Year 2 2025-26
Welcome to Badgers' and Foxes' page, where you can find regular updates on our news and learning!
Week beginning 15th June 2026
Firstly, we would like to say a huge 'thank you' to our incredible Maypole Team for their amazing performance at Ashtead Village Day last Saturday. We are so proud of you all. Thank you, parents and families, for your support.
These past few weeks in Year 2 have been full of excitement and great learning. We have finished writing our pirate stories and will move onto a new unit all about persuasive writing over the next few weeks. We are going to start by writing letters to Mrs Gibbard to try to persuade her to extend our playtimes...!
In Maths, we have been learning about position, direction and movement, using Mathematical vocabulary like 'left', 'right', 'forwards', 'backwards', 'full turn', 'half turn', 'quarter turn', 'clockwise' and 'anti-clockwise'. We had great fun giving our friends directions for moving on the playground.
We are really enjoying our Science learning all about 'Growing Up'. We have learnt about the life cycle of humans and other mammals, as well as the life cycle of a frog. Next week, we are going to learn more about the life cycle of a butterfly.
We are getting ready for the Mini-Olympics at The Greville next Friday, practising all our Athletic skills with coach Harvey, and are excited for Sports Day the week after!
Enjoy the sunny weekend...
Week Beginning 2nd June 2026
Badgers and Foxes have settled back into school really well after the half term break. The first week back was exciting because we were continuing our swimming lessons and we also attended the Year 2 Music Festival at The Greville Primary School. We spent the morning with lots of other Year 2 children from across Ashtead, singing together and enjoying music. It was a lovely morning! Thank you to those parents who were able to walk with us - we couldn't give the children these great experiences without your help.
In Maths we are now learning about Statistics. We have learnt about tallying, creating tables, block graphs and pictograms. We are learning to create graphs as well as interpret them.
We are continuing to innovate the story of pirate Penelope in our English lessons and we are developing our joining skills in our handwriting sessions.
Our DT project this half term is to design and make an animal puppet. We have seen some fantastic designs so far and can't wait to see the final results in a few weeks' time!
In Science we are enjoying learning about life-cycles and the children have shown some excellent knowledge already.
The Maypole Team are very excited to showcase their dancing at Ashtead Village Day on Saturday 13th June at about 1.15pm. We hope to see lots of you there!
Week Beginning 11th May 2026
The weeks are flying by and we cannot believe there is only one more week left of this half term!
Over the past few weeks, we have enjoyed our Art lessons where we have made our own 'kinetic sculptures' - sculptures that move in the wind. We have been learning some Maypole dances in our PE lessons and the Maypole Team are busy rehearsing for Ashtead Village Day in June. Coach Harvey has been teaching the children to play rounders, which has been a big hit!
We are coming to the end of our learning about The Great Fire of London now, and the children know lots of facts about what happened in 1666. We have enjoyed thinking about what London was like in the past.
We are busy learning a range of songs for the Music Festival which we are looking forward to attending at the beginning of June.
This week in English we began learning the story of Pirate Penelope. This is a journey story in which Pirate Penelope goes to look for treasure with her pirate crew. Ask your child to retell the story - you will be most impressed! Next week, we will begin innovating the story, making it our own.
In our Maths lessons, we have been revising how to tell the time. We started off learning about o'clock and half past, and soon moved on to quarter past and quarter to the hour. Now we are learning to tell the time in five minute intervals past and to the hour. Keep practising this at home! It will really help...
We are excited to begin our swimming lessons next week - thank you to those parents who are able to offer their time to help out with supervising changing.
Week Beginning 27th April 2026
Year 2 are very much enjoying the learning so far this term, and we've also loved playing on the field at breaktimes and lunchtimes, since the weather has been dry and sunny!
This week, we completed our English unit on instructions. We learnt our model text 'How to Look After a Pet Dragon' and then innovated to write our own instructions for looking after different animals and creatures. From tarantulas, to unicorns and alicorns to creepers, foxes and tiger cubs, you name it, we had instructions for how to take care of it! The teachers really enjoyed reading our writing. Next week, we go back to fiction writing and will be learning the story of Pirate Penelope.
We are also starting our whole class reading sessions next week!
In Maths, we completed a three-week unit on fractions. We have learnt how to recognise equal and unequal groups and parts, we have learnt to recognise and find halves, quarters, thirds and even three-quarters of shapes and amounts! We have been so impressed with the children's knowledge!
Next week, we move on to revising how to tell the time. We will begin with o'clock and half past, moving on to quarter to and quarter past and even learning to tell the time to five minutes! Please practice at home as much as you can! Every little helps!
We have enjoyed dancing around the Maypole as part of our PE learning this week and everyone is invited to join Maypole Club which will begin next Thursday lunchtime. Please remember to bring your slip that confirms you are available to dance on Saturday 13th June at Ashtead Village Day.
In Art we have been learning about sculptures and sculptors. We made our own sculptures of the human form out of clay last week. Next week, we will make sculptures that move - these are called 'kinetic sculptures'.
We hope you have a lovely long weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday next week.
January 2026
We have had a great start to the Spring term and we cannot believe we are already half way through...! Only three more weeks until February Half Term, and lots of learning to do.
So far this half term, we have been learning about multiplication and division in our Maths lessons. We have practised multiplying by 2 and dividing by 2 and we noticed that that's the same as doubling and halving! We have enjoyed trying to beat our class best score on 'Hit the Button'. Don't forget that you can play this at home as well. The more you practise, the better you'll get! (That's 'neuroplasticity')!
