What a brilliant end to a brilliant first term in Year 3. I have loved getting to know the children again and seeing how much they have changed and progressed since last teaching them. What a wonderful, energetic and hard-working bunch they are!

Today, we all enjoyed our Christmas service in the church but the highlight of the week has to be last night’s Carols by Candlelight which I hope many of you were able to stay and watch. The children sang beautifully and they readers did us proud – well done everyone!

We also enjoyed participating – for the first time – in the KS2 Quiz this morning. Well done to Liddell who were the winning house.

Swimming

Just a reminder that we will be starting swimming on Friday 10^th January. We will aim to be back at school by 3.30pm but this may be more like 3.35/3.40pm depending on how quickly the children can change. We suggest on Fridays next term, the children wear their PE kits to make thing quicker and easier for them.

Music

As you know the wonderful Miss Rachel has now left St Stephen’s but rather excitingly Year 3 will be continuing with their recorder lessons on Mondays from next term, with Phoebe Scott, May’s aunt!

Class Assembly

All children have received a script for our class assembly on Thursday 30^th January. Please do encourage your children to learn their lines and the lyrics to our two songs. If you Google Exciting Egyptians and Walk like and Egyptian kids version they should both come up on YouTube.

What we have been up to

This week the children have been busy completing end of unit assessments across the subjects. Next term we will be learning about Ancient Egypt in History, Plants in Science, The Bible in RE, Measurement in Maths and Information Texts in English while finally, in Relationships and Health, we are focusing on ‘Keeping Myself Safe’

Miss Tracey and I want to thank you for all your support this term and also for your incredibly generous gifts. They are enormously appreciated.

We hope you have a wonderful and restful Christmas break and have a very Happy New Year!

All the best,

Mrs Hayes

We have all enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch today thanks to Jessie and her team and the children have loved showing off their various sparkly jumpers,

This week we were lucky enough to watch the KS1 Nativity which was brilliant – there were some very proud older siblings!

Library Books

Well done to those who have returned library books. There only a few who forgot this week – please can these books come in on Monday.

Next Week

Please can you email me if your child will be leaving before Friday so that anything we hand out can be given before they go! There will be no homework but we will still be sending reading books home for the children to read in the holidays.

A note from Mrs Pereira

Mrs Pereira writes: It may make for nice Christmas project? The local story competition run by Daunt Books is back again, with every child who enters getting a £5 book voucher. Most years, we have a winner at St Stephen’s who receive a voucher and the glory of seeing their stories published – so a good success rate. Click on the link

https://www.ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk/teaching-and-learning/library-corner/ and check out the info in the sidebar

What we have been up to

We have just finished our next Art lesson on Prehistoric Art. The children loved getting charcoals out and using them to firstly create a more ‘authentic’ background before copying their animals from last week in charcoal.

In RE, we talked about the importance of Epiphany and discussed what presents we would have taken to Jesus.

In English, the children wrote fabulous acrostic poems on Christmas. We then copied them out and they are proudly on display in our classroom.

In Maths, we have finished our unit on division and multiplication and are now focusing on our end of term arithmetic and reasoning assessments.

In History, we thought about life in the Bronze Age. We talked about how the metal meant change for the way people lived but also how farming and agriculture meant more permanent settlements.

Hope you have a lovely weekend and good luck if (like me) you will be braving the shops to finish your present buying!

Mrs Hayes

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It’s beginning to look (and sound) a lot like Christmas! This week the children loved seeing Reception perform their nativity play! The children were absolutely brilliant and put everyone firmly in the Christmas spirit. Sadly we do still have some work to do but only two weeks to go until we all have a rest….

Library books

All library books need to be returned by the end of next week please.

Homework

On the blog this week are not only the sentences and words to learn but also the lyrics and music to our carols. Our class are singing Gabriel’s Message and will also be joining in the final songs too. Please do get your children to practise the lyrics this weekend. Thank you!

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have be consolidating our knowledge of multiplying a two digit by a one digit number using the column method. The children have found this tricky but after working very hard they do seem to have finally grasped it. We will now move on to dividing.

In RE we made Christingles (which hopefully made it home in one piece!) and reminded ourselves what the different parts of the Christingles mean

In Art today, we have been looking at prehistoric art and then trying to replicate the paintings by drawing our own animals in a simplistic form.

In English we have finished our myths and learnt how to edit and improve on our first drafts with a green pen.

In RHE we talked about community and what the words mean. We discussed how we all have different communities – such as school, football, church, choir etc – and that all communities are important to us by bringing us together with a shared interest.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

What a brilliant trip we all had to Gunnersbury Park and Museum! Thanks to our parents helpers for braving to colder temperatures for an interesting Stone Age workshop. The children loved building shelters and practising their spear throwing skills!

