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Friday 3rd October 2025: Week 4
Year 2
What will my child be learning about this half term?
Summer 1
Friday 3rd July 2026
Congratulations Year 2! We have had lots of activities and the children have been amazing. Also, a massive thank you to all the families and friends of the children who have been able to take time out and watch the different events. Today’s Country Dancing was a great occasion to see all the children show off their hard work.
Friday 26th June 2026
What a great week in Year 2! In English, we launched our new learning journey with Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen. We enjoyed exploring the lively, rhyming story, joining in with repeated phrases and bringing the mischievous character to life through drama and expression, while focusing on rhythm, rhyme and character attitudes.
In Science this week, we continued exploring the fascinating life cycle of a butterfly. The children have loved observing each stage up close, from caterpillar to pupa, and were excited to see the incredible transformation into butterflies. Our learning came to life as we carefully released our butterflies out into the world, watching them take their first flights. It was a truly special moment that helped us understand the importance of growth, change and caring for living things.
Friday 19th June 2026
In Computing, we have been focusing on photography. This week, we explored how to take a clear, well‑composed picture and considered whether portrait or landscape orientation would best suit our subject. The results were truly glorious.
Friday 12th June 2026
Another great week in Year 2! We began our Art topic by exploring how to use pencils to draw shapes and bring them to life as 3D forms. The children experimented with a range of techniques, including stippling, cross-hatching and shading, to create depth and texture in their work. They thoroughly enjoyed practising these skills and were very proud of how their drawings began to look more realistic as they developed confidence using different marks and tones.
In Science we continued to observe our caterpillars and learn all about their fascinating life cycle. The children were thrilled this week to see that our caterpillars are beginning the pupa stage. We’ve had lots of discussions about the changes taking place and what might happen next. The excitement is building as we look forward to the next stage, when they emerge as beautiful butterflies!
Friday 5th June 2026
What a fantastic first week back for Year 2! We have started our end of year production of ‘Wiz Wham Alakazam’. We have also continued our Country Dancing practice. We can’t wait to show you the outcomes from the beginning of July. We also want to say a massive thank you to all the parents and family members who were able to attend sports day. It was a great day and one we’ll remember for a while!
Friday 22nd May 2026
We began our Maths learning by exploring multiplication through building arrays. Using this approach, we were able to demonstrate our understanding of the 2, 3, 5 and 10 times tables by solving lots of different multiplication problems.
We finished our Computing learning this half term by demonstrating our understanding of algorithms to make our characters move. We also showed how we could add speech bubbles to bring our characters to life. We had great fun experimenting with different backgrounds for our characters to live in!
Friday 8th May 2026
In Health and Wellbeing, we have been learning the Green Cross Code. We worked with a partner to decide where would be a safe place to cross our pretend road (on the playground), and apply our learning in readiness to a real life situations. We were so proud to achieve our safe road crossing certificates.
Friday 1st May 2026
In Maths, the children have been developing their understanding of comparison. They have been comparing numbers using greater than, less than and equal to. They then used these skills to compare the value of multiplication and addition calculations.
In P.E the children have been learning important ball skills. They practised recognising where the space is and learned how to send the ball away from an opponent. The children also focused on using the ready position, showing they are balanced, alert, and ready to receive the ball confidently during games and activities.
Friday 24th April 2026
Year 2 had a fantastic day out at the Titanic Museum in Southampton, where history truly came to life. The pupils enjoyed exploring the interactive exhibits and learning all about the famous ship, its passengers, and the city’s special connection to the Titanic. They listened carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and showed excellent enthusiasm throughout the visit. The trip brought their classroom learning to life and inspired lots of curiosity and conversation back at school. Well done Year 2 for being such brilliant Balksbury Citizens!
Friday 17th April 2026
What a fantastic week we have had back in Year 2! In English, we watched the short, wordless film ‘Whisteless’. We spent time focusing on our spellings and writing a range of sentences to practice our core skills which we really enjoyed.
