Year 3

Curriculum Report to Parents and Carers of Gold and Ruby Class
- Spring Term 2009

Dear Parents / Carers,

Happy New Year! Welcome back to an exciting and busy second term. Here is an overview of the curriculum planned for this term and any additional targets that you and your child can work on together.

Invaders and Settlers

Our main topic this term is ‘Invaders and Settlers.’ We will be focusing on the period of the Anglo-Saxons. We are going to be taking a cross-curricular approach to the topic through literacy, history, geography, art and ICT. On January 19th we will be having an Anglo-Saxon themed day with an educational company called ‘Off the Page’ who provide a range of authentic materials and activities to help bring the topic to life. We also have an artist working with us on a project about the Anglo-Saxon story of Beowulf (Ruby class before half term and Gold class after half term). Please encourage your children to engage in any extra research by visiting your local library or using the internet and to share this with the class.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, we will continue to follow the new Primary National Strategy in order to develop children’s understanding of number and calculations, shape, measurement, handling data and problem solving. Please encourage and help your child at home by practising their times-tables and any strategies that we have been learning in school. Children can also improve their number skills through cooking, looking at timetables for trains and buses or when you are shopping!

Literacy

In Literacy, we will be developing children’s story writing skills through the study of myths and legends with a particular focus on the myths of Hercules and Beowulf. In the second half of the term we will be learning about dialogue and plays through the story of Charlotte’s Web. As always we will be paying close attention to sentence construction and the use of capital letters and full stops and any support with this at home would also be very beneficial. In ICT we will be learning to combine text and graphics using publisher and colour magic. We will continue to develop continuous cursive handwriting. Please encourage your child to practise this handwriting at home. Please also remind your child that their patch folder should be taken home at least three times a week so that they can spend at least 20 minutes reading every evening. Both classes will be visiting Manor Gardens Library on a Monday afternoon this term (Ruby class until half term and Gold class after). They will be taking out books to bring home. Please make sure that they bring this back to school every Monday morning so that they can take out another book. Children will also be given a list of spellings to learn each week as part of their homework. Please arrange time to practise these with your children.

Science

In Science we will begin the term by looking at magnets and springs before moving onto rocks and soils. A strong focus this term will be on the development of experimental investigation and the requirements for fair testing, recording and evaluating. For example, children will investigate the magnetic strength of objects, and test different types of rocks for their hardness and permeability.

Religious Education

Religious Education will involve studying the Christian faith. Children will be given the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Christian beliefs, festivals, place of worship and religious stories. We will also be looking at pilgrimage in different religions.

Physical Education

In P.E. children will be continuing to develop tennis skills and will be putting these skills into practice in tennis games. Children are required to wear a t-shirt, shorts or tracksuit bottoms and trainers on fridays. Our weekly visit to Highbury pool continues this term and will take place on the same days as before, Wednesday for Gold class and Tuesday for Ruby class. Please can we remind you that children will need to bring a swimming costume or trunks and a towel in a bag. For safety reasons, children are reminded that jewellery must not be worn during P.E. or swimming and that long hair must be tied back or tucked in a swimming hat. Goggles are not permitted unless we have written permission from your GP.

Further Information

This year circle time will be happening in class on a weekly basis. This is a whole school approach to enhancing self-esteem and building positive relationships.

Homework will be set every Friday. Please make sure that your child completes their homework and brings it in by Tuesday.

We look forward to having an enjoyable term and welcome your support in any way to achieve this. Please do not hesitate to come and speak to us if you have any queries about your child or their progress.

Regards,

Teifi Lazarus & Tamsin Zalucki
Year 3 Class Teachers