Year 3
Welcome to Year 3!
The home of inspirational Sportspeople
Class Simmonds - The Class Teacher is Ms Baxter
Class Farah - The Class Teacher is Ms Boden
Reminders
- Every morning the children engage in a Wake-Up task. Please ensure your child arrives promptly to school so that they do not miss out on their start to the day. These activities begin from 8.35am.
- Please ensure your child comes to school in the correct uniform that is labelled, a bag for their belongings, labelled home-packed lunch if they are not ordering a school meal and a labelled water bottle.
- Children need to bring their own pencil case with the listed equipment, which can be bought from the school office if necessary - please see information leaflet below.
- Please ensure the children bring their school diary to school every day and you sign this on a weekly basis.
- Children with long hair need their hair tied up - please bring spare hair ties to school.
- Snacks for playtime should be healthy!
- Handwriting pens should be blue (no biros please)
- Please check your child's glue regulary.
- Please sharpen pencils at home to save learning time in lessons.
PE Lessons
- All children need to come to school wearing the correct PE kit
- Simmonds have PE on Thursdays and Fridays
- Farah have PE on Mondays and Thursdays
- Thursdays are outdoor PE lessons with coach James from BRS - on colder days, unless it is heavy rain, PE is still outside - think about a vest/base layers under school PE tops and coats.
What's coming up?
- The Learner of the Week will be announced this Friday in Celebration Assembly - who will it be? The child's name will appear in the next newsletter.
- The winners of the class reads will be announced this Friday in Celebration Assembly - we hope it will be a class from Year 3!
- Swimming lessons in the Summer 1 - Advance notice that children with earrings need to be able to remove these themselves before their lesson. All children will need a swimming hat (these can be purchased at the school Office) - 'no hat, no swim'.
- Parents Evening Appointment Bookings Open - Wednesday 12th March
- Reports go home - Friday 14th March
- Last Week of Spring Clubs - W/C 17th March
- Red Nose Day - Friday 21st March
- Parents Evenings - Monday 24th March and Wednesday 26th March
Update Spring 2 Week 6
What a fun-filled week! The children demonstrated amazing Computing skills using CAD to create a 2D net for their Easter gift box. These were printed on card and the children chose their own strengthening method. Then the children constructed their gift boxes and we are incredibly proud of them. They deserved a little Easter treat inside too! Well done, Year 3!
Reminder - please check and re-stock pencil cases over the Easter holidays.
Swimming lessons begin in the Summer term. Our PE days will change to Tuesdays and Thursdays. A letter will be sent out very soon.
If you would like to continue to support your child with their learning over the Easter holidays - READ! There are small prizes to be won for children who have reads lots during the Easter holidays. Let's not forgot, MATHS! There is TTRS to continue to improve their times table fluency and also their Maths home learning on 'Time'.
What a great last week!
We hope the Easter holiday allows you some enjoyable family time together and look forward to the term ahead beginning Tuesday 22nd April 2025.
Update: Spring 2: Week 4
We began our week with a walk into Ringwood for our fieldwork study linked to our learning in Geography. On our journey we discussed how the land was being used (residential, commerical, industrial or leisure). We surveyed members of the public to find out why they were in Ringwood. We also collected data on the types of shops to make a bar graph next week.
After a well-deserved rest and lunch at Greyfriars, we walked to St Peter and St Paul's Church. We listened to the vicar and Jan, one of the Chrurch Wardens, talk to us about the Church and the children asked some very interesting questions about Christianity. We looked at the features of the church and this related to our RE learning.
What a wonderful trip with 59 very well-behaved children that we were immensley proud of.
Thank you to the parent helpers who supported our trip. We hope you enjoy your thank you cards.
We also enjoyed a visit from the author Rebecca Claire who wrote the rhyming story, Mr Leafy and Friends. The children listened well to the story and asked really insightful questions about being an author and her inspiration for writing this story.
A fantastic week Year 3 - well done!
Update: Spring 2 weeks 2 and 3
We absolutely loved seeing all the children's costumes on World Book Day. It was a memorable day celebrating our love of reading together. Please see the Gallery section for more photos. Thank you for your support.
Next week we look forward to our trip into Ringwood with a focus on Geography and RE. We set off promptly at 9am so please ensure your child arrives to school on time with a packed lunch.
