Year 2: The Emerging Writer
Key Stage 1 (SATs year)
What Year 2 looks like
iFairy editorial guidance — not part of the statutory National Curriculum. The curriculum points below summarise the official programmes of study; the documents linked further down are the authoritative wording.
How this year typically thinks
- Attention
- 15-20 minutes at a time.
- Processing
- Can hold two concepts simultaneously (e.g. character and action).
- Main driver
- Validation from adults and authority figures.
- Development
- Beginning to understand cause and effect more clearly.
Language at this stage
- Sentence structure
- Compound sentences using coordination (or, but) and early subordination (when, if, that).
- Connectives
- because, if, when, that.
- Grammar
- Consistent past/present tense; expanded noun phrases (the blue butterfly); apostrophes for contraction.
- Vocabulary
- Simple Tier 2 adjectives beginning to appear (beautiful, giant, suddenly).
- Phonics
- Fluency becomes the focus, over decoding.
Curriculum highlights
- Using expanded noun phrases for description.
- Using full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks and question marks.
- Writing about real events.
- Proof-reading to check for errors.
Official source documents
Official documents from the Department for Education and the Standards and Testing Agency. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Matched to Year 2 through the learning objectives these documents contain.