Autumn Curriculum 2026
Welcome to the Autumn Term in Year 2!
Our Autumn term is packed with exciting learning opportunities, new experiences and plenty of chances for the children to develop their skills and confidence across the curriculum.
We’ll begin our literacy learning with a much-loved traditional fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood. The children will explore the characters and their different personalities before creating their own character descriptions. Along the way, they will revisit their understanding of adjectives and build on this by learning how to use expanded noun phrases to make their writing more descriptive and engaging.
In maths, we follow the White Rose Maths scheme, beginning the term by developing a secure understanding of place value. The children will explore tens and ones, learning to recognise the value of each digit in a number and understand the important role of zero as a placeholder. Alongside this, the NCETM Mastering Number programme will help develop strong number sense, fluency and confidence with numbers. Times tables will also be a regular part of our daily maths sessions, with a particular focus on building quick and confident recall of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, as well as applying this knowledge to solve problems.
Our science topic, Animals Including Humans, will encourage the children to think about what living things need to survive. They will explore the differences between things that are living, dead and those that have never been alive. We'll also investigate the fascinating world of habitats. The children will discover how different habitats provide for the basic needs of the plants and animals that live there and begin to understand the ways in which living things depend on one another.
In geography, we’ll be asking the children an important question: Would you rather live in a hot or cold place? To help them make their decision, they will locate the North and South Poles on maps, learn about the Equator, and investigate the key features of hot and cold places around the world.
Our history learning will bring the past closer to home as we investigate how our school has changed over time. The children will discover what school was like in the past and compare a modern classroom with one from more than 100 years ago. They will also develop their understanding of chronology by using a timeline to place photographs in chronological order, helping them to see how our school and education have changed over the years.
Our creative subjects will be just as busy! In Design and Technology, the children will learn about healthy, balanced meals and have the opportunity to design and create their own.
In Art, they will get hands-on as they explore felt-making and printing techniques, experimenting with different processes and materials to create their own unique pieces of artwork.
And, of course, no Autumn term would be complete without getting ready for our Nativity performance! As Christmas approaches, the children will have the exciting opportunity to develop their acting, singing and performing skills before taking to the stage. The Nativity is always a special time of year, but it also provides a wonderful opportunity for the children to develop confidence, resilience and public-speaking skills as they perform in front of an audience.
It’s going to be a busy and exciting couple of months, filled with discovery, creativity and lots of opportunities to learn. I can’t wait to get started and see the children flourish throughout the term!
