Year 2 Curriculum Guide

Throughout the year, students will be guided through six Units of Inquiry of global significance, providing opportunities to broaden their learning by developing their conceptual understandings, strengthening their knowledge and skills across, between and beyond subject areas.

The following six Units of Inquiry will be explored throughout the year. Each unit is developed around a concept, a Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry.

An inquiry into:

• Myself: My health and wellbeing
• Interactions: My relationships with others and my sense of belonging
• Growth: The impact on my learning and development

Unit timing: weekly

An inquiry into:

• Roles and responsibilities within a community (case study - Hong Lok Yuen/school) 社區內的角色和責任 (個案研究 - 康樂園/學校)
  
• Different communities we belong to 我們屬於不同的社區
  
• How people take action in the community 人們如何在社區中採取行動
  

Unit timing: Term One

An inquiry into:

• Where we live (case study - Hong Kong) 我們住在哪裡（案例研究 - 香港）
  
• Physical geography around the world 世界各地的自然地理
  
• The ways in which humans adapt to their geography 人類適應地理環境的方式
  

Unit timing: Term One

An inquiry into:

• inspiration, imagination and creativity
• personal, social and cultural modes and practices of communication
• intentions, perceptions, interpretations and responses

Unit timing: Term Two

An inquiry into:

• Actions have consequences行為有結果
• My actions impact my environment (habitat loss, care for living things, food waste)我的行為影響我的環境（棲息地喪失、關愛生物、食物浪費）
• Human actions impact the planet (case study - habitat loss)人類的行為影響地球（案例研究 - 棲息地喪失）

  
  

Unit timing: Terms Two and Three

An inquiry into:

• Case study - gravity or magnetism 案例研究 - 重力或磁力
  
• The connection between force and motion 力與運動的關係
  
• How we can investigate forces 我們如何探究力
  

Unit timing: Term Three

The development of language is fundamental to all areas of our learning programs. Language helps us communicate our thinking and understanding.

Language is socially constructed - it is dependent on social interactions and relationships. It permeates all subject areas. As such, we view all of our teachers and assistants to be language teachers.

English is our main language of instruction, with Chinese (Mandarin) taught as an additional language.

In Year 2, we continue with our phonics and camera words program, providing the students with the essential building blocks for reading and writing. Our reading program focuses on developing decoding strategies, fluency and comprehension. These are developed through a mixture of guiding reading, shared reading, read aloud and independent reading sessions. Readers will be sent home on a regular basis so students can practice taught skills after school.

Students will explore a range of text types: to entertain, to inform and to persuade. Specific writing skills will be developed around how to entertain a reader through recounts, stories and poems.

Chinese Foundation focuses on speaking, listening and social Chinese. Students read texts and environmental print and learn to write the most commonly occurring characters.

Chinese Language focuses on Chinese speaking, listening and the reading of longer texts. Students write their own longer pieces of writing.

Mathematics is a global language of concepts and symbols through which we make sense of the world around us.

Mathematics is taught through three main stages:

1. Constructing meaning and ideas about a mathematical concept through interactions with objects, discussions, experimentation and play;
2. Transferring these ideas and understandings into symbols;
3. Applying these ideas and understanding in real-life and hands-on problem solving activities.

Mathematics is taught through the strands of number, data, shape and space, measure and problem solving.

In Year 2, students will explore numbers up to 1000. They will learn addition facts to 100 and subtraction facts to 20. They will learn different addition strategies such as skip counting, doubling and counting on. They will explore the concept of multiplication through arrays and division through grouping. They also learn to recognise and represent halves, quarters, eighths and thirds.

Students will explore the concept of space by applying directional vocabulary and manipulating shapes and objects by sliding and flipping. They will measure and compare length, area, volume, mass and capacity using informal units. They will describe a range of 2D shapes and 3D objects. They will tell time to the quarter hour, name and order months and use calendars.

In Year 2, students will explore a range of land-based and freshwater environments, including local habitats. They will learn how to identify a range of native mammals. Students will also create and maintain a garden of edible plants.

Wellbeing is a central pillar of our school and is taught on a weekly basis. Students learn through Relationships and Sexuality Education, Social and Emotional Learning, PE & Health and Digital Wellbeing. There is a focus on self-management, relationship skills and fundamental movement skills.

Science and Social Studies are primarily taught through the Units of Inquiry (see above). We have new curriculum for 2025-26

This year, we will have a focus on students developing their scientific understanding in the areas of Living Things, Physical and Chemical Science and Earth and Space.

Through Social Studies, students learn about the past, the present and the future through exploring their community and finding out about the wider global community. They learn about their environment and their place in the world through place knowledge and geographical skills.

In Year 2, students have access to a shared device (an Ipad) Access is teacher-led and screen time is limited. Students will use simple coding to program a device. Students will also explore opportunities around the school for designing solutions.

• Use spoken language and body visual cues to understand and express emotions.
• Use strategies for self-regulation, recognising possible triggers for dysregulation and knowing how to avoid them.
• Begin to understand what is meant by resilience.

• Understand what is meant by ‘whole body listening.’
• Display responsibility for belongings.
• Use strategies for time management so that tasks are completed within expected time.

• Identify and follow shared classroom, playground and school norms.
• Understand what is meant by manners and how to show respect in a variety of settings.
• Understand how to resolve conflicts with friends.
• Begin to take responsibility for own actions.
• Know how and where to get support if needed.

• Listen attentively for short periods of time.
• Follow two-step instructions.
• Communicate effectively with classmates and teachers.
• Ask questions when needed.

• Comprehend most simple information presented by teachers.

• Use increasingly accurate pronunciation and grammar when speaking.

• Decode texts with a teacher at a PM level 15 or higher.
• Answer oral comprehension questions relating to the text.
• Use knowledge of phonemes and camera words (words that are not easily decoded) from the “Advanced Code” of the Get Reading Right program.
• Listen to stories daily.
• Begin to select books to read independently.

• Write stories that have a beginning, middle, and end, with an understanding that stories contain a complication or a problem.
• Write simple information texts, such as recounts or lists of facts.
• Write letters of an appropriate and consistent size.
• Use knowledge of phonemes and camera words to spell.
• Extend sentences using connecting words such as ‘and’, ‘so’ and ‘because.’
• Produce writing that can be understood although there may be spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors.

• Recognise, compare and order most numbers up to 1000.
• Count on and back from a given number up to 3 digits.
• Skip count in multiples of 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10.)
• Start to develop mental and written strategies for calculations involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals signs.
• Recognise, find and write fractions where the numerator (top number) is 1, with a focus on halves, quarters and eighths.
• Copy, extend, create and describe patterns with objects, drawings and numbers.
• Create simple representations of data, including tally charts.

• Begin to use properties of shapes (such as line symmetry) to sort, describe and name 2D and 3D shapes.
• Measure and compare length, mass and capacity.
• Describe position and direction in a practical context.

• Use problem-solving skills, such as working systematically, visualising and trial and improvement, when solving simple problems relating to real-life situations.

To see the Subject Guidance for all subjects from Nursery to Year 6 please click on this link

Email: info@ichkhly.edu.hk
Website: www.ichkhly.edu.hk
Location: 3 Hong Lok Yuen 20th Street, Hong Lok Yuen, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 3955 3000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ICHK.ICHKHongLokYuen/