Our Learning

Year 2 is an exciting year full of rich and engaging learning. In Birch Class, we embrace challenge and support each other every step of the way.

In our first history unit of the year, we travel back to the seventeenth century learn all about the Great Fire of London: how it started, how it spread and how it impacted our city of London. We learn about the information historians have gained from Samuel Pepys’ diary as a primary source.

Later in the autumn term, we learn all about our borough of Hackney in geography. As geographers, we develop our map reading skills and carry out fieldwork into the uses of water around where we live.  We find out about the local canals and think about what it is like to live on a boat.

In the spring term, we explore the lives and achievements of three inspiring activists: Emily Davison, Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai. As historians, we learn about the contexts in which they used their voices to promote change and consider similarities and differences between them. We make links to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and consider the strong link between historic and contemporary activism and Article 2 (the right to non-discrimination) and Article 13 (the right to freedom of expression). In our geography unit, we learn more about the United Kingdom and its four countries and capital cities, before comparing the physical geography of these locations.

In the summer term, Year 2 learn all about the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 and the impact of this migration on Hackney to better understand our borough’s diversity. We finish the year by taking our geography learning to Africa and explore the physical and human geography of Uganda to enable us to make comparisons between locations in different continents. As the weather gets warmer, we relish opportunities to take our learning outdoors and spend time in our Springfield Growing Space when learning about plants.

Through out the year we continue to develop our fluency in reading.  We read a wide range of books and draw inspiration from them for writing our own stories, information texts and diaries. We also explore a rich range of texts in our class reading spine.

Take a look at the Year 2 – Yearly Learning Overview to find out more about learning in each subject across Year 2.