Homework

Please can you make sure your child is bringing in their homework book no later than Tuesday so Miss Tracey can mark all 30 books before sending them home again on Thursday.

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have been looking at related multiplication facts and using our times table knowledge to work out calculations that are ten times bigger. For example if we know 3 x 4 is 12 we know that 3 x 40 must be 120. We have also briefly introduced the idea of short multiplication in column format.

In English, we have been planning our myths. We split our planning into six key areas and then wrote a sentence of two outlining what we are going to write for each section. For example, what dilemma our heroes would face and how this would be reconciled before the end.

In RE, we talked about the importance of giving and charity for Christians. We discussed many different charities that help people – particularly at Christmas – by offering hot meals or donating toys and gifts to children.

In Science, we tested out different materials to see which ones were magnetic and quickly realised that not all metals are magnetic.

Finally in Art, Georgia O’Keefe was our inspiration for sketching and drawing abstract flowers.

Hope to see many of your tomorrow for our Christmas Fair.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

Wow, what a night! Anyone who made it to St Stephen’s Got Talent last night will agree that all the acts were amazing. Particular shout out to Sophia’s mum for winning the whole thing but huge well done to all those who even took part!

Morning register

I am still marking a few children as absent in the morning, as they are coming in after the 8.55am register. Please endeavour to drop the children by 8.50am to give them enough time to take off coats etc and head up to class.

Spellings

I wanted to apologise for the inconsistency of spelling tests. After discussing with parents, these will now take place every Thursday.

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have been working on our 8 times table both multiplying and dividing. We then completed an end of unit assessment on the topic.

In English, we have been focusing on Grammar this week. Today, we looked at inverted commas and using them in sentences. We have also been practising our comprehension skills and writing our answers in full sentences.

In RE, we learnt about John the Baptist and his role in preparing people for the arrival of Jesus.

In Science, we learnt about magnetic fields and poles. We looked at magnets and talked about push and pull forces and how opposite poles attract while the same poles repel.

Finally in Art, we used Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin as inspiration for drawing flowers using our observations skills. We then sketched and added water colour paints to our drawings.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hayes

Thank you for making time for Parents Evening and coming in to the classroom to look at your child’s work – I hope you found it useful.  It’s always good to get feedback from the parents too so we can work together to give, provide and support the children as best we can during their time at school.

We have had Anti Bullying Week this week which was kicked off with an assembly given by Miss Bill.  As part of RHE, we also looked at how we should respect differences and the importance of listening to one another.

In Maths, we’ve been working on multiplication and division with our 4s and 8s so please keep up the times tables practise.  If your child is confidently recalling their times tables, please encourage them to learn the corresponding division facts.

In English, we are loving our topic on Myths and Legends and have written descriptions of the Minotaur along with also creating our own mythical creature. Yesterday, we also thought about settings for our myths. This will form some of our ideas for when we write our own myths.

In History, we are continuing to learn about the stone and iron age and looked at early man and how humans have evolved.

In Art we learnt the art of ‘frottage’ (rubbing an uneven surface) as a way to add textures to our art work.

Homework this week is spellings, reading comprehension and Mathletics tasks.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hayes

This morning, to celebrate Hispanic Day, we were lucky enough to enjoy a flamenco performance by ‘illusion Flamenca’ and this afternoon enjoyed the Ole Rumba band.

We also loved our clapping workshop where we practised and learnt a special Flamenco clapping along to some Spanish songs.

In class, we have specifically been learning about Ecuador and the Galapagos. We spent some time finding out about the rare and unique animals and nature of the islands before writing a postcard imagining we had been lucky enough to visit them! Then this afternoon we coloured in and decorated so beautiful giant tortoises.

Swimming

Just to clarify, our swimming lessons will begin after Christmas on Friday 10^th January. A few children have been asking so I just wanted to clarify that.

Parents Evening and Open Classroom

Hopefully you have booked in for Parents Evening next week. On Tuesday and Wednesday we are also inviting parents to come into the classroom to look through their children’s books, straight after drop off. Do come along if you can as they often raise some good starting point for our discussions later in the day.

Art Competition

In your bag is a Teachers’ Club and Madame Tussauds Art competition sheet. If the children would like to enter, they need to draw a picture of their Fantastic Future Self and return to the school no later than 22nd November.

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have started our new topic of multiplication although much of the work has been revisiting our learning on grouping, arrays and multiples of 2, 5 and 10.

