Spring Term 1
2025
Year 3
Welcome back to Year 3!
Here you will find all of the key information about what the children are getting up to this term. The door for Year 3 will be opened at 8:45am and will close at 8.55am for registration. Please ensure children arrive on time to ensure that they can settle into the school day successfully.
Reading
The novels we will be reading this term are The Wild RObot by Peter Brown– When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? And, most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings? The second novel we will be reading is The Boy Who Stole the Pharaoh’s Lunch – In a village by the Nile, Seth enjoys working for the tradesmen and has fun playing with the children. But when he steps in to save a pet hyena that was destined to become the Pharaoh’s lunch, Seth risks turning the villagers against him. Will he ever be able to escape and find his way back to his own time?
Reading continues to be an important part of the day. Please ensure that your child reads at home daily and that this is recorded in their reading record. Your child’s reading book and reading record need to be sent into school daily to enable us to read at school, change books and monitor your child’s reading progress. A mixture of reading to an adult as well as reading independently is encouraged in order for children to develop their fluency and comprehension. Our library day is Thursday.
Writing
As writers, we will be focussing our writing on two rich texts. The first is Michael Morpurgo’s “The Pied -Piper of Hamelin” and “Escape from Pompeii” by by Christina Balit. These significant children’s literature has been chosen to engage, challenge and support children to be critical readers and confident and informed writers. All National Curriculum requirements of grammar, spelling, vocabulary, literary language and composition are embedded leading towards a variety of purposeful and exciting shorter, longer and extended writing outcomes where the audience and purpose is clear.
Our big focus in writing is neat presentation, handwriting and practising saying what we want to write before we write it so we can make our piece the best it can be. During writing the children may take on the role of one of the characters, they will definitely share ideas with their partner and the class and there is lots of fun discussion to be had too.
Maths
In Maths, we will be starting the term with multiplication and division and then moving onto length and perimeter We will be continuing to practise and consolidate the children’s methods of calculation for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The children will continue to come home with their TTRS login at the back of their reading record and so please can they practise their times tables at home. The children can achieve certificates and badges if they can reach Rockstar, Rock Legend and Rock Hero status!
Broader Curriculum
We will be starting this first half of the term with our new geography unit – Land Use where the children will discover various ways that land is used across the South West of England. Then the term will finish with the science unit, forces and magnets where the children will be answering the key question ‘How do magnets work?’. Children will explore simple pushes and pulls as an introduction to forces. They will explore how the texture of an object or the surface it is on can affect how the object moves. They will then explore pushes and pulls further by investigating different magnets and how they can pull (attract) and push (repel) at a distance without contact.
Physical Education
Our focus in PE this term is fitness and tennis.
During our fitness unit, pupils are exposed to a range of activities that explore and develop different areas of their health and fitness. Pupils will learn that being fit means having strong, healthy bodies and more energy for everyday life activities. They will practice various activities using fundamental movement skills, such as running and jumping to improve their strength and fitness. This unit will also highlight how regular physical activity boosts their focus in school and overall happiness.
Tennis is a net and wall game. In this unit pupils develop their understanding of the principles of net and wall games. In all games activities, pupils have to think about how they use skills, strategies and tactics to outwit the opposition. Pupils learn key skills such as racket control, hitting a ball and how to score points. Pupils are given opportunities to play games independently and are taught the importance of being honest whilst playing to the rules.
If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to email me at:
a.warner-lee@southill.dorset.sch.uk
Thank you for your continued support,
Andrea 🙂