In History, we began our topic of the Titanic. We discovered who the key people were in 1912 including the King of England and the Prime Minister. We then explored different facts relating to the Titanic and can’t wait to find our more information on our school trip next week! Also, a big thank you for one of the children in Kingfisher class for bringing in their own Lego masterpiece of the Titanic.
Finally, in Music the children explored a range of percussion instruments. Each child was given an instrument and had the opportunity to learn how to play it correctly and carefully, using appropriate techniques such as tapping, shaking or striking with control.
Friday 27th March 2026
What a great week we’ve had in Year 2! We created our final outcome for our text Don’t Let Them Disappear. The children produced beautifully written book reviews using an impressive range of vocabulary and shared thoughtful opinions that would inspire you to read the book.
During Art this week the children created their own masterpieces inspired by Pablo Picasso. They used charcoal and pencils to create tone and lines to express feelings. The outcomes were wonderful and really captured their individual creativity.
Friday 20th March 2026
This week in Maths, we explored different ways to make amounts of money using coins.
Children used pennies and pounds to create totals, practicing how to combine coins without going under or over the target amount. They also investigated how many items they could buy with a set amount and discovered different coin combinations that can make the same total.
In Music this week the children listened to a new piece of music inspired by the planet Uranus and created visual interpretations to match what they heard. They then used glockenspiels to create their own four‑beat pitch patterns using the notes C, E and G. It was lovely to hear all of their creative collaborations!
Friday 13th March 2026
This week, Year 2 have been working exceptionally hard across the curriculum. In Mathematics, the children have been learning to tell the time, focusing on reading o’clock, half past, quarter past, and quarter to. They have enjoyed using real clocks to support their understanding and to practise positioning the hands accurately. In English, the children have completed their final writing outcome: a diary entry, where they applied their skills of using first person, emotive language and knowledge of past‑tense writing.
Friday 6th March 2026
The children began their week by exploring the world of Big Bear, Little Brother through virtual reality. Using VR headsets, they immersed themselves in icy landscapes and imagined life from Minik’s point of view. This experience helped them build rich vocabulary and a deeper sense of empathy, which they then used to write in the first person as Minik. All of this work has prepared them brilliantly for writing their own diary entries next week, drawing on everything they have learned and imagined.
World Book Day brought a huge amount of excitement and joy. The children looked fantastic in their outfits and fully embraced the celebrations. They enjoyed listening to Ken from OpenBox, who read a story to the whole year group, and they were captivated as Miss Thompson shared her own book with the entire Infant School. In the afternoon, the children paired up with Year 4 to share stories together, before finishing the day with a lively drawing competition. It was a wonderful celebration of reading, creativity, and imagination.
Friday 27th February 2026
What a fantastic start to the term this week in Year 2! This week in English we were really excited to find foot and paw prints around Year 2 to start our new learning journey Big Bear, Little Brother. We have been learning about the features of a diary entry and are looking forward to writing our diary entries next week!
In Art to start our new learning journey about Pablo Picasso we explored lines, tone, mark making and portrait lines. We enjoyed using graphite, charcoal, chalk and pastels to compare effects.
Friday 13th February 2026
What a fantastic final week we’ve had in Year 2! The children have been busy with lots of exciting learning. In History, they wrote persuasive arguments about whether Florence Nightingale or Mary Seacole deserves a statue outside a hospital. The quality of their reasoning and writing was truly impressive. In Design and Technology, the children created their own ‘Moving Monsters’ and worked incredibly hard to bring their imaginative designs to life, they turned out super scary!
Wishing you all a happy and healthy half term!
Friday 6th February 2026
What a fantastic week we have had in Year 2 this week! We started off the week by discovering our new learning journey in English ‘The Lion and The Mouse’. We created a storyboard to show the key events of the story. Additionally, we matched pictures to the key events to further demonstrate our understanding. The next day, we acted out some of the key events. We froze when the teacher told us to and we explained what part of the story we were re-creating and discussed how the characters would have been feeling.