In English, we have begun a very exciting topic all about myths and legends. First, we read the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and answered some comprehension questions about it. The next lesson looked at mythical creatures and writing descriptive paragraphs about one of them. Next week the children will be coming up with their own mythical creature which they are very excited about!

In History, we began our topic on the Stone & Iron Ages with a lesson on prehistory. We spoke about the difference between recent history that has been written down and history that we have found out about through archaeological finds.

Finally in Science, we learnt about push and pull forces in our new topic of Forces and Magnets.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

Wow, what a fun packed half term we have had! The children are now very much settled into Year 3 and seem to be enjoying being part of KS2. They have worked incredibly hard in the past eight weeks and definitely deserve a relaxing week off!

The highlight of this week was Monday’s collective worship, ‘Hidden Figures’ by Bigfoot Education. The children went on a journey throughout history learning of significant black figures, whose actions have made a positive impact on the world we live in today.

Homework

You will notice we have not set homework for the half term but have sent reading books home. Please encourage your children to read in the week off and if they want to write any creative stories I would be very happy to read them after the break!

Library books

I am still a little disappointed with the number of children not bringing in their library books to change. Library is every Thursday and the children must bring in their books to return.

What we have been up to

In English, we learnt all about Claudia Jones the ‘Mother of the Notting Hill Carnival’. We found out how she was born in Trinidad before moving to America at the age of eight. She came to the UK in 1955 and set up the Caribbean Carnival as a celebration of Caribbean culture, music, dancing and food.

We also wrote a poem in the style of Grace Nichols’ Morning Comes.

In Maths, we finished our unit of addition and subtraction and as a result there have been a few changes to our Maths Groups – we have emailed the parents and carers on any children moving to let them know.

In Science, we learnt about the three main muscle groups before getting into partners and moving around the class to think about what happens to our skeleton muscles when we move!

In RE, we completed an end of unit quiz on Sikhism.

In Art, we drew excellent self-portraits for our display board which you will hopefully be able to see when we have open classrooms.

Finally, in Relationships and Health Education we talked about what we like best about our friends and what we need to do if we ever have a disagreement with them.

Have a wonderful half term!

Mrs Hayes

Today Collective Worship was a sea of red as we said ‘Show Racism the Red Card’. Mr Schumm talked to all the children about how we celebrate difference and must never be unkind to someone because of the colour of their skin, their faith or their culture.

What we have been up to

In Maths we continue to look at addition and subtraction. We have now finished our lessons on adding and subtracting two and three digit numbers – discussing exchanging and crossing ten and one hundred – but do please continue to practise this at home as some children are still finding it challenging.

In English, we carried on reading tasty, food related poems! Yesterday we looked at the difference between similes and metaphors and practised writing our own and today’s lesson was trying to follow a rhyming pattern.

In Science, we looked at invertebrates. We discussed how, despite having no backbone, animals have different methods of moving and protecting themselves.

We have now finished our Geography unit on Countries on the World and look forward to beginning our first history unit of the year after half term which will be on the Stone Age.

In RE we learnt about the fifth Guru of Sikhism – Guru Arjan – who was also known as the first Martyr of Sikhism.

Our final lesson of the day was Art, where we learnt about shading and tone and how to hold a pencil to create the best effects in a drawing.

Only one more week to go until half term – this term is flying by!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hayes

Lovely to see a few of you at quiz night, hope you all had an enjoyable evening!

Yesterday we celebrated Mental Health Day and the school was awash in bright yellow.  Mr Schumm held an assembly highlighting some themes around mental health.  In class, we each made a ‘badge’ for a friend highlighting something they are good at. We also enjoyed drawing some happiness doodles at the end of the day.

Homework

Homework this week is spellings and Mathletics tasks.  If I have given your child a spelling sheet – this is the work I would like them to do – not the spellings on our web page.

Once again it was a poor turn out for returned library books yesterday. Please make sure your child is reading these and returning them on Thursday. If you have lost or misplaced the book please do let me know (although a fine will be incurred).

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have been working on our column subtraction and addition with three digit numbers. The children have grasped the idea brilliantly and are learning to lay out their work beautifully (Mr Gane would be proud!) Just to let you know that we will be making changes to the two Maths groups after the half term so all children are getting the right amount of support.  I just want to emphasise that ALL the children, regardless of their Maths group, learn the same lessons and will complete the same core tasks.

In English, we enjoyed reciting our class poem Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat and had a go at planning and writing our own limericks. The results are brilliant and some children were chosen to show off their poetry skills to Mr Schumm!

During our RE lesson, we looked at Sikh weddings and learned about their beliefs about marriage.