Computing
The children have been learning about CAD Technology. The children have been fascinated about how clothes, houses, boats and cars are designed on computers and then produced.
Here is a fantastic video clip for them to watch again at home - please click the link below.
English
This week sees the classes plan and write their final piece in our writing unit, 'A Spring Forest', inspired by the book, 'The Tin Forest' by Helen Ward. The children's final pieces will focus on the ingredients of -ed and -ing spellings, prepositions and prepositional phrases, descriptions of all four sense and adverbs to modify verbs. Their pieces will aim to make the reader feel a sense of hope for the old man's future - the arrival of spring and a brighter future, in addition to a sense of relief and happiness that his wish is coming true.
Update: Spring 2 week 1
What a FANTASTIC start to the half term! Staff thoroughly enjoyed having our Open morning on Tuesday and thank you to the parents who could attend. The children loved it!
Pencil Cases
Please check your child's pencil case weekly. We thank you for your support so your child is prepared for lessons.
DT/Computing
This term our unit involves making Easter egg gift boxes. We shall be exploring strengthening techniques such as laminating, corrugating and ribbing. We will also be using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) in the process.
Maths
Our tests before half term showed that the majority of children still need support with further addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Further addition and subtraction, which involves renaming the groups using a column method. In further multiplication, multiplying a 2-digit number with a single digit or even a 2-digit using the long multiplication method. In further division, dividing using the taught bus stop method to divide a 2-digit number by a single digit.
We will be addressing the retrieval of these strategies. We do really appreciate all your support with the weekly Maths Home Learning - it makes a difference, so keep it up!
English
Some of the key new vocabulary words being introduced:
Heralds/heralding
Abundant
Increasingly
Windswept
Sifting
Awoke
Sprouted
Emerged
Emptiness
Thick-set
Bound
Bough
Our main text is 'The Tin Forest' and we will also be inspired by the books, 'The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'Anne of Green Gables'.
World Book Day
We really look forward to seeing some amazing costumes and props to celebrate our love of reading - next Thursday 6th March.
Update: Spring 1 - Week 2
Thank you to the parents who received the message and are trying to supply their child with the correct equipment on a daily basis. We still have many children without glue sticks. Please get an order in online or visit the shops over the weekend.
Art - The children have been learning about proportions when drawing a self-portrait. They have used lines to ensure facial features were in the right position and used their pencils to measure distances. Most children used their pencils lightly to achieve some fantastic drawings! Photos have been uploaded in the Gallery. We also used mixed media in the following lesson to add colour, shading and more detail.
Maths - We have a continued focus on multiplication and division.
Remembering that...
4 ones x 3 = 12 ones
4 tens x 3 = 12 tens
40 x 3 = 120
Today we learned that dividing means sharing into groups equally. We divided a 2-digit number, by dividing the tens, then dividing the ones and adding the total together.
Please continue to work on this at home.
History - the children worked hard in their groups to create episodes for an imaginary BBC children's series about Romans and used all the facts they know from their learning do far about 'Remarkable Romans' and the impact of their invasion.
PSHRE - Our unit this half term is all about Keeping Safe. The children all shared some fantastic ideas and then ranked the safety of six scenarios on a continuum line.
Keep up the reads Year 3! Remember your grown-ups need to record in your diary.
Update Spring 1: Week 1
Happy New Year!!!!
The children have settled back well and it has been lovely to hear all about their Christmas holidays. Once again, thank you so much for all the Christmas cards and gifts that were given to staff.
A gentle reminder
Please can you ensure that your child is fully equipped for the school day. Several children did not have the items that are required on a daily basis in their pencil case, as well as some not bringing in their learning pouches, a healthy snack and a labelled water bottle. On Thursdays, Coach James is leading the hockey lessons and all children are required to wear gum shields and shin pads, as detailed in previous communications several weeks ago. Thank you to nearly all of you for supplying these ready for the first session back. The children may need to practise wearing their gum shields at home for some very short periods of time to feel more comfortable during their PE lesson.
Maths
This half term the children are focusing on further multiplication and division. In order that this chapter of learnign goes well your child would benefit from knowing the basic times tables. They should be able to recall their 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 8 times table. If they cannot, they need apply an efficient strategy to solve this. These have been taught in school, but the children would really benefit from going over these at home too. Additional work on TTRS would also be very beneficial as this will give them so much more confidence.
