St. Peter's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to Year 3! In Year 3 the children and staff work very hard to ensure that all children reach their full potential. Our aim is to make learning fun and memorable, building on prior learning and developing secure knowledge and skills. As well as focusing on the aims of the National Curriculum, we work on developing self confidence, independence, resilience and personal and social skills.

In Key Stage Two there are greater expectations of the children; they should be organised and continue to display positive learning behaviour.

The children will need to:

• Be responsible for their own belongings: cardigans, jumpers, water bottles, books and bag
• Order their own lunch on the class iPad if needed
• Pencil cases are not needed, as all equipment will be provided
• In KS2, children are allowed on the field all year round. Each child needs to have a pair of trainers and tracksuit bottoms in school at all times in order to be allowed on the field, especially if it is muddy
• Be able to tie their own shoe laces and tie
• Children each have their own numbered peg in the cloakroom to keep their belongings, as well as a numbered cubby hole to keep their trainers and tracksuit bottoms for the field. These numbers will be given out on your child's first day.
• Keep their bags tidy and kept on their peg - please can we ask that children don't bring a large backpack to school, as there is limited space in the cloakroom
• Put their lunchboxes on the shelf above their peg as these cannot be kept in their bags due to the limited space
• Be organised when entering school in the morning; putting their water bottle in class and Reading Record in their group basket
• Make sure homework is completed by a Thursday morning and brought back into class to be marked
• Complete 2 Read Theory comprehensions tasks per week. Information about Read Theory will be sent out in September.
• Read regularly to an adult, at least three times per week (spending equal or more time on their skills book)
• Learn weekly spellings and times tables
• All clothes must be labelled
• Order their own snack on a Monday with the teacher if they are having toast and juice, otherwise bring a healthy snack Monday-Thursday. The children are allowed to bring a treat on a Friday

The timing of the day is also slightly different. In KS2, lunchtime is 12:30-1:15 and there are no free school meals. Please pay for school meals and snacks through Parent Pay. There is also no afternoon break.

Year 3 have P.E. on a Thursday and Friday. On these days we ask that the children come into school in their P.E. kits which consists of black t-shirt with logo, maroon shorts, black St. Peter’s hoodie or school jumper, extra socks. On cold days, children may wear black tracksuit bottoms/leggings.

Reading is the Key! “There is more treasure in books than in all the Pirate’s loot on the Treasure Island” Walt Disney.

In Year 3 the children will further develop fluency and comprehension skills. In class the children will transition from Guided Reading to Whole Class reading, focusing on fluency and recall, vocabulary and spelling and inference.

The children will bring home a list of Spellings each Friday to learn for the following Thursday. They will be tested on these spellings. A spelling overview can be found on the Medium Term Plans. The children will bring home a ‘Skills Book’ to develop their reading skills, as well as being able to chose their own ‘Read for Pleasure’ book. The more the children read these texts the better; they are expected to read to an adult at least 3 times a week, which will be recorded in their Reading Record.

Recommended Reading Books for Year 3:

Please click on the image below to see a list of 50 books recommended for Year 3. There is also a PDF of recommended books across different age ranges.

Year 3 Maths builds on knowledge and skills taught in Key Stage 1 and provides further foundations towards the End of Key Stage assessments in Year 6. We work on our basic number facts of numbers up to 1000. We continue to work on, use and apply our knowledge of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables when solving multiplication and division problems, and learn our 3, 4 and 8 times tables. The children work on mental and written addition and subtraction methods of, up to, 3-digit numbers. Problem solving and reasoning skills are developed across the Maths curriculum. We continue to use concrete apparatus, pictorial representations and abstract methods and recordings in order to develop our understanding. Please see below for an example.

Children will receive homework on a Friday. Usually, this is Maths or SPaG, spellings and times tables to learn, as well as the Reading Plus. The Maths and SPaG Homework is due in on Thursday. A times tables test and a spelling test will take place every Thursday, with the spellings being based on the spellings sent home the previous Friday. Occasionally, homework may differ and children may be asked to complete a comprehension task, writing or homework based on our learning in another curriculum area. All homework is talked through with the children when it is set.

We expect children to read each night and for this to be recorded in their reading records at least three times per week. Reading Plus will continue and the children will have a diagnostic test in September to ensure that the correct level is set. The children will be spoken to about what is expected of the, what to do if they are finding the reading speed to fast or too slow, and what to do if they are put on 'hold'.