Next, in Science we made comparisons between two biomes. We looked at the features of a hot desert and the Arctic. This included exploring which animals live in these biomes. To further extend our understanding, we used VR headsets. We were able to bring these biomes to life in the classroom and make us feel like we were there, walking round the biomes ourselves!
Finally, to complete the week, we celebrated all of our learning around ‘Anti-Bullying Week’. In assembly this week, we have been exploring the book ‘Always Remember’ by Charlie Mackesy. We used this text to demonstrate our understanding of kindness and shared ideas of how we can be kind to others. This afternoon, we completed many different activities around this book including writing our own pages to create a book for our own reading corner. This included lovely illustrations and captions about what kindness means to us. It now sits in our mini-library for us to read.
Friday 30th January 2026
Another brilliant week in Year 2! This week in Health and Wellbeing we have been learning about our teeth and the reasons why it is important to brush them. To demonstrate our learning we enjoyed making posters to show how to keep our teeth healthy!
In Religious Education we explored what a ritual is and what different rituals can look like. We considered the difference between a routine and a ritual and gained a deeper understanding of the ‘special’ element behind a ritual. We discussed different activities that we complete and debated if these were rituals or routines.
Friday 23rd January 2026
What a fabulous week in Year 2! In Maths this week, we have been learning how to compare and order numbers. We have practised looking carefully at each digit to decide which numbers are greater than or less than. We have used concrete resources to help our understanding. In English, we have been focusing on adverbs. We have explored how adverbs can describe how, when or where an action happens and we have been using them to improve our sentences and add more detail to our writing.
Friday 16th January 2026
Another fantastic week has passed by in Year 2. We started the week by exploring our new English learning journey ‘The Night Gardener’. We began by listening to the story and understanding the characters feelings. The noticed how the characters feelings changed when a new topiary appeared. The topiaries made people feel better so we went outside the classroom and made our very own mini topiaries. In Maths, be built upon our knowledge of counting. We used a number line to count forwards and backwards in steps of 2 and 3. We used concrete manipulatives to represent numbers and demonstrate our understanding.
Friday 9th January 2026
What a great start Year 2 have had in 2026! This week in Design and Technology we were engineers exploring how to join pieces of paper using split pins. We had lots of fun exploring and testing different places to put the pins and discussing which join gave the best movement.
We have started our gymnastics lessons in Physical Education this week. We have been learning the basic gymnastic shapes including straddle, tuck, pike and arch. We created strong clear shapes with good posture and extension. We made sure to squeeze our muscles to help with our balance and control.
Also in History we explored the life of Mary Seacole and learnt lots of facts regarding her achievements. We created a presentation to share the knowledge we have gained all about Mary Seacole.
Friday 19th December 2025: Week 7
IT’S CHRISTMAS! What a fantastic last week we have had in Year 2 before the Christmas holidays. Outside of the classroom had lots of fun at the disco and enjoyed watching the panto. In class this week, we have built upon their ability to add numbers in Mathematics including bridging into the next tens. In English, we created a poem which contained a magic box and we could put all our favourite things in.
Friday 12th December 2025: Week 6
This week in Year 2 we have been scientific investigators. We have looked at different materials to find out which ones would make the best waterproof umbrella. We enjoyed testing a range of materials by dripping water on them to see what happened. We compared our results and discovered which materials soaked up the water and which ones kept it out.
Friday 5th December 2025: Week 5
This week in Year 2 we have been learning how to measure length. We have used rulers to measure different objects in centimetres. We then used our knowledge to compare and combine different lengths.
During Physical Education we were learning to explore exercise to develop strength. We had fun working in pairs doing star jumps, lunges, tuck jumps to name but a few! We took it in turns to count how many different exercises each partner could do.