Further multiplication and division involve 2-digit numbers.
E.g. 5 x 7 = 35, 5 x 7 ones = 35 ones so I know that 5 x 7 tens = 35 tens, 5 x 70 = 350 - scaling up.
We will also be learning the column method for multiplication. It is a tricky chapter, but one that is much easier if they know their basic times tables. We hope you can all support with this at home.
Guided Reading and English
We are coming towards the end of our Guided reading book, The Iron Man and then we will be changing texts. Our English for the next few weeks involves our text driver, The Wizard of Oz - worth reading the book at home or watching the film.
Art
This week the children will be introduced to our Art unit of work this half term which involves clay! So much fun!
Computing
The coding fun will begin! We love teaching the children this unit of work as it is the first time the children learn to code using the program, Scratch. We hope they will be keen to show you this at home if you have access to the internet. The app, Scratch Junior, also supports their coding skills and is an easier version for them to use to develop their skills at home on a tablet.
Music
This half term will see the children appraise music from around the world and try out the keyboards!
Spellings
Please do not forget that when children have spelling corrections in their books, they write them on their personal spelling list in their school diary. This gives you an idea of which words at home your child needs to learn.
Finally, we look forward to a 6 week half term full of fun and lots of learning. The next few months can be very cold, so please ensure your child comes to school with a coat and some warm accessories - if they will wear them!
Any questions, please do chat with the Class Teachers at the end of the day.
Update: Autumn 2 Week 6
Well, this half-term has flown by! It has been full of Christmas auditions and Christmas rehearsals in the build-up to our big performance to Year 2 children, the whole school at PJS and finally, to the parents! The children performed so well in every show and we were immensely proud of them. Thank you so much for providing costumes and being supportive at home learning the songs and their lines. The feedback was extremely positive from the Infants School teachers and they were amazed by how much the children's confidence has developed in such a short time.
We would like to give a huge thank you to the parents who managed to attend our DT purse making day and helped the children with their final creations during the morning. It as a massive help and the children loved having you in school. Hopefully, we can arrange another event next year.
Congratulations to the Year 3 HEART awards winners. Some very tricky decisions were made and we think every child is doing well. Keep working hard for the Learner of the Week certificates and roll onto the end of this full term and there will be another set of HEART awards.
The Year 3 team would like to thank the children and parents who sent Christmas cards and gifts. It is very much appreciated.
We wish you a wonderful Christmas together. So that this Christmas could be centered on family activities we have not set Maths home learning. Spelling home learning was given out before Christmas and the teaching of these will commence in the first week back, leading up to a test on the first Friday.
Enjoy the Christmas celebrations and we look forward to seeing you all in the first week back in January 2025!
Happy New Year too!
Update Autumn 2: Week 1
This half term began with such an exciting start to our topic, 'Remarkable Romans', as we welcomed Ben from the Tree House Theatre company. All the children in Year 3 enjoyed dressing up for the day and so many children ate Roman-style packed lunches too! Thank you so much for your support with costumes and financial contributions to the day. The children all enjoyed their workshop with Ben developing their drama skills and, importantly, understanding key historical facts. This was our 'hook' for our topic which lasts until the end of Spring 1.
We hope you enjoy the photos in the Gallery - to be added next week.
Well done to all the children who took part in auditions before half term. We also used our drama day to observe the children's developing drama skills and the cast list is now being created. The children will receive their roles and lines next week. Every child will have a part to play and will receive their costume information by the end of the week. In Music, we started learning some of the lyrics to some of the songs.
Update - Autumn 1: Weeks 7 and 8 
What a long half term!
I think we can all say it has been a challenge and the children are ready for a holiday! We are delighted with their dedication to their learning and being able to show our heart values in all we do as we come to the end of the first half term. Well done to each and every one of you, including our lovely Teaching Assistants! We hope you enjoy your half-term break.
Over the half term, please remember to keep reading with your child regularly, recap the half term's spellings and catch up on any Maths homework that may have been missed. We would also encourage your child to keep up with their TTRS - we would love to see some children achieve a rock star status so we can print their certificates. Please also remember that Sora has a full range of books you can read, as well as your child's library and book band book.
