Year 3
Summer 2, 2025
Welcome to Year 3!
We hope you had a lovely half term break and are ready for more learning in year 3 with lots of new things to learn.
Start time - 8:40am Pick up time - 3:15pm
If you have any questions, concerns or worries, please contact me at year3@cpa.dsat.education and we will do our best to respond as soon as we can.
Key information
Please ensure that your child brings a labelled water bottle to school everyday as well as ensuring that all items of your child's uniform is clearly labelled too. Snacks are not provided in Key Stage 2, please send with your child a healthy fruit snack or cereal bar for break time.
PE is on a Tuesday morning - please send children to school in their PE kits. They will get changed into their school uniform afterwards so please ensure this is in their bags too. Please ensure long hair is tied back and earrings are removed or covered. Covering such as a plaster should be provided from home.
Reading books will be changed on Thursdays, please ensure your child brings their reading book and their reading record to school.
Homework will be sent out on a Thursday and will be due back the following Thursday.
Please click on the link below to find the information shared during our Beginning of Year meeting in September.
Year 3 Beginning of Year meeting information
Curriculum
Here is a summary of what we will be learning in Year 3 during the second half of the Summer term:
Writing
Our writing this half-term will be based on the book 'Zeraffa Giraffa' by Dianne Hofmeyr. A book inspired by the astonishing true story of Zeraffa, a giraffe who was sent as a gift to the King of France by the Great Pasha of Egypt in 1827. A young boy takes care of Zeraffa on her epic journey to Paris, where she is the first giraffe ever seen. Everyone falls in love with Zeraffa. The children will complete a range of activities developing their writing skills to finally plan and write a persuasive guide for visiting Zeraffa at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
Reading
Our reading sessions this half term will be based around the book 'Egyptian Cinderella' by Shirley Climo. The blurb reads: Poor Rhodopis! She has nothing – no mother or father, and no friends. She is a slave, from the far-off country of Greece. Only the beautiful rose-red slippers her master gives her can make Rhodopis smile. So when a falcon swoops down and snatches one of the slippers away, Rhodopis is heartbroken. For how is she to know that the slipper will land in the lap of the great Pharoah himself? And who would ever guess that the Pharoah has promised to find the slipper’s owner and make her queen of all Egypt?
Through daily reading, children will practice their fluency in a variety of ways including teacher led reading, choral, echo, paired and individual reading. We will learn to retrieve and record information from non-fiction, identify how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning and use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read.
Children will complete a variety of activities in response to our reading to develop comprehension skills including:
- Predict what might happen from details stated and implied
- Clarify the meaning of words in context
- Teachers will model fluency at an appropriate speed with accuracy, automaticity and prosody
- Fluency practice read at an appropriate speed with accuracy, automaticity and prosody
- Retrieve record and present information
- Summarise reading from previous sessions
- Participate in whole class discussion to explore answers to questions
Spelling
Children will be following the Head-Start spelling programme again this year, with a dedicated spelling lesson each day. Please click on the links below to see the spellings we will focus on over the year. We are now working on the Term 3.
Year 3 Head-Start spellings Term 1 Year 3 Head-Start spellings Term 2 Year 3 Head-Start spellings Term 3
Children will also be encouraged to spell the year 3/4 common exception words, please click on the link below
Year 3/4 Common Exception Words
Maths
This half term, in 'securing multiplication and division', we will be learning to deepen our understanding of multiplication and division, solve problems involving the 6 and 8 multiplication tables by linking them to our knowledge of the 3 and 4 times tables and multiply 2-digit numbers.
Also this half term, in 'calculation strategies and place value', we will be learning to use and apply mental strategies for addition and subtraction, use and apply mental strategies for multiplication and division and explore 4-digit numbers.
Each week children take part in a times table challenge where they have 3 minutes to answer questions based on their times table and related division facts. It is important to build times table fluency as speedy recall will enable them to progress and prepares them for the governments Year 4 Multiplication Check. TTRockstars (TTRS) can also help, further details of TTRS are at the bottom of this page. Click on the following links to view the weekly times table challenges.
Bronze Award Silver award Gold award Titanium award Platinum award Ultimate Challenge
To further support your children at home, please encourage them to learn their times tables and to practise and remember our Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs). Please click on the following links for Year 3 KIRFs, we are now focussing on Summer 2.
Year 3 Autumn KIRFs Year 3 Spring KIRFs Year 3 Summer KIRFs
Here are some links to times table songs we have used this year which have helped us with our half termly KIRFs above. (These links take you to an external site which we have no control over)
3 times table song 4 times table song 8 times table song
Science
This half term, the children will be learning about flowering plants and their life cycle. Children will learn to explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.