Friday 28th November 2025: Week 4
This week, we have been exploring measure in Maths. At the end of the week, we demonstrated our knowledge of money by showing specific amount of money by using a combination of coins. In Longitudinal studies, we created mini composters for the class. We used sand, soil, vegetable peelings and worms for our observation. We then recorded our observations over the week. We can’t wait to see what happens to our mini composts next!
Friday 21st November 2025: Week 3
It’s been another fabulous week in Year 2! In Health and Wellbeing, we explored the importance of looking after our money. We discussed why money has value and considered ways we can save for the things we need or want. We also thought carefully about how to keep our money safe while saving.
In English, we have been working on writing recounts in the form of diary entries about The Great Fire of London. The children have enjoyed imagining life in 1666 and expressing their ideas creatively through their writing!
Friday 14th November 2025: Week 2
It has been another fantastic week in Year 2. Firstly in English we have written a recount in the form of a diary entry. We have been learning how to write in past tense and using exclamation marks. There were some brilliant outcomes!
Secondly in Religious Education we have been exploring how light is used as a symbol. The children created their own candles using oil pastels.
Friday 7th November 2025: Week 1
Great to have everyone back after half term! We have done lots of great learning across the week. Firstly in science we selected a range of resources that were human-made or naturally made. Children had to decide which categories the resources belonged to.
Secondly in Physical Education we began our Samba dance for the half term. We had great fun listening to the music and creating our own moves. Next we began to learn a routine and applied it to the music.
Friday 24th October 2025: Week 7
Another fun week in Year 2! This week we have made chairs for Baby Bear in Design and Technology; they were absolutely superb! In Maths, we have been looking at multiplication whilst using arrays to help us. What a brilliant final week of a brilliant half term! Have a fun and safe week off and see you soon!
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Friday 10th October 2025: Week 5
This week, we continued our learning of ‘Team Building’ within our P.E. lessons. In a small group, we had to move from one area to another without stepping outside of the hoop. This required us to communicate and work collaboratively to achieve our goal. We also joined hands in a circle and moved the hoop around all of us without breaking the circle. It was great fun and we really enjoyed trying to solve the task.
Friday 3rd October 2025: Week 4
It’s been another great week in Year 2! Children started to explain why the fire during The Great Fire of London spread so quickly. Additionally, in Maths, we have been comparing a range of two-digit numbers. We have used terminology such as ‘greater than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’. We also used a range of concrete manipulatives and pictorial methods to represent numbers.
Friday 26th September: Week 3
This week, we started an exciting new Learning Journey in English with Goldilocks and the Three Bears! We went on a hunt around the federation to find the bears and ask them questions. Using clues and our inference skills, we worked together to guess what our new Learning Journey would be.
Friday 19th September: Week 2
A big thank you to everyone who brought in their special books. The children loved sharing their books with everyone. In Maths, we portioned a wide range of two-digit numbers into their tens and ones. We used concrete manipulatives which helped our understanding of each number.
Friday 12th September: Week 1
We had a fantastic time learning about the Great Fire of London thanks to a brilliant workshop delivered by Open Box. The children were completely immersed in the story of 1666, exploring how the fire started, why it spread so quickly, and how London was rebuilt afterwards. Through drama, storytelling, and hands-on activities, the children stepped into the shoes of Londoners from the past and discovered how life was changed forever by the fire. It was a fun, engaging, and memorable way to bring our History curriculum to life and we all learned so much!
Friday 11th July 2025: Week 6
Arts Week has been fantastic! It has been lovely to see the creative side of all the children who have shown enormous resilience and perseverance when working on their art designs. We hope you managed to see the amazing showcase they have contributed to at the Arts Festival. See you next week for the final week in Year 2!
Friday 4th July 2025: Week 5
Lights, camera, action! Thank you to all the parents that came to watch the children in their Production of ‘Whiz Wham Alakazam’. The children were fantastic all week and should be very proud of themselves. We also took part in our country dancing performance today. Everyone remembered their routines very well, especially considering the heat. We hope you all enjoyed it!