In the last two weeks of the half term many of the children's Foundation Stage subject units of learning have come to an end. We have loved the Music lessons introducing the Boomwhackers and various musical terms such as tempo, dynamics, texture and instrumental families. The children have LOVED their History lessons based on the Stone Age to the Iron Age. We have taken part in many Computing lessons and this week the children were delighted to be using our class set of ipads for photography. The outdoor and indoor PE lessons have seen great progress in the children's participation and the rain, so far, has not held their lessons back.
This week we have finished reading our Guided Reading text, 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark' with all 7 chapters read. It would be lovely if you read this at home if you had a copy or borrowed the book from your local library. The children loved finding out who Plop was going to meet next and what they were going to tell him about the dark, in the hope Plop would come to love it.
Our Maths chapter on addition and subtraction continues after half term and there has been some very tricky new learning for the children - renaming when adding and subtracting numbers with 3-digits. The children have all explored various strategies to solve these problems, including a number line, place value diagrams, column addition/subtraction and the Base 10 concrete materials.
The children took part in an outdoor learning session this week - firelighting. Most of the children were able to attempt to light a fire, whittle a stick and toast a marshmallow. The children's faces were a delight as you can imagine, especially when they were able to eat their mashmellow!
The children have all been working hard to ensure they present their written work in all subjects with care and we hope this continues to improve next half term. Some children still need a reminder to underline the date with a ruler and try their best to begin to use neat, joined handwriting.
The children have adapted well to the routines of the school day, including bringing a healthy snack for playtimes, having water only in their bottles, bringing coats for colder days, stopping when the whistle blows at play and lunchtimes and looking after their belongings. We have noticed an increasing number of children not bringing the correct stationary to school. Please remember to check your child's pencil case regularly to ensure they have plenty of glue and long pencils. We really appreciate your support with this matter.
Lastly, please remember our History Experience Day on Tuesday 5th November. It is dress up day and some interesting lunchbox ideas to make the day extra special. We have all our resources ready and the Tree House Theatre Company are all set to go for the day.
As soon as our Roman Experience Day ends, all talk will be about.........Christmas! Some children have auditioned for a speaking part, but please rest assured, every child will have a part in our play and we will aim to assign these roles in the first week back after half term so the children can begin learning their lines, as well as the song words. There will be limited time to practise these in our busy half term of lots of curriculum learning, so again, we will really appreciate your support with helping your child and supplying them with a costume (details will follow).
Photos of our learning in Autumn 1 for the Gallery page below will be updated in half term now we have our permissions list.
Enjoy your half term and see you Monday 4th November.
Update - Autumn 1: Weeks 5 and 6
The children LOVED our visit from the Ancient Technology centre. Thank you to every parent who donated much-needed funds for this experience to go ahead. It is also thanks for the increased donations which means our Roman day will take place Tuesday 5th November. Details will follow soon. The children gain so much learning from these days and they really bring the history alive for the children.
We will add photos soon once the Office has given us details of permission form consent.
Year 3 took part in their first outdoor learning session which focused on map reading skills with Miss Smith. The children now know which way north is - so when you next collect your child from school at home time, ask them to point to the north!
The children have read chapters 1 and 2 of our Guided Reading text, 'The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark'. Ask your child what the little boy told Plop about.
In Maths the children are learning a new method when adding by using the column method. This is taught as another strategy to solve addition problems. Other teaching methods are using our Base 10 concrete materials, Part-Whole diagram and creating number lines.
Our poetry English unit finished and we were immensely proud of how many children challenged themselves to use more creative vocabulary choices to create an imaginary world. Our new unit will focus on writing detailed instructions with a humourous edge to engage the reader. One of the text drivers will be the BFG - you may like to show your child some movie clips or read the book together so they understand the story events in preparation for their writing.
Update Autumn 1: Week 4
This week the children enjoyed Story time with Andrew Moffatt and he asked some interesting questions that were very thought-provoking. The story centered on a book called, 'The Hueys in the New Jumper', by Oliver Jeffers.
The You Tube video is below. See what your child thinks about being different and if they can identify how to help an outsider.
This week in their art lessons, the children enjoyed using charcoal to draw an image based on the Stone Age. The children will take these home at the end of the half term.