Religious Education
This half term we will be focussing on Sanatana Dharma and our key enquiry question is 'Does visiting the River Ganges make a person a better Sanatani?'
We are learning to understand the importance of the River Ganges to Sanatanis. We will also learn about some key beliefs and practices that happen here.
PSHE
We will be learning about living in the wider world, focussing on economic education. Through a range of speaking, listening and creative activities, we will encourage children to think about what we are spending and after selling out products at the school summer fayre we will think about profits.
We are continuing to deliver a program to all year groups at school called myHappymind. myHappymind is all based around helping children to understand how their brain works and to support them in developing positive skills and habits to be their very best selves! We finish our sessions with our school's Let Your Light Shine Prayer, click the link here; Let Your Light Shine prayer.
My Happy Mind
This half term our theme is Engage. This module supports children by helping them to understand how to set meaningful goals that matter and how to stay resilient in times of challenge. This module is all about building self-esteem and resilience too. Please click on the link below to access an overview of what the program entails.
myHappymind Parent information
Geography
This half term we are focussing on settlements. children will learn about the different types of settlements: hamlets, villages, towns and cities. We will learn how to use four-figure grid references and understand why geographers and other people might use them. The children will apply their knowledge of settlements to learn more about our local area, building on knowledge from KS1. We will explore OS maps and use the eight-point compass to describe locations. We will also learn about our settlement changing over time and will understand that land can be used for different reasons across time periods. Finally we will conduct fieldwork to find out what type of settlement our school is in and explore how our settlement could be improved.
Music
This half term we are learning to play the recorder. We will revisit the basics of naming the parts of a recorder, how to hold and blow into a recorder and the notes B, A, G taught last year. Building on this we will learn or notes, how to read musical notation and how to hold notes for different lengths of time to play some well known songs.
Computing
This half term in 'graphing' we will be learning to enter data into a graph, answer questions, investigate in order to answer a question and to present the results in graphic form.
We will be also develop our coding knowledge, learning about 'Micro:bits', a tiny computer, which needs instructions in code to make it work.
Design and Technology
This half term we will be focussing 'Mechanical systems: Pneumatic toys'. We will be learning to understand how pneumatic systems work, to design a toy that uses a pneumatic system, to create a pneumatic system and to test and finalise ideas against design criteria.
French
This half term our theme is 'L’ancienne histoire de la Grande-Bretagne' where we will be learning the French for “I am” (Je suis), “I have” (J’ai) and “I live” (J’habite), to name the six key periods of ancient Britain, introduced in chronological order, to say three of the types of people who lived in ancient Britain, to tell somebody the three key hunting tools used during the stone age, bronze age and iron age in ancient Britain and to name the three types of dwellings people lived in during the stone, bronze and iron ages.
Physical Education
This half term we will be learning about the skills needed for fielding sports such as cricket and rounders. We will develop our co-ordination & ability to field and strike effectively and develop our understanding of the rules of Rounders.
Indoors PE kit
Navy/black shorts and a white polo shirt or t-shirt (N.B. This should be a different polo shirt to any worn as part of the school uniform)
(for gymnastics, a black leotard may also be worn).
Outdoors PE kit
Tracksuits will be allowed for outdoor games in cold weather; these should not be in team colours/fashion brands.
Trainers should be worn which are robust, sturdy and intended for exercise and not fashion.
Home Learning
Maths homework - 1 piece of maths homework will be given out every Thursday to be handed in by the following Thursday.
Reading - Please aim for 15 minutes each day, sign the home reading record books and have them in school for book change on Thursdays. Building on from Key Stage 1, it is expected that children read a minimum of 20 times a month in Key Stage 2, children achieving this and beyond will receive a golden ticket for the half termly prize draw.
Times Table Rock Stars - Click here to play! (This takes you to an external site which we have no control over)
TTRS is an on-line programme to boost fluency and recall in multiplication and division skills. It is available on a range of devices, including mobile phones. You can play online at ttrockstars.com or download the TTRS app. Playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of multiplication and division facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact TTRS will have. Children will earn virtual coins to personalise their rock avatars and move up the rock leaderboard from "New Artist" to "Rock Hero"! In order to get the best out of TTRS children should regularly play for short bursts of time over the week, there are 18 stages to complete! TTRS uses the same log in details your child used for NUMBOTs in Key Stage 1.
Reflex is an online, game-based program that helps students build fast and effortless recall of math facts. Research has shown that quick recall of math facts is critical for future success in mathematics. We recommend that children use Reflex and achieve the Green Light at least three times each week!
If you have misplaced your log in details for TTRS or Reflex or are having trouble accessing the websites, please email year 3 to let us know.
Thank you for your support. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to speak to a member of the Year 3 team.
Mrs Rowe, Mrs Barnes and Mrs Crieghton.