We began our new unit on drawing in Art today with the lesson all about observing and recording what we see. Firstly we looked at some art work and tried to spot the shapes used before applying this to our own still life sketches.

Geography was continuing to think about countries but this week we worked in pairs to research specific countries. Using atlases and I-pads, we found out the populations, area, currency and flags of different countries.

Finally in Science we had great fun guessing how many bones are in the human body! We talked about the importance of bones before reciting what many of the main ones are called.

Have a lovely restful weekend. Only two weeks to go before half term – can you believe it?

Mrs Hayes

The children loved making seasonal apple and blackberry tarts today in DT (thank you for all the fruit donations!). After using their peeling and chopping skills (learnt last week) they worked in small groups to roll out pastry, brush with egg, peel and slice the apples and finally cook! The smell (and taste) was delicious!

On Wednesday, we had a Harvest Service at church – thank you for the donations.

Collection

Please do let the office or myself know if other people are collecting your children. It is imperative we know exactly who children are going home with and we require an email to the office or myself to allow this to happen.

A note about reading

A few parents have said that their children are finding the two chapter books too much to read each week which is absolutely fine. Please just let me know or put a note in the reading record and we can just give one book a week if that’s more suitable.

Library books

Unfortunately we had eight children failing to return library books this week. Please ensure your child is bringing these in on Thursday morning (latest) ready to change.

Matheltics

Some children have quite a few Mathletics outstanding now. Please try and get these cleared this weekend. Mathletics is part of our homework and essential for all children to complete to help consolidate their learning.

What we have been up to

During English, we completed a comprehension on how to wash an elephant and will be thinking about writing our own instruction texts on how to capture a dragon. The children are already excited about this and have been coming up with some ideas.

In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting in 1s and 10s.  We have used pictorial representation to help us understand the number system.

During our RE lesson, we learned about Guru Nanak – the first of the Sikh gurus.  We remembered that Guru means teacher and Sikh means student.

In Geography, we located capital cities around the world using a world map.

Homework this week is spellings, Mathletics tasks and comprehension.

Have a lovely (sunny!) weekend.

Mrs Hayes

It was lovely to see so many of your at family supper last night – hope you all enjoyed yourselves!

We also had a great trip to Ealing Gurdwara yesterday, where we stayed for lunch in the Langar Hall where people, regardless of their religion, can enjoy a vegetarian meal.  The children have just started to learn about Sikhism so we hope this trip provided the perfect starting point for their learning.

Harvest Festival

Please do remember to bring in any non-perishables (pasta, tinned food etc) for our Harvest Festival Church Service next Wednesday.

Homework

Well done to everyone for completing the homework. Just a reminder that comprehension will be sent every other week so this week, the children just have spellings and Mathletics tasks. Please do remember that we have library on Thursdays so library books need to be brought in before this.

What we have been up to

In English, we have been looking at instruction texts and they have had a go at writing instructions.  Next week, we will be writing instructions for washing elephants and dogs.

In Maths, we have finished our first unit of place value and completed an assessment. We will be using these to inform us about possible changes in the Maths groups starting after half term.

In Geography, we looked in more detail at the seven continents and identified key geographical features in various countries such as the longest rivers, highest mountains and biggest countries.

We used IPads in our Science learning to find out all about what animals eat and where they find their food.

Finally in DT today, we learned some key cooking skills. We learnt how to chop, grate and peel various fruit and vegetables which will help when we come to cooking up a delicious savoury seasonal tart next week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

Today, for lunch, we enjoyed the most delicious feast to celebrate Eritrean and Ethiopian New Year. This week the children also voted for their Year 6 House Captains – results will be displayed in school next week.

Homework

Apologies that these books were not sent out yesterday – teething problems! All children should have received their green homework books today. Reading books were sent out on Wednesday this week and the children came back with a library book too. Please make sure library books come back on Wednesday. Homework and reading books should be returned on Tuesday if possible.

This week’s homework is spellings, comprehension (please write answers into homework book and not onto the printed sheet) and Mathletics tasks.  Please follow the handwriting guide and use the handwriting sheet provided so we can encourage the children to use ‘tall’ and ‘short’ letters. The children’s spelling groups may change as the term goes on – this will depend on their spelling scores.  Their reading comprehension will be their spelling group ie. blue or green. If your child has not been told their group they are in Blue Group.

Registration

A reminder that the school day starts at 8.55am. Please tell your children not to loiter in the playground otherwise they will be marked as late! Thank you for your cooperation.

