Year 3
Welcome to Year 3!
We’re so excited to begin Summer 2 and continue our fantastic Year 3 journey of learning, discovery and fun! This half‑term, we’ll build on everything we’ve achieved so far, exploring new topics, deepening our skills and celebrating how much everyone has grown.
Our classroom remains a place where curiosity and creativity thrive, and we can’t wait to finish the year together with pride, laughter and wonderful memories.
Summer 2 Weekly Timetable
Each day, the children will focus on the core subjects in the morning – Writing, Whole Class Reading, Maths, Spelling and Times Tables. Foundation subjects are spread out throughout the week.
Important sessions to note:
Monday - Singing and homework will be sent home
Tuesday - PE with Mrs Taylor and Class Prayer
Wednesday - Gospel Assembly, PE with Coach Danny and Music with Mrs Allen
Thursday - Class Prayer, Homework due in, Spelling and Arithmetic Tests
Friday - Praise Assembly
Please remember to have your PE kit in school every day. Children need to be in full school uniform and will get changed at school, prior to the lesson.
Homework
Homework will be set and sent home on a Monday and should be returned by a Thursday.
Children should spend 20 minutes on each piece of weekly homework. Children do not need to complete all their homework in one go. Little and often throughout the week is key!
English and Maths homework will be sent on a 3-week rotation, unless there is a particular 'Themed' homework that week. We have been providing a homework club twice a week, which has been a real success. Please contact the school office if you would like your child to attend.
English Homework – reading or writing (one piece on a three-week rotation)
Maths Homework – consolidation of the week and / or timetables (one piece on a three-week rotation)
Themed homework - if there is a significant event happening, we will use homework as a chance to explore these, instead of English or Maths.
Times Tables Rockstars and Spelling Frame - all children have personal logins. Children need to practise every day in preparation for their arithmetic and spelling tests on a Thursday. (Daily for 10 minutes)
Reading - children need to read every day and have their reading diary signed (Daily for 10 minutes).
What will we learn during Summer 2 ?
Writing
In our literacy lessons, we will be exploring the following texts:
The Gardener by Sarah Stewart (Non-fiction - letter writing)
How a Robot Dog Works (Non-fiction – Explanation)
The children will develop their writing skills through sentence-stacking lessons and build up to an independent writing task.
The independent writing tasks this half-term will be to write a letter from a different viewpoint and to write an explanation for an electronic household pet such as an i-cat, i-rabbit or i-hamster.
Key websites to support writing development
Grammar, punctuation and spelling - KS2 English - BBC Bitesize
Reading
During our guided reading lessons this half-term, Year 3 will be reading and analysing text excerpts of the following:
My Skin, Your Skin by Laura Henry-Allain
Strict by Michael Rosen
Watch Michael Rosen performing the poem:
https://youtu.be/z1cfVQyrQ3Q?si=mQc49JMBaNGk8NVs
Our lessons will focus on reading fluency, understanding word meanings in context, summarising and answering retrieval questions. We will also focus on developing independent inference skills so children can read beyond the surface meaning and explore the ideas, themes and messages in both the non‑fiction text and the poem.
For our class novel lessons, the children will continue to explore and read the whole text of The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd.
Maths
In Maths, we will study Shape and Statistics.
We continue to use White Rose Maths, firstly developing the children's fluency and building on the application of mathematical knowledge to deepen their understanding, master concepts and apply what they have learnt to a range of problem-solving and reasoning.
Here are some links to help with learning:
2D shapes - Year 3 Maths - BBC Bitesize
Tables, graphs and charts - Year 3 Maths - BBC Bitesize
Times Tables
The children have dedicated time twice a week to learn and practise times tables to ensure they are increasing in accuracy and speed. This needs to be supported daily at home for at least 10 minutes. By the end of Year 3, children should aim to know the 3, 4 and 8 times tables as well as 2, 5, 10 times tables.
Times Tables Rock Stars (ttrockstars.com)
RE - Dialogue and Encounter
In this branch, the children will explore what it means to care for others, learning from the story of the Good Samaritan and the message Jesus shared about loving our neighbour. They will discover that the Church teaches Christians to work together to help all people, especially those in need, and they will look at the different ways their own local Christian community supports and cares for others today. The children will also learn that Jewish people keep the Sabbath, or Shabbat, holy and worship in the synagogue, and that many Jewish religious words come from Hebrew. As they explore these ideas, the children will come to understand that people from different communities have different religious experiences, and that we can listen to and learn from one another with respect and curiosity.
Science - Scientists and Inventors
The children will be exploring the following:
- That X‑rays allow us to see inside the human body, showing bones, teeth and joints that cannot be seen from the outside.
- How George Washington Carver discovered more than one hundred uses for peanuts, creating products such as paints, face creams, plastics and medicines to help farmers earn a better income.
- That the Earth’s core is made of solid iron and nickel and is as hot as the surface of the sun.
- That Inge Lehmann was a seismologist who studied the Earth and discovered the existence of the Earth’s inner core.
Useful Websites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z6bnd6f
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=766aZ2t9dmM
Geography - Rivers
The children will be learning about the following:
- That every river begins as a small stream at its source and ends where it meets the sea at an estuary.
- How streams join together to form a river.
- That the River Thames is the longest river in England.
- That many rivers in Europe flow through more than one country, including the River Danube, which travels through ten European countries.
- That Africa has two major rivers — the Nile and the Niger — and that both flow through several different countries. The River Nile is the longest river in the world.
- That Asia has five important rivers — the Yellow, the Yangtze, the Ob, the Ganges and the Indus — and that the Yellow and the Yangtze flow through China.
- That the Amazon River is located in South America and is the second longest river in the world.
- That the Mississippi River is located in North America.
- That the Murray River is located in Australia.
- That dams are built by people to control the flow of water in rivers.
Useful Websites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z7w8pg8
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/articles/z6qsf4j
Art - Collage
The children will explore the following:
- How to spot Romare Bearden’s collage style and talk about the ideas shown in his artwork.
- How to use photos, textures and colours to create interesting and expressive collage effects.
- How to experiment by cutting, rearranging and overlapping images to see what new ideas emerge.
- How to plan their collage by thinking carefully about who is in it, what is happening and why.
- How to tell a story through their artwork using expressions, actions and small details.
- How to create a narrative collage that shows a moment within a community.
- How to talk kindly about artwork and give helpful, thoughtful feedback to others.
- How to reflect on their own work and a partner’s work, noticing what works well and what could be improved.
Physical Education
In Year 3, children will take part in Foot Golf and cricket lessons where they will learn how to kick a football accurately towards a target, understand the difference between using the inside of the foot and their laces, and begin applying power and tactical thinking in modified games and team formats. They will also explore batting and fielding in cricket, learning how to throw overarm for distance, underarm for accuracy, catch safely, and strike the ball with intent to score runs. As their skills grow, they will learn how to outwit opponents in both sports and bring their learning together in small‑sided games and simple intra‑school competitions.
Computing
Creating Media - Desktop Publishing
The children will continue to learn key desktop publishing skills as they explore how text and images work together to share information. They will recognise that words and pictures can be edited and arranged in different ways, choose suitable page settings, and add their own content to create a simple publication. They will also learn how different layouts suit different purposes and begin to understand why desktop publishing is a useful tool for presenting information clearly and creatively.
