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English
This half term in English, we’ll be using the wordless picture book Journey by Aaron Becker to inspire our own adventure stories. The children will explore settings, build atmosphere, and create characters using rich vocabulary, prepositions, and similes.
They’ll write in role as the main character, using diary entries and dialogue to show thoughts and feelings. We’ll focus on organising writing into clear paragraphs and using varied sentence types. By the end of the unit, the children will plan, write, and edit their own imaginative adventure story, drawing on inspiration from both Journey and our class novel Tilly Mint Tales.
RE
This half term in RE, we’ll be learning about the Christian belief in the Trinity and why it’s important. We’ll begin by exploring the story of Jesus’ baptism and how Christians believe it shows God as three-in-one: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. The children will look closely at the Bible text, learn key vocabulary, and explore how water is used as a symbol in baptism.
As the unit progresses, we’ll look at different types of baptism—infant and believer’s—and explore how and why Christians choose one over the other. The children will also study artwork that shows the Trinity and think about how these beliefs are expressed through worship, symbols, and everyday life.
Throughout the unit, the children will be encouraged to reflect on what Christians believe God is like and how the Trinity helps shape those beliefs.
Numeracy
This half term in Year 3, we’ll be learning about Length and Perimeter, followed by Time. To begin with, we’ll focus on measuring length in metres, centimetres, and millimetres. The children will practise using rulers and tape measures to measure objects accurately and compare different lengths. They’ll also learn how to add and subtract lengths, and will begin to calculate the perimeter of simple 2-D shapes by adding up the lengths of their sides.
Later in the term, we’ll move on to telling the time. The children will recap telling the time to the nearest five minutes, and move on to telling the time to the nearest minute, using both analogue and digital clocks. They’ll also learn how to read and write the time using a.m. and p.m., as well as explore the 24-hour clock. We’ll finish the unit by solving problems involving duration, such as calculating start and end times and finding out how long events last.
PSHE
This half term in PSHE, we’ll be learning about citizenship and what it means to be part of a community. The children will explore the idea of rights and responsibilities, focusing on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. They’ll learn that all children have rights and that adults have a responsibility to help protect and uphold them.
We’ll look at how rules and laws help keep people safe, and why there are consequences when rules are broken. The children will also learn about democracy, how people vote in elections, and the role of local councils in looking after our area.
As part of this topic, we’ll think about how we can all contribute to our community—through recycling, supporting charities, and looking after shared spaces like libraries, schools, and places of worship. The children will be encouraged to reflect on how their actions can make a positive difference in the world around them.
Homework
Learning Logs are due on the first Friday of every half-term
Homework is set on Learning By Questions
Set on Monday, |
English |
Set on Wednesday, |
Maths |
Set at the end of half term, |
Learning Logs |
Geography
This half term in geography, we’ll be learning about the rainforest, focusing on the Amazon in South America. The children will use maps and digital tools to locate the world’s rainforests and understand that they are found near the equator, in a region called the tropics. They’ll learn about biomes and vegetation belts, and explore the tropical climate using graphs to look at rainfall and temperature.
We’ll then look at the four layers of the rainforest—emergent, canopy, under storey, and forest floor—and find out what lives in each one. The children will explore the Amazon as a habitat and learn how plants, animals, and insects rely on each other to survive. Finally, we’ll investigate deforestation, why it happens, and the impact it has on the rainforest and the wider environment.
Science
In science this half term, we’ll be exploring forces and magnets. The children will begin by investigating how different surfaces affect the way objects move, learning that texture can help or hinder movement. They’ll explore the difference between contact and non-contact forces and begin to understand that magnetic forces can act at a distance. We’ll then move on to magnets, observing how they attract or repel and discovering that not all materials are magnetic. The children will test a variety of objects to find out which materials are attracted to magnets and compare the strength of different magnets through simple investigations. As the unit continues, we’ll learn that magnets have two poles, and that the same poles repel while opposite poles attract. The children will have the chance to predict how magnets will interact based on which poles are facing. Throughout the topic, they’ll be encouraged to make predictions, carry out investigations, and explain their findings using accurate scientific vocabulary.