Autumn Term Newsletter

Class 3

Autumn term Newsletter

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and feel refreshed and ready for the new school year ahead.

Our topic this term is the Vikings and the class text we are reading is called ‘Vicious Vikings’ by Terry Deary (from the Horrible Histories series). We will be investigating the reasons why they invaded, how they lived and learning about famous battles such as ‘The Battle of Ashdown’ and ‘The Battle of Hastings’ (focusing on Hardrada’s role). We will be writing instructions, newspaper reports, descriptions, persuasive speeches, non-chronological reports and also writing our own Viking saga featuring a Viking god the children will create themselves. The children will learn how to organise and structure their writing through the use of paragraphs and we will continue to improve our spelling and grammar in weekly SPaG sessions. We will also continue to have weekly handwriting sessions to keep developing this skill and hopefully this will result in some more pen licenses being awarded soon.

Please ensure your child reads every day, ideally with an adult, and have discussions about the book they are reading. Example questions could be: Why has the author chosen to use that language? Can you predict what you think might happen next? How is the text organised (paragraphs, headings etc)? These discussions with the children are important to ascertain whether they understand what they are reading, rather than reading each word fluently yet not comprehending the information.

In Maths we are consolidating our place value knowledge for 3 and 4 digit numbers before focusing on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The Year 3 children will learn new methods for each calculation and use these to solve problems and complete reasoning tasks. If you require any support on the way in which calculations are taught in KS2 please do not hesitate to speak to me or check the calculation policy on the website. I will provide more information about this at the autumn parents consultation meetings. Many of the children have clearly been working on their times table knowledge over the holidays which is brilliant. The times tables your child should be focusing on will be detailed in their homework; please ensure they are not just counting in steps forwards to 12x the number, but also counting backwards from 12x the number (to 1x the number) and answering instant recall facts (eg. 4x5? 3x10? 7x2?).

In Science the children will be undertaking various experiments that focus on the scientific enquiry skills in the nation curriculum. Our investigations will include (skills in brackets): How can you prolong bread going mouldy? (Observing over time);

How does changing the amount of water/sugar or the cooking temperature affect bread rising? (Fair testing); How are fingerprints used to identify people? What other features can be used to identify humans? (Research); How have living things adapted and evolved over time? (Research)

Our Art and Design projects will link our Viking topic. Some of the activities include making Viking Runestone tablets out of clay, making Viking bread, designing our own Viking longboats and using sewing techniques to create our own tapestry.

In Music we will be learning Viking songs and chants, as well as composing music to depict the Battle of Hastings.

In R.E. we are learning about why people believe different ideas and will study religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. We will be looking at the customs, festivals and beliefs of each religion and discussing the similarities and difference between them. We will also learn about scientology and the theory of evolution.

In French we will be learning basic conversation language, enabling the children to introduce themselves, explain how old they are, when their birthday is, describe their family and home etc. These lessons will be taught predominantly in French so that the children get used to responding to French instructions and hearing questions asked and answered in the language.

P.E. lessons will be on Monday and Wednesday afternoons this term. Mondays will be dance with Miss Ward and Wednesdays will be invasion games (outside, weather permitting) with Mr Wilson (while Miss Ward has PPA time). Please ensure your child has their PE kit (and trainers!) in school on these days. Also please make sure your child has their own water bottle in school every day and that these are taken home regularly to be cleaned.

A reminder for Year 3 parents – now your child is in KS2 they do not get a fruit snack during morning playtime. If you would like to send a healthy snack with them to school then that is absolutely fine. This may be a good idea while Year 3 children are settling into the new routine as KS2 have their lunch at 12:30pm (playtime first) so the children now have longer to wait until they can eat.

We are going to continue our ‘5 minutes of fame’ slots on a Friday afternoon - Year 3 did this last year so if you are a Year 4 parent please see rota for more information. Please check the rota to see when your child’s slot is so they are prepared. I will, of course, remind them on a Thursday but usually some extra preparation will be needed. Thank you.

If you would like any more information about what we are learning or how you can help your child at home please do not hesitate to ask me or email the school office for them to pass a query on to me.

Many thanks for all the support you give your children with their learning at home. It makes such a difference and is really appreciated.

Miss Ward