We have the Ancient Technology Centre team booked for Tuesday 1st October. Please read the email from Mrs Randall about the funding. The school cannot afford to pay for experience days using the school budget as funds are incredibly tight. We may need to cancel the Tree House Theatre Company in November for our Roman Day should the school not have enough contributions.
During the week, your child may have mentioned they completed various booklets. These are for our baseline assessments so we can analyse the Key Stage 1 content they have retained to move on in our Year 3 curriculum.
In English this week, the children planned their poetry based on various poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. Next week, we will write our poems and this will be the children's first English unit of work complete. They have engaged very well with the poems and are beginning to understand the Durran grid.
Update Autumn 1: Week 3
This week has been full of many exciting lessons. In Music, the children LOVED playing the BOOM WHACKERS! They understood the musical terms, major, minor, note, scale and chord. The children played the boom whackers in small groups and we are so excited about the following lessons in the unit.
On page 99 of your child's school diary, you will be able to see which spellings are highlighted in pink that your child CAN spell. We would recommend you begin learning the unhighlighted words by focusing on a few at a time.
The children have been amazing in our Maths lessons and have adapted to the structure of the lesson, working in Maths buddies, individually, completing explore tasks to journal their mathematical ideas and completing their own workbook.
At the end of our first chapter, Numbers to 1000, we have noticed many children are unable to spell numbers in words. Please practise learning to spell the following numbers at home for some additional Maths home learning:
Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred, thousand.
In our retrieval tasks we need to repeat the following objectives, to improve the chidlren's counting skills:
Counting in 10s from any three digit number, e.g. 345, 355, 365, 375
Counting in 100s from any three digit number, e.g. 306, 406, 506, 606
Counting in fifties, e.g. 0, 50, 100, 150……650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900
Next week in our art lesson, the children will need a medium-sized pebble/stone so that they can draw a scene in the style of Stone Age drawings using charcoal. Please bring this in on Monday ready for our Tuesday lesson.
Next week, each class will be taught by Mr Wakeford for 30 minutes for an arithmetic lesson based on his observations of the year group's needs, alongside each Class Teacher. We will also be assessing the children's knowledge and understanding in their reading, spelling, grammar, punctuation, Maths arithmetic and reasoning. It will be a busy week for the children. The week ends with House Captain speeches and voting.
For those who can attend the carnival this Saturday, we hope you have an amazing time.
Update Autumn 1: Weeks 1 and 2
WOW! Year 3 you are amazing! What a fantastic start you have made. We have seen so many happy children and really well settled into the school routines in only a few days. We really hope your child is sharing some positive news about school life and their learning journeys in some of the subjects already.
The children have begun writing their personal spellings on page 107 in their diaries for you to support them learning their bespoke words. These words may be linked to our topics or common exception words.
Next week we shall be looking at words on page 101 of the children's diaries - please do not mark in this at home. This is for the children to record in school, alongside the Class Teacher.
The children are reading book band books or having a phonics assessment this week.
Children have started their Maths No Problem workbooks. They even have their own book marks to help them with recording their numerals correctly and finding their page quickly.
The children have enjoyed some assemblies with different members of staff.
Mr Wakeford has visited both classes and is really pleased with the Maths learning taking place, the children's eagerness to explain their thinking to their buddy and making an amazing start at recording their thinking in different ways in their Maths Journal.
Mrs Cason is really pleased that Year 3 are focused on their learning and very settled. She has spotted that the children are learning new vocabulary words and have started their learning in English.
Thank you to all parents that attended the 'Meet the Teacher' presentation. The presentation notes are attached at the bottom of this page.
Children enjoyed their first Online Safety lesson this week as part of the COmputing curriculum. They understood why passwords and passcodes are important to keep things safe, including data on a computing device. The children understand that passwords need to be simple to remember but not easy to guess. The children will be creating their own Google passwords this week to access the school system for future Computing lessons. Please practice using a computer mouse at home, if possible in preparation for our word Processing lessons after Christmas.
First aid incidents are logged by the school Office. You will be notified if your child bumps their head.
TTRS log ins will be sent home - week 2. Please practice regulary at home - a few minutes daily and the children will be able to recall lots of times table facts quickly in no time. In the Maths section on our class page there are Maths Time tables cover songs - check out the link for some catchy songs for learning times tables!
Maths home learning will be out tomorrow, Friday 13th September!
Enjoy reading about some aspects of our curriculum