Welcome to the juniors!
For English, the single most important thing that you can do is to hear your child read. Good readers make good writers because they are exposed to a greater variety of vocabulary, grammar and style. We will listen to children read throughout the school week and regularly check that they have understood what they are reading. If ready, they will then be moved to the next reading level.
We also study some great science topics that children love, such as: practically learning about our skeletal and muscular system, forces and magnets, light, plants and rocks. Fun and engaging History and Geography topics are also taught in Year Three. They will learn all about the Industrial Revolution and what it was like to be a child working at a mill. In fact, our school trip will be to Quarry Bank Mill to see first-hand what life was like. We will also learn about The Stone Age to the Iron Age and Ancient Egyptians and we will have a visitor come into school to teach us more about these topics. We will continue to build upon our knowledge of the UK focusing on counties as well as learning about countries and cities that are in Europe and in Summer term we will learn the features of rivers and where they are located in the UK and World. These will be taught wherever possible through stories/text books and cross curricular teaching to help fire the imagination and ensure that children remember. Overall, perhaps the single most important aspect of this year is children’s increasing independence and confidence in what they can achieve at school.
We also begin to place more emphasis on the learning of times tables in Year Three. The expectation by the end of Year Three, is that children are fluent and able to recall 2x, 5x, 10x, 3x, 4x, and 8x tables. However, once the children move into Year Four, there is a Government Set Multiplication Test that by the summer term, all times tables are known and learnt fluently. Anything you can do to help that knowledge go in and stay in is fantastic. We have listed some suggestions to support your child:
1. Practise regularly and go back and repeat tables, previously practised.
2. Sing tables in the car; at mealtimes; before bed; walking the dog; at any spare minute!
3. Put a poster at the end of their bed.
4. Download an app to practise on a laptop or tablet. Access Times table Rockstars regularly.
Homework is set each Friday via Google Classroom. Spellings should be learnt ready to be tested the following Friday in school. Children are expected to access Times table Rockstars at least 4 times during the week as well as regularly reading which is recorded in the reading records that are sent home.
In Year Three P.E is every Monday and Wednesday, children are expected to come to school in their full and correct P.E. kit and not wearing jewellery.
So that’s it —Year 3 at a glance. We hope the children have a lovely, happy and most of all FUN year.
Miss Abbott and Miss Knowles
