Year 2: what to teach and where to find it.
What the national curriculum asks of this year, which parts of the free course cover it, and a term-by-term path through Level 1, Next Steps English.
Where to start
Level 1: Next Steps English
Weeks 19 to 36 of Level 1 (see Year 1 for the reasoning). Children who find Year 2 hard can stay on weeks 1 to 18 first; use the placement check.
If it feels too easy or too hard
Use the placement check, then move up or down a year on this map. Children learning English as an additional language often sit at a different level for speaking, listening, reading and writing: that is normal.
What the national curriculum asks
- By the start of Year 2 children should read all common graphemes and read many common words without blending aloud. During Year 2 teaching continues to build accurate and speedy word reading, alongside listening to a wide range of stories, poems, plays and information books (S1, Year 2).
- Handwriting: form lower-case letters of the correct size relative to one another; start using diagonal and horizontal strokes to join letters and know which letters are best left unjoined; write capitals and digits of the correct size; use spacing between words that reflects the size of the letters (S1).
- Grammar terminology for pupils: noun, noun phrase, statement, question, exclamation, command, compound, suffix, adjective, adverb, verb, tense (past, present), apostrophe, comma (S1, Appendix 2).
- In Year 2 pupils move towards more word-specific knowledge of spelling, including common exception words (S1, Appendix 1).
Summarised in our own words from the official documents listed under Sources. For exact wording, always use the official text.
How the free course covers it
| Spelling | Year 2 common exception words and rules. |
|---|---|
| Handwriting | First joins, correct size and spacing. |
| Grammar | Nouns, adjectives, verbs, past and present. |
| Writing | Postcards, instructions and story endings. |
| Reading | Longer texts, questions and repeated reading. |
Some strand pages are still being added to the site and will open as they are published. See the full plan for every strand.
Your year, term by term
A suggested path through Level 1. Each week links to the full week on the level page, with lesson outlines and free resources.
School term 1
Level 1, weeks 19 to 24
School term 2
Level 1, weeks 25 to 30
School term 3
Level 1, weeks 31 to 36
Checks and tests this year
- Children who did not meet the Year 1 phonics standard retake the check in Year 2.
- Key stage 1 national tests in English reading, grammar and spelling are optional: each school decides whether to use them and must tell parents if it does (GOV.UK, The national curriculum: key stages 1 and 2).
At home
- Ask your child to read to you for ten minutes and talk about what happened and why.
- Play with word endings: walk, walks, walked, walking.
- Let them write real things: a card, a list, a label for a box.