St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to Year 3!

Our Class Saint is Saint Bernadette.

We are going to be having an amazing year together and I am looking forward to teaching you all.

We are lucky to have drama this Autumn term.

Below is some information for you all, as well as a link to some recommended reads for Year 3.

We have had a great start to the year!

Each half term we will be sending a curriculum letter which share some information about the children's learning for that term. 

Homework to come in each Friday please. Spellings are stuck inside their spelling book (for the whole half term).

• Ensure that your child reads for a minimum of 20 minutes three times a week.  Please sign their reading record!
• Ensure that your child practises their spellings every night. (https://spellingframe.co.uk)
• Ensure that your child practises their Learn Its/times tables every night. (https://ttrockstars.com/)

Many parents/carers ask how they can help their children. You can do so in the following ways:

• Read through the Knowledge Organisers together with your child: maybe do 1 Knowledge Organiser per night.  Repeat the reading process until your child knows the facts/ information contained in all of the Knowledge Organisers and can retrieve it when you test them.
• Ensure that your child knows and understands the vocabulary on the Knowledge Organisers. If you speak another language at home please discuss the words in your own language to aid understanding. 
• Research some of the topics within the Knowledge Organisers together, there may be trips or visits you can do together, be sure to tell us all about it!

´All children must read for 20 minutes at least three times a week

´FOR KS2 Please could parents listen to their child read and ask questions at least once a week

´Please could parents check and sign their child’s reading record every time they read

´We will check Reading Record ever Monday, Wednesday and Friday, books will be changed independently.

Below are some recommended books to read in year 3. 

Spellings are stuck in the front of the children's homework books, please practise them with your child. These are tested on a Friday. 

Our PE days are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Children are to attend school on these days dressed in their PE kits. 

PE Kits

Navy Shorts

White T-Shirt (branded or plain)

Navy Tracksuit Bottoms and Navy Sweatshirt (no hooded tops)

Trainers (any colour)

Our Class Saint is Saint Bernadette. The children learnt about why she is an important Saint, wrote some facts and enjoyed painting (in a modern colour style) her picture.

In History, we started our unit looking at timelines. The children worked together to create timelines, counting in 1000s. They were trying to find when does prehistory begin. They all agreed it was a very long time ago!

When the school celebrated 125 years, year 3 decorated biscuits and enjoyed cupcakes to celebrate the school's birthday. 

As with the whole school the children learnt more about World War 2. The children created messages in flames of postivity and hope. They thought about what they would pack in their suitcase if they were evacuated and helped cdesign itmes for the train. They also really enjoyed looking at some artifacts, both real and replicas from World War 2. 

In Autumn Term 1 the children developed the DT skills. Using rulers to measure and saws to cut, they then used triangles to create a jinks frame, which became a photo frame. They also then learnt about different types of levers and after trialling different ones, they designed a moving images, which incorporated several levers. Their final products are displayed in a mini gallery in our classroom. 

Whilst Year 6 were on their residential their classroom was transformed into a prayer space. The children were able to complete a rnage of activities with a focus on prayer, such as: praying for those in other countries (then stciking their prayer on the map), praying for a specific person (and making them out of pipe cleaners). The children really enjoyed the opportunity to pray in creative ways and reflect.

The children were investigating rocks, which ones were porous, which would float and learnt lots of new facts about the rocks.

Linked with our Roman Topic, we were lucky enough that the Ancient Classroom from Reading came and visited our classroom to speak to the children about Roman writing. The children were able to have a chance to write on clay pots as they would have done using ink. The children really enjoyed this experience. 

The children had a rugby tournament with year 4 and other children from local schools. We even saw some ex-pupils who we played against. The children had a super morning. The children also had been having swimming lessons this term and had developed new skills. Here is them on their final swimming lesson. 

As part of our art unit, we have been exploring digital art. We were lucky enough to go to the Apple Store where the children used iPads and Apple pencils to intially learn artisitic techniques, before desiging different emojis around moods and feelings. The children were very creative and really enjoyed exploring different brush effects, colours and new styles.

Caterlink, who provide our school lunches, came in and ran a breadmaking session for the children. The children explored dough and were able to mould it into designs of their choosing. The school then smelt deliciously of the warm bread baking. The children were then able to take their bread home to eat. I'm sure it was super delicious!

The children measured their heights and we worked out the average height of our year 3 class, before drawing around the child closest to this average. The children also explored making music using water and glasses, before composing their own pieces and learnt more about the adaptation of animals. 

The children designed and created their own finger puppets, after practising a range of different sewing and applique techniques. They were very proud of them.