Welcome to Year 3. 

Year 3 Autumn Term 2023 Curriculum Overview

English This term we will be studying a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Our first text is an illustrated book called Jack and the Dreamsack. This will be followed by a non-fiction book on Penguins and then some poetry in the second half of term. We will continue to develop children’s literacy skills and support them to improve their punctuation, sentence structure and handwriting. There will be daily handwriting and spelling practice and a set of spellings to learn each week, given on Friday and assessed the following Friday.

Maths Initially, our focus for this term will be to recap children’s knowledge of number bonds to 10 and how to use these to add and subtract across 10. We will then develop children’s understanding of place value, addition and subtraction over the remainder of the term. Firstly, our focus will be on numbers to 100, and subsequently, numbers to 1,000. It is important that children practise their number bonds and times tables regularly to support their learning in class. Our times tables practice in school will begin with doubling and then the 2x table.

Reading We will have daily whole class reading sessions, where we will teach children the skills needed to be become fluent and confident readers. These will focus on vocabulary, inference, predictions, explaining, retrieving, summarising and sequencing from stories read to them. We ask you to support your child’s learning by listening to him/her read every night and talking about the book they are reading. We would also recommend that you enjoy reading a longer, high-quality text to your child.

Science In science, we will support children to develop key scientific skills through hands-on, investigative sessions. We will be studying two topics this term: 1) Animals including humans – nutrition, skeletons and muscles 2) Rocks, fossils and soils

R.E This term we will focus our learning on the beliefs of Christianity and Hinduism. Children will explore the significance of the Trinity to Christians and identify Hindu deities and discover how Hindus describe God.

PSHE We will explore 3 main areas around the theme of Relationships: Families and Friendships – thinking about how to be a good friend; Safe relationships – thinking about bullying and uncomfortable/unsafe relationships; Respecting ourselves and others – thinking about similarities and differences and how to work together.

P.E PE will be run by Achieve4All on a Monday and by Mrs Bruce on a Friday. Please ensure you have the correct kit on these days. Our PE will be split into two units, one for each half-term: 1) Invasion games - Tag rugby 2) Gymnastics – Symmetry and asymmetry

History This term, the children will explore how life changed for people during different periods of the Stone Age. They will learn why the period was called the Stone Age, and what archaeological evidence there is from the period, particularly in the form of artefacts and monuments.

Geography This term, we will be learning about world climate zones and biomes. We will learn how weather and climate are generalised into world climate zones. The concept of biomes will be explored, each with its distinctive climate, soil, flora, fauna and human activity.

French We will begin our learning of French by thinking about what we know about France and other French-speaking countries and their culture, alongside starting to develop and gain confidence in our speaking and listening skills to meet and greet people.

Computing In computing, we plan to follow 2 interesting units 1) Connecting Computers – learning about digital devices and networks. 2) Stop-frame animation – creating an animation.

Music We will be learning about the key musical elements as we learn to sing some simple songs with an intial focus on Reggae. We will seek to develop the children’s singing voices ready for the Harvest and then Christmas performances.

Art and DT. We will be studying 2 units: 1) Drawing – We will use gestural drawing with charcoal to create energy and drama. This will include responding to the work of contemporary artist Laura McKendry and great master Edgar Degas, as well as linking to our history topic and creating their own cave art.

Food – We will explore what constitutes a healthy and varied diet and use this learning to design a healthy snack.