons we will be focusing on ‘Me in my world’ and the importance of roles and responsibilities and rewards and consequences. 

In RE, we will be studying the religion Hinduism.

Autumn 2:

This half term in Team 2 we will be studying the text The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark, a fictional story written by the author Jill Tomlinson. This Autumn/Winter setting tells the story of an owl who was afraid of the dark who finds himself on a journey to find out more about the dark. Pupils will be given many opportunities through letter writing and descriptions to practise and master newly taught skills such as the use of coordinating conjunctions, adding the suffix -ly to adjectives to change them into adverbs and using commas to separate items in a list. The pupils will learn more about owls during this unit which they will use during their final write of a non-chronological report all about owls. 

In Maths, pupils will continue to learn about the addition and subtraction of 2 digit numbers, applying the use of methods to reasoning and problem solving questions before learning about 2D and 3D shapes and their properties. 

This half term our science lessons will focus on Habitats and how plants and animals survive in the habitats they live in. The children will explore habitats and construct food chains as well as learning about how animals and plants adapt in their habitat. 

In DT , we will be learning all about remarkable recipes and the children will create a dessert for our school menu. 

During our Geography lessons, pupils will learn about our world with a focus on the characteristics of the four countries of the United Kingdom. This project will teach the children about atlases, maps and cardinal compass points. 

In RE we will be studying festivals of light and why light is important. In Computing lessons the children will learn about digital photography and the skills needed to take a photograph. 

In Jigsaw, we will learn about Celebrating Differences which links to our Happy Mind focus which is celebrating our character strengths.