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Year 3

Welcome to Year 3

Welcome to the Summer Term 2025. 

Here you will find all the information you need to know about what is going on in Year 3.

Our topic this term delves into the history of Space exploration. We will focus heavily on understanding the chronology of the Space Race in the context of world history, looking for and identifying connections, contrasts, and trends over time. We will find out about the significant women and men who have contributed to making space exploration possible and we will challenge our critical thinking skills by constructing informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information to answer our final enquiry question: Does our future lie in Space?

 Our topic will cover the following themes and ideas: 

  • The reasons behind why the Space Race started 
  • Creating a timeline to order and sequence the key events 
  • Finding out about the women who helped build NASA 
  • Consider the similarities and differences between Tim Peake and Neil Armstrong (The latter is a focus of study for the children in KS1 and will link their learning from then to now) 
  • Find out which everyday objects that we have now, are because of Space exploration 
  • Think about why humans might choose to live in Space or on other planets in the future 

 

Some of our cross – curricular activities will involve the children exploring and using the concept of green screen in ICT to create their own mini films from Space, a visit to Winchester Science Museum with a focus on planets in our solar system and rockets, creating a musical score based on music from Gustav Holst’s The Planets and The Star Wars theme and using the work of Peter Thorpe, a Space artist, as a stimulus for their own art work.  

  • Throughout our learning, we will be considering key enquiry questions (listed below) and using our research and newly acquired knowledge to answer them. 

  Why the race to Space? 

Who were the women who helped make Space exploration possible? 

Do the consequences of the actions in the past mean our future lies in Space? 

 

For additional curriculum information about our topic please click here 

Our Science unit this half-term is Light.

This unit on Light takes children through six lessons where they learn how to:

recognise what a source of light is  

recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light

they notice that light is reflected from surfaces

recognise that light from the sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect their eyes

recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object

they find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change.

The lessons have been written in sequence and are designed to challenge children to recall the knowledge and skills they have covered in the previous learning. 

This is the first time children have covered the topic of light.

We continue to follow White Rose curriculum in Maths and the Year 3 topic overview can be found on the Maths Curriculum page by clicking here.

For a more detailed breakdown of curriculum coverage please scroll down to the Maths section below.

Our English units of work for this half-term will be based around these fantastic books: 

  • The White Fox by Jackie Morris
  • Flotsam by David Wiesner

For details about curriculum coverage of our English units please scroll down to the Year 3 Writing section below.

Our PE days will be Wednesday and Friday.

On these days, the children need to come to school in their school PE kit with their school uniform packed to change into if they get very wet during a PE lesson.

Please remember jogging bottoms when the weather turns colder.

Please ensure you bring reading books & reading record, water bottle and healthy snack to school every day.

The Year 3 team is Mr Leivers and Mrs Boese.

Communicating with school:

For general things e.g. lost jumper, wearing trainers because shoes too small etc, please contact the class teacher using the updated messaging function on Seesaw

For more significant concerns or worries, please email secretary@nshprimary.co.uk with FAO Mr Leivers Class Teacher in the subject.

Any changes to school pick up should go through the school office.

Year 3 Topics

Year 3 Maths

Telling the Time

Year 3 Writing

Year 3 and 4 Spelling list

Reading

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