In Computing we have used technology to create sounds and next week we will move on to learning about coding. Our Dance lessons have had a winter theme and in Art we are learning all about the French artist, Henri Rousseau. Can you name his most famous painting?
We are learning about 'Nurturing Nurses' in our History lessons. So far we have learnt about Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Next week, we will learn about Edith Cavell.
We are enjoying our English unit all about 'Beat the Baddie' stories and writing character descriptions. We have created a story map for The Three Little Pigs and next week we will start to innovate the story, creating our own characters.
We are getting really good at playing the recorder now. We have learnt the notes b, a and g and can play a whole range of tunes!
Our Science learning this half term is about plants and habitats. Next week, we will carry out an experiment to find out whether plants grow better in the dark or in the sunlight. What do you predict...?
Week beginning 15th December 2025
What a lovely few weeks we have had in Year 2!
We have loved practising and performing our Christmas Show at St George's for you. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
In our English lessons, we have been learning how to create suspense in our stories and we have written our own versions of 'Peter and the Wolf'.
We have been learning about 'Money' in Maths and in Science we loved carrying out our experiment to see which paper would be best for mopping up a spillage. We predicted kitchen roll and we were right!
We were very proud of the moving toys we designed and made as part of our DT unit 'Wonderful Wheels'.
We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and look forward to seeing everyone back in school on Tuesday 6th December...
Thank you for our very lovely and generous gifts!
Week beginning 17th November 2025
Winter has arrived! The children were so excited to see the snow yesterday and with temperatures dropping please ensure your child has a coat, lunchtimes can get particularly cold!
The children are really enjoying our new Talk for Writing theme of suspense writing and have been brainstorming fantastic vocabulary and exciting sentence starters for their innovated versions.
In Maths, we have been exploring 2D shape. We have been very impressed by what they have been able to recall. The children have been using the mathematical terms- polygons and vertices, see if they can explain them to you. We have been using squared paper to draw shapes…including a very complex house.
In DT we have continued to investigate wheels and axles and the children really enjoyed the hands-on exploration of making a moving peg vehicle this week. Please continue to send in toilet rolls as we will begin making their moving toys over the coming weeks.
In Science we have been learning about materials. The children have been exploring and testing their properties, and have been able to sort them in a variety of ways including recyclable and non. This week we will be planning an investigation and learning about fair testing.
The children have particularly enjoyed this terms computing lessons based upon famous artists and using 2Paint to create masterpieces using pointillism, patterns and lines in the style of Pier Mondrian.
It has come to our attention that since our school website was upgraded at the end of September, any changes to the calendar are not syncing with devices that had previously subscribed to our calendar on the old website. Please remove the old subscription from your devices and subscribe to the updated version here:
Barnett Wood Infant School - Calendar
Click subscribe and follow the instructions for your device.
Over the next couple of weeks there are a few notable dates:
Weds 26th Nov- we have a author visiting the children during assembly time.
Weds 3rd Dec- Art and DT morning
Thurs 4th Dec- non-uniform day in exchange for bottles and lucky bags for the Christmas Fair
Fri 5th Dec- Inset Day
Week beginning 6th October 2025
With the weather starting to feel very autumnal it feels perfect for celebrating our Harvest. Rehearsals are going brilliantly and we are very excited for our performances next week. Please continue to learn lines and practice songs, we look forward to seeing you on Thursday 16th Oct, 9.15 at St Georges Church.
We are now working securely with place value and have begun to focus on addition and subtraction. We have been using a variety of methods including: number bonds to 10, partitioning, 10’s frames and number lines. Ask your child to share which is their preferred method and give you a demonstration.
In Art we have been looking at artists famous for painting portraits including Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. We’ve had lots of fun experimenting with abstract portraits and using water colours.
After our launch and the huge success of our Mental Health programme My Happy Mind we have returned to the first module of The Brain. We have been extremely impressed with how much the children have been able to recall. In Yr2 we progress from understanding the parts of the brain and their function (Team HAP) to learning about neuroplasticity and how we can use this to help us when we learn. Remember if you haven’t already signed up to the Happy Mind app take a moment and access support materials on a range of things for you as a family as well as find out more about what we learn at school.
This week we have finished our Zig the Alien stories! We displayed what wonderful and creative imaginations we have and look forward to sharing them with you during the consultation evenings- Tues 4th Nov 3.30-6.30pm and Thurs 6th Nov 4-7 pm, if you haven’t already, sign up via your Arbor account.
Week beginning 22nd September 2025
We have had a great start to Year 2, learning lots of new routines and reminding ourselves of our school rules and values.
Foxes and Badgers are enjoying being ambassadors and showing our younger children a great example of how to be responsible and make sure that everyone at school feels safe.
We have been revising our knowledge of place value in Maths, learning about part-whole models, place value charts and comparing and ordering numbers.
In English, we have learned the story of 'Zig the Alien' and we will be writing our own versions of the story over the next week or so.
Our Phonics review lessons of Phase 5 are going very well, and it is good to see everyone making an effort to learn their weekly spelling words.
In Science, we had a super time exploring and even holding real fish.
We have begun thinking about our Harvest Performance which will take place at St George's church on the 16th October. Please keep an eye out for your child's words in their reading records. We'd like the children to learn these by heart if possible, please!
If your child does not have a speaking part this time, they will be a musician instead and will get a chance to speak at our Christmas performance.
Recorders have come home this week. The children have learned the very first note, note B.
Ask your child to show you what they have learned! The children need to look after their recorders and bring them to school every day.
