Year 3 Curriculum Page

Welcome to the Year 3 curriculum page! I am Miss Carney, the year 3 class teacher. Throughout this page, you can find out about all the fun and exciting things that we will be learning throughout this year. 

Religious Education – To Know You More Clearly

At Holy Cross, we follow the RED Religious Education Directory: To Know You More Clearly, which supports children in deepening their knowledge and love of God through scripture, tradition and lived faith. The curriculum is structured around six branches, one per half term:

1. Creation and Covenant

2. Prophecy and Promise

3. Galilee to Jerusalem

4. Desert to Garden

5. To the Ends of the Earth

6. Dialogue and Encounter

These branches help pupils explore salvation history, the life and mission of Jesus, the story of the Church, and the call to live out their faith today. Each year group builds upon this foundation, encouraging children to reflect, question and grow spiritually. The curriculum is closely linked to the liturgical year and supports our prayer life, worship and Catholic mission throughout the school.

English

Over the year the children will explore a wide range of different genres and texts. Through these different texts, the pupils will exercise a variety of skills including: word reading, comprehension, Grammar, spelling, drama/performance, text mapping, planning, editing and re-drafting.

Autumn 1: Man on the Moon by Simon Bartrum

Autumn 2: The Barnabus Project by The Fan Brothers

Spring 1: Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

Spring 2: You're a Bad Man Mr Gum by Andy Stanton

Summer 1: The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

Summer 2: Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Reading

We encourage you to read at home with your child whenever you can. Throughout  the week, the children will participate in guided reading sessions to develop their comprehension skills. It is vital to continue building on these skills at home to check the children understand and comprehend what they are reading. 

To find information about different children's authors, click the link below:

http://clubs-kids.scholastic.co.uk/authors

Maths

The maths curriculum requires pupils to focus on reasoning and problem-solving skills through a range of real-life and mathematical topics. Therefore, the children will focus on applying the number skills they will learn in throughout the year through a range of investigations and real-life problems.The children in Year 3 have been given their Mathletics login so they are able to complete Maths activities and improve their mental maths skills on using Mathletics at home as well as in school!

Autumn

During the Autumn Term, Year 3 will focus on:

• Number - Place value in numbers to 1000
• Number - Addition and subtraction
• Number - Multiplication and division

Spring 

During the Spring Term, Year 3 will focus on:

• Number - Further multiplication and division
• Length
• Mass
• Volume
• Money
• Time

Summer 

During the Summer Term Year 3 will focus on:

• Picture Graphs/Bar Graphs
• Number- Fractions
• Angles
• Lines and shapes
• Perimeter of figures 

We will also spend a term recapping our learning and getting ready for Year 4!

*Throughout the school year, the children will continuously practise their mental maths skills through our weekly basic skills sessions, mental maths lessons and 'Mathletics'.

History 

In Year 3, the children will be learning a range of different subjects through Opening Worlds. Opening Worlds is a knowledge-rich humanities programme for teaching history and geography. 

Autumn 1: Ancient Egypt

Autumn 2: Cradles of Civilisation 

Spring 1: The Indus Valley

Spring 2: Persia and Greece

Summer 1: Ancient Greece

Summer 2: Alexander the Great

Geography

Autumn 1: The Indus River

Autumn 2: Mountains

Spring 1: Settlements

Spring 2: Agriculture 

Summer 1: Volcanoes 

Summer 2: Climate and Biomes

Physical Education

Autumn 1: Foundations/fundamentals, Invasion games

Autumn 2: Net and wall, Invasion games

Spring 1: Invasion games, dance 

Spring 2: Dance, gymnastics 

Summer 1: Athletics

Summer 2: Athletics, sticking and fieldings

 

Art and Design and Technology 

Autumn

Painting portraits

Spring

Printing

Summer 

Drawing 

During DT lessons, children will be participating in cookery lessons with our school cook. They will be learning how to make healthy, nourishing recipes to encourage a healthy balanced diet and lifestyle. 

Science

 Year 3 will cover a range of exciting and interesting Science topics through the year, including; Rocks, Animals inc Humans, Plants, Forces and Magnets and Light.

Rocks

During this topic, children will learn to:

• Compare and group together different kinds of rocks based on their appearance and simple physical properties.
• Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock.
• Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.

Animals Including Humans

During this topic, children will learn to:

• Identify that animals, including humans, need the right types and amount of nutrition, and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat
• Identify that humans and some animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement

Light

During this topic, children will learn to:

• Recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light
• 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 a solid object
• Find patterns in the way that the sizes of shadows change.

Forces and Magnets

During this topic, children will learn to:

• Compare how things move on different surfaces
• Notice that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance
• Observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others
• Compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials
• Describe magnets as having two poles
• Predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing.

Plants

 During this topic, children will learn to:

• Identify and describe the functions of different parts of plants; roots, stem, leaves and flowers.
• Explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil and room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant.
• Investigate the ways in which water is transported within plants.
• Explore the role of flowers in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal

PSHE

Our PSHE topics throughout the year will cover a wide range of topics-

• Keeping ourselves safe
• Healthy eating
• Physical Activity
• Citizenship/Global Citizenship
• British Values
• Radicalisation and extremism

We will also be participating in the following SEAL Topics-

• New beginnings
• Say no to bullying
• Getting on and falling out
• Relationships
• Going for Goals
• Good to be me
• Changes

The children will also be exploring diversity, inclusion, equality and discrimination through the following books.

British Values

Throughout the school year the children will be taught about 'British Values', which they will practise this in all subjects across the curriculum. It is an important aspect of their learning, and will include focus on; democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.The class have taken part in an election of school councillors  and ambassadors that will represent Year 3  on the school council and for different subject areas. This exposed the children to democratic practice; the children who wished to be elected presented a speech to the rest of the class. The class then voted for the people they wanted to elected.