Friday 27th June 2025: Week 4
We were all very excited to take part in our re-scheduled sports days this week. The Year 2 team were extremely impressed with how the children showed resilience and perseverance throughout. We are looking forward to seeing you again next week to showcase our swimming, production and country dancing!
Friday 20th June 2025: Week 3
This week, we have been learning 10 different colours in French — it has been lots of fun and very exciting! In Art, we began by sketching out our ideas. We have been exploring the work of artist Natsumi Tomita, who creates animal-inspired sculptures using recyclable materials. We then planned out our own creative designs, ready to bring them to life.
Friday 13th June 2025: Week 2
Another great week in Year 2. We started off the week by exploring our new artist for Summer term, Natsumi Tomita. Natsumi collects all kinds of waste materials and combines them together to create unique animal sculptures. We looked through lots of different sculptures she made and discussed what we liked most about them.
Friday 6th June 2025: Week 1
Welcome back Year 2! We have a busy half term coming up and we can’t wait to share it with you.
This week we have started a new English Learning Journey ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare. We then had a go at re-enacting some scenes to help us understand the play, we had lots of fun! We have also started to rehearse our production, which we are very excited about!
Friday 23rd May 2025: Week 5
What a great final week in Year 2! This week we have made our own healthy wraps in Design and Technology, they tasted brilliant. We also had a lovely treat – Open Box came to teach us even more about the Titanic! Have a great half term everyone.
Friday 16th May 2025: Week 4
We have had another exciting week in Year 2! On Monday, we began our new learning journey of ‘Amazing Africa’ by playing some African drums. We had so much fun playing different beats and getting a glimpse of African culture. Next, we practiced crossing the road safely as part of our Health and Wellbeing. We remembered to look to both ways and wait for no traffic! Finally, to help expand our knowledge of Africa, we explored different videos through VR headsets.
Friday 9th May 2025: Week 3
We had a very exciting visitor this week, we found The Truth Pixie hiding inside the teepee and we tried to persuade her to come out. We thought carefully about our reasons and used all persuasive techniques we learnt during our English learning. Unfortunately, she never came out! We have then written her a letter, hopefully she will come out this time! We have also been watering our beans ready for Summer 2 and have been observing the life cycle of butterflies. We will keep you updated with how they grow.
Friday 2nd May 2025: Week 2
This week has been so exciting! We ventured over to Southampton and visited the Titanic museum as a part of our History learning. We explored our enquiry question ‘What was life like on the Titanic and was it the same for everyone?’ We learnt lots of new information and can’t wait to implement our recent findings into our work back at school!
Friday 25th April 2025: Week 1
Welcome back Year 2! Even in this short week, we have been taking part and completing lots of fun activities! Firstly, in History, we explored how on The Titanic, the ship had different areas depending on the different classes. We looked at the bedrooms and the facilities the people in First class would have compared to people in the Second and Third class. In Science, we started our learning on seeds and bulbs. We discussed how different fruits contain seeds and plants from bulbs don’t have seeds. We finished our learning by looking at seeds within fruit under a magnifying class and a microscope.
Friday 4th April 2025: Week 6
A fantastic end to Spring term in Year 2! In Maths, we were looking at the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and then finding which 2D shapes we can see on the 3D shape. We then moved to Geography where we decided what clothes we would need to pack for a cold or a hot holiday. We used this knowledge to write an invitation to a friend to ask them to come on holiday with us and we listed the clothes they would need to pack. We hope you have a fantastic break and we are looking forward to seeing you in the Summer term!
Friday 28th March 2025: Week 5
This week in Year 2, we had the wonderful opportunity to watch the Year 1 performance of Rockpool. We created amazing artwork inspired by Abel Rodríguez, explored telling the time in Maths, and wrote brilliant book reviews about ‘Don’t Let Them Disappear’ in English.
