Year 3

Welcome to Year 3

 Welcome to the Summer Term 2024. 

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

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Our topic this term is a geography-based topic which revolves around mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes. We will learn about the key features of each, where they are located and why and investigate their impact on human geography, settlement and land. We will explore, in greater depth, the similarities and differences in physical geography of a region of the United Kingdom, North and South America. This will be done through: 

• Using atlases, globes and computer mapping to locate countries and describe features studied 

• Using the eight points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and key (including the use of Ordnance Survey maps) to build knowledge of a physical region within the UK 

Using photographs, film clips and eye-witness accounts to build an understanding of mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes and their impact on human geography. 

Throughout our learning, we will be considering the following enquiry questions, using our research, and newly acquired knowledge to answer them:

Why is Mount Everest famous?  

What is a mountain? Is all high land a mountain? 

Are all mountains identical? 

Why do volcanoes erupt? 

Why do people like to live on or near volcanoes? 

Why doesn’t Britain experience significant earthquakes?  

We will also spend some time researching what happened to Pompeii and linking to our previous knowledge from last year’s history topic on the Romans. Our artwork will be linked to landscapes, focusing on artists Van Gogh and Matisse and the work of volcano artist Margaret Godfrey, while our DT focus will be on creating an exploding volcano and designing an earthquake resistant building.

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Our Science unit this halfterm is about Rocks.

This will link to our geography topic. The children will learn how to compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties.

They learn how to describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock.

Finally they will learn how to recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.

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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.

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Our English units of work for this halfterm will be based around these fantastic books: 

Flotsam by David Wiesner

The Lost Spells by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris

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

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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.

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Please ensure you bring reading book & reading record, 

water bottle and healthy snack to school every day.

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The Year 3 team is Mr Leivers and Mrs Boese and Mrs Everitt.