What we have been up to

During English, we did some shared writing where the children worked together to write an opening paragraph and then improved it by adding/removing words, replacing words and generally making sure the sentences were cohesive. They also planned and began writing our own stories based on The Omnibombulator.  We have working hard on paired adjectives and making our work interesting by using conjuncitons and trying to include our homework spellings ‘ou’ words which make an /ow/ sound.

In Maths, we continued our work on number and place value. We have been ordering numbers to 1000, estimating numbers on a number line and finally comparing ad ordering numbers. Some of this work has been tricky but the children have worked really hard.

In Science, we learned about balanced diets and what we should eat more of as well as what we should eat less of.  The children have been quite honest answering whether they have a healthy diet or not!

In Geography, we once again used our Atlases but this week we identified and labelled countries on a world map.

In Computing, we discussed how to create secure passwords.

Have a lovely restful weekend and enjoy the possible last of the sunshine!

Mrs Hayes

The children are all settling in brilliantly and we have had a busy first full week in Year 3.  This week we talked about what a ‘democracy’ is and then democratically voted for this year’s school councillors. The children have also spent the week getting used to the new routine and having all playtimes in the ‘big playground’.

Homework

Hopefully you will now have all seen this week’s homework uploaded (apologies for the issues yesterday. The homework is spellings practise (using the handwriting sheet attached inside the homework book), Mathletics tasks and times table practise (which should be shown at the front of their homework books after their spellings work).  Homework will be on the class webpage on Thursdays and homework is due back in by Tuesday.  Children are encouraged to bring it in sooner for house points!  Reading folders were due to go out on Thursday but the plastic wallets haven’t arrived so we’re hoping they will come in time for reading books to go out early next week.  All the children visited the library and have checked out a book so they will have a book to read over the weekend. You can login from home to check which book they have borrowed or browse remotely. They can login using this URL: https://u003532.microlibrarian.net/

What we have been up to

During Maths, we built upon last week’s work, using number lines for numbers up to 100. We have also made practical use of our newly-refined number and place value skills by starting to solve number and place value-related partitioning problems.

During English, we enjoyed Dick King-Smith’s ‘The Omnibombulator’ as a text for our work on stories with familiar settings. The children were reminded about ‘Success Criteria’ – a checklist they should be using when they work.  Next week, we will plan and start to write our very own descriptive pieces from a ‘bug’s eye’ view. As part of the writing process, next week we will be sure to re-read our work with a view to improving it, a key part of the Year 3 English Writing curriculum. In our GPS lesson, we jumped straight in with learning how to use a dictionary which is an essential skill. It is the first time that the children have used dictionaries so they found it quite tricky – do practise looking up the definitions of words if you have a dictionary at home.

In our RE lesson, we designed a wisdom poster based on Year 3’s value of ‘Wisdom’.

The children enjoyed a session with our Scientist in Residence who did a session on Light and Shadows.

In our Computing lesson, we started to learn about the importance of online safety practices signing a contract and designing a poster using SMART as a reminder of how to stay safe online.

A reminder that our poem for the half term can be found on our class page. Please practise this with your child on a regular basis ahead of us performing it as a class at the end of the half term.

Who knows what the weather has in store for us this weekend but whatever the weather have a lovely relaxing time!

Mrs Hayes

It has been a lovely first few days in our new Year 3 classroom. I have been really impressed with how well all the children have settled back into a routine and how much they have progressed since I last taught them!

This week has mainly been about getting the children into a new routine and highlighting all the changes from in KS2. The children will continue to be split into two groups in Maths – a more supported group taught by Mrs Jeffrey – and a more independent group taught by myself.

In addition you will have seen that the children will be swimming every Friday but our class will begin next term.

We have lots of really fun topics to learn about his term and are currently planning some great trips and workshops too. Please do look at our curriculum map and timetable attached to find out more about the topics we will be focussing on.

What we have been up to

In Maths, we have been recapping on our learning from Year 2 to make sure we are in the correct groups from Monday.

We completed some pretty spectacular self-portraits in Art but also included some words that we thought best described us.

In English, we have been focusing on handwriting – Year 3 is the year we learn our joins and begin cursive letters. Today the children also wrote a book review describing the favourite part of a book they have read this holiday.

In RE, we wrote prayers based on our Year 3 word, Wisdom. We thanked God for our school and prayed that we have fun and learn lots in Year 3!

Finally in computing we talked about keeping safe online.

Homework

There is no homework this week but I have uploaded this term’s class poem, The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear, that we will be learning this term. Please do share it with your children.

Do please email me if you have any questions.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Hayes

Year 3 Lear Timetable 24-25

00 Year 3 Curriculum Map 2024-2025

The Owl and the Pussycat- Autumn 1