Welcome to Year 3
Life in Year 3
Year 3 is a very exciting year as it is the year that children join our school. In the first term, we make sure that we spend time getting to know each individual child; both academically, but more importantly, personally. We love to find out about their interests, passions and any talents that they may have!
Becoming independent is a key focus of the first few weeks in year 3. We spend time with the children ensuring that they get to know the school, staff, rules, routines and behaviours that we expect from them. They are encouraged to take ownership of their learning and we work hard with them over the year to ensure that they become independent and self-reflective learners.
Learning is still hands on, and exciting trips such as visiting Poole’s Cavern to support the history focus of the Stone Age and Romans, and conducting a river study at the Longshawe Estate, ensure that our children get a variety of experiences during the year.
Our year 3 children coming to us from Halfway Nursery and Infant School have the chance to continue with recorder lessons, as well as take part in the many extra-curricular clubs that we offer throughout the year.
For more specific details about the transition into year 3, please see our transition page.
Watch our 'Curriculum Expectations' video which will talk you through all things year 3!
Staff
Miss Marklew - Class Teacher
Mr Hick - Class Teacher
Mrs Thomas - Teaching Assistant
Learning in Year 3
English
Reading
In reading, as the children become more confident in decoding words, there is a focus more towards comprehension. We encourage children to be wide and active readers, and with support, they learn to justify their views about what they have read. Our daily reading lessons cover a range of reading skills which enable children to have a deeper understanding of the text. We are keen for our children to read for pleasure and enjoy a wide variety of reading through studying both fiction and non-fiction texts, including an engaging book study each term.
Year 3 Book Study Texts:
Fiction:
Diary of a Killer cat - Anne Fine
The Boy who grew Dragons - Andy Shepherd
Non- Fiction:
Where on Earth? Rivers - Susie Brooks
Geography, Raging Rivers - Anita Ganeri
Writing
In writing, children consolidate their writing skills, use of vocabulary and their grasp of sentence structure through a carefully planned teaching sequence for writing. This includes spending time immersing them in the genre, analysing similar writing, practising spelling and grammar skills and finally planning and writing their own pieces. Writing is linked to our topics wherever possible and we encourage children to write effectively, for a range of purposes across the curriculum.
Maths
In maths we aim to develop our understanding of whole numbers up to 1000, using a range of physical resources and pictorial representations to help us to explore, compare and order numbers. We extend our knowledge of times tables to include the 3s, 4s and 8, as well as counting in 50s. We believe that it is vital for children to increase their confidence when working mentally with smaller numbers, only moving on to written methods for the four operations when numbers grow larger. We use TT Rockstars to help the children to improve the speed of their ability to recall times tables facts, and set weekly homework designed to challenge children to think mathematically and solve a range of problems.
Year 3 Curriculum Overview
Year 3 is packed full of exciting topics that cover the full breadth of the National Curriculum.
Please see the document below for a curriculum overview of the year.