Year 3
Dear Parent,
Year 3 will be taught by Miss Thompson.
I am both excited and honoured to be a part of the Dame Dorothy community. In my lessons, I aim to provide a rich learning environment that emphasises practical opportunities, hands-on experiences, and meaningful discussions. Each lesson will be aligned with our curriculum topics, with a strong focus on fostering independence as students transition into Key Stage 2. I am confident that we will have a productive and enriching year in Year 3, and I look forward to supporting the children in their continued growth and development.
SPAG/Literacy
The teaching of SPAG is an important part in understanding key elements in reading and writing. This term we are looking at prepositions, adding expanded noun phrases to our writing and knowing how to punctuate direct speech.
As well as working on our Y3/4 Statutory Spellings, we will be recapping some of the prefixes and suffixes we learned in Year 2.
In handwriting, we will be working on our size of letters, presentation and practising our joined writing.
Reading
This term our class reads will be The Wild Robot and The Stolen Spear.
Our weekly reading sessions will focus on fluency, comprehension and oracy.
Ensuring children have the opportunity to explore books that link to their interests is important in developing a love of reading.
Maths
Dame Dorothy Primary School has an exceptional track record in the teaching of mathematical concepts.
Each morning, the children have mental maths to complete. It is important that the children get to school promptly at 8:45am so they don’t miss out on their mental maths. This term our learning will be focused on place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The children will use their knowledge to practise fluency, reasoning and problem solving.
Library
Each week, Year 3 students will be given a home reading book. If your child finishes their book before the week is over, they are welcome to bring it back earlier for a more frequent swap.
Miss Thompson will often have opportunities to read with the children, but please ensure that your child has completed their book by Wednesday each week. This will allow them to change it during our Thursday library session.
Topic
Our topics this term will include our local history topic linked to St Peter’s Church and Benedict Biscop. Following this, we will begin our Stone Age topic. We will be learning about the different periods and how life evolved into The Bronze Age. The children will focus on the subjects of science, geography and history and have opportunities to complete art and DT projects linked with their topic. We will also have many opportunities to take our learning outdoors through practical lessons and educational trips.
ICT
This year, we are excited to enhance our ICT curriculum with the introduction of new iPads, offering students greater opportunities for interactive learning. Throughout this term, the children will be focusing on key areas of Computer Science, including coding with Micro:bits, allowing them to develop valuable problem-solving and computational thinking skills.
In addition to technical skills, we prioritise digital citizenship by educating students on online safety and responsible internet usage. We also emphasise the importance of using digital tools effectively to support and enhance their learning journey
PE
PE lessons are on a Wednesday afternoon. Please make sure your child comes to school with the correct kit and can remove any earrings and/or jewellery they may be wearing.
This term our PE focus is netball and will be delivered via expert teaching from our PE coaches. Please note, it is essential that your child has suitable footwear for PE sessions.
Music
Y3 have biweekly music lessons taught by Mr Kyle. They learn to use musical language, for example tempo, pulse, rhythm and pitch and are encouraged to use this language when talking about the musical examples they listen to from the Model Music Curriculum. Y3 begin to learn to play the recorder and will use other tuned and untuned percussion instruments. They take part in weekly singing lessons, and they are working towards being able to sing a simple round.
Reminders
- Homework will be handed out on Fridays and should be brought into school on Monday.
- PE is Wednesday.
- Home readers will be changed on Thursday, please return to school in time to be given a new book.
- Spellings will be sent home on Monday and should be returned for the test on Friday.
- Please encourage your child to read at home and when they read, try to read alongside them, support them with understanding word meanings and ask them some questions about what they have read.
- Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any queries or concerns; I’m happy to help!
- Don’t forget we post regular updates on Facebook to show you all of our fabulous learning that has taken place.