Welcome to Year 2
By Year 2, children are becoming more independent in following routines, understanding rules, and taking responsibility for small tasks. They listen to others, wait their turn, and begin solving simple disagreements with words. Emotionally, they can name a wider range of feelings, show empathy, build stronger friendships, and gain confidence in trying new things. However, they may still need support with managing big emotions, handling friendship ups and downs, and accepting when things don’t go their way.
By Year 2, children are expected to work confidently with numbers up to 100, understanding tens and ones, and using number bonds, addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication and division facts (2s, 5s, and 10s). They begin solving problems with arrays, grouping, and sharing, and can recognise simple fractions such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and 3/4. In measurement, they use standard units for length, weight, capacity, and temperature, solve money problems using coins, and tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes. They also name and describe 2D and 3D shapes, understand position and direction including turns, and interpret simple charts, pictograms, and tables.
Writing
By Year 2, children are expected to write simple, clear pieces for different purposes, such as stories, letters, and recounts, using expanded noun phrases to add detail. They should spell most common exception words correctly, use phonics for unfamiliar words, and apply common suffixes. Handwriting should show correctly formed letters of consistent size with spaces between words, and some children may begin joining. In grammar, they are learning to use capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas in lists, and apostrophes for contractions and possession. Their writing should mostly stay in the correct tense, with ideas linked using conjunctions like and, because, or but. They also begin planning, checking, and making simple improvements to their work.
Reading
By Year 2, children are expected to read most words quickly and accurately, using phonics to tackle unfamiliar ones and recognising common exception words. They can read longer words, contractions, and words with common suffixes. In comprehension, they should be able to retell stories, make simple predictions, and answer questions about what they’ve read. They begin to notice story structure, favourite words, and recurring phrases, and can find information in non-fiction texts. Most importantly, they are developing confidence and enjoyment in reading a wide range of stories, poems, and information books.