Friday 21st March 2025: Week 4
Another fantastic week completed in Year 2! We started the week off by sharing our new text in English ‘Don’t Let Them Disappear’. The VR headsets were a perfect opportunity to see wildlife in their habitats and helped us to write down adjectives to describe animals that are endangered. In Science, we looked at how energy is transferred through food chains. We showed multiple examples where animals get their energy from and are able to survive in the wild.
Friday 14th March 2025: Week 3
Year 2 have really enjoyed learning about measure in Maths this week, to start we looked at weighing items in grams and kilograms. We thought carefully about what items we should measure in grams and which ones are heavy enough to be weighed in kilograms. After this, we moved onto capacity and experimented with measuring liquid. It was lovely to take our maths learning outside and everyone collaborated well with all the equipment and water!
Friday 7th March 2025: Week 2
Another fabulous week completed! This week in Art we have looked at how we can identify expression within artwork. We visited the tepee and looked at different artwork created by Abel Rodriguez and shared our likes and dislikes about his work. In Maths, we have been exploring how to find fractions of amounts and in PE we have been developing our skills in invasion games. On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day and all the children made such a fabulous effort and looked incredible. We had a lovely afternoon of sharing our favourite books with Year 4 and then coming back to class to do some fun activities!
Friday 28th February 2025: Week 1
What a fantastic week, we’ve had, back from half term! In Music, we explored using bells for the first time this year. We rang them in time with popular songs to create a brilliant classroom song. Next, in P.E. we have begun to learn the skills for invasion games by passing a ball to our partners to keep possession. Finally, in Science, we continued our learning of habitats by creating our own microhabitats around the Federation. We can’t wait to see which insects use them for their new home!
Friday 14th February 2025: Week 6
A great end to the half term! We have really enjoyed using VR headsets to support our English, the children came up with great adjectives to describe the animals they could see. To finish off our Design and Technology unit of work, we created our own moving monsters using linkages. We decorated them to match our design criteria. Have a lovely half term break!
Friday 7th February 2025: Week 5
What a brilliant week it has been in Year 2! On Friday this week, we celebrated Anti-Bullying Day. We read our text driver ‘We’re All Wonders’ by RJ Palacio and discussed how we can be kind to others, what makes us special and how we can celebrate other people. We all traced around our hands on coloured paper and inside our handprint we wrote a way we can be kind to others.
Friday 31st January 2025: Week 4
What a fantastic week it has been in Year 2! We ventured over to Year 5 for our Free Reading Friday. It was really nice to see all the Year 5s reading stories and looking after us. We had a great time and hope we can visit again. In Science, we looked around our outdoor area to see which animals and plants live in our local habitat. We found lots of animals that live here and shared our knowledge why they chose our habitat.
Friday 24th January 2025: Week 3
Another great week in Year 2! We became Historians and searched for evidence around the classroom to find out more about seaside from 100 years ago. We used different types of sources to gather our evidence and then we used this information to make our own posters to persuade people to visit a Victorian seaside. In Maths, we recapped addition two digit numbers and then applied this knowledge to different number problems.
Friday 17th January 2025: Week 2
What an extremely fun week we have had! Firstly, in English, we ventured outside to collect some natural resources to create our very own topiaries. There were some very creative and imaginative ones. We also had the excitement of using Bee-Bots in Computing and we were learning how to explain what happens when we change the order of instructions. Furthermore, in Health and Wellbeing we discussed the importance of washing our hands and did our own little experiment to figure out why soap is so important in the process of washing our hands.
Friday 10th January 2025: Week 1
What a fantastic week it’s been, welcoming everybody back from Christmas and the New Year. We began our learning by writing numbers from 0 – 100. We added sound buttons to the words and matched them up to the correct value to show our understanding. In music, we had lots of fun performing with BoomWhackers! Finally, in history, we explored a mystery historical box. Inside was lots of possessions people would have taken to the beach around 100 years ago. The children loved finding artifacts they haven’t seen before and to get a glimpse of the past.
