St. Peter's C.E. Primary School

Year 3 is taught by Mr Ross and Mrs Walker.

Autumn term

1) Our first topic this year will be joining the dots between the landscape, weather and industry of our region.  The topic is therefore called 'Hills, Mills & Manchester', and we have already been on the first of our field trips!  Have a look below at some of the photos from our day out at Dovestones Reservoir.  The weather was fantastic, and the children were trooopers - walking 6.5 miles up, down and around the beautiful, local setting.  There will be one more trip (possibly two) for this topic in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for letters and messages. 

2) In November, we will be having a Multi-Faith Week mini topic.  Year three will be learning about Judaism.

3) In the run up to Christmas, we will be looking at Christianity Around the World, and our class will be looking specifically at Christmas in SPAIN.

As part of our mini topic on North America, we used some virtual reality goggles to explore the Grand Canyon in the USA.  We used this experience to enhance our writing and artwork too...

During the Summer term, we are looking at the Ancient Romans.  Have a look at our amazing day embossing metal to make Roman coins and Celtic torcs, as well as making proper mosaics with cement and tiles.  Brilliant fun! Many thanks to our visitor, Mr Tony North from Time Trips, for his insight and expertise.

Next up - a trip to Chester to march with a Roman soldier.   What a great day in lovely summer sunshine!

Your child won't be coming home with many worksheets for homework this year.  Instead, they will be expected to do some reading, learn their times tables and learn their spellings EVERY EVENING at home.  We expect the children to spend at least 5 minutes on each of these three jobs, making a total of 15 minutes (min) work per night. Please sign their blue diaries to indicate that you have supported them, or witnessed them doing this work.  Children that don't do this work every evening will be required to stay in from playtime the following lunchtime to catch up.  If your child successfully completes this daily task for the complete week, and gets 5 stamps in class, they will receive fish as a reward.  More importantly, their reading, spelling and maths skills will be improving rapidly, and of course that is our main aim.

Times tables are tested as a class every Friday, and individually with Mrs Walker every Wednesday.

Spellings are addressed in three ways:

i) Topic or science words (usually between 10-20) - sent home on a Monday for a test on the following Monday.

ii) National Curriculum spelling rules - usually practised within handwriting sessions at the start of each day.

iii) One-to-one spellings gaps of high frequency words and common misconceptions.  These are the 5 handwritten words that your child comes home with every fortnight.

Reading is, naturally, a top priority for us.  It should be a top priority for your child too!  Please help them by hearing them read as often as possible: every day if you can.  Please suport your child further by signing their reading diary.  In this way, your child can progress through the school books and move on to 'free readers'.  Crucially, your child needs to develop a clear understanding of the texts they read if they are to be able to access the curriculum more widely and maximise their own learning.  Thank you for your support with this.

We do PE on Tuesdays.  Your child needs a full PE kist in school:  black or blue shorts, white T-shirt and black pumps.  This kit needs to be in school from the first day of each half half term to the final day.  No exceptions.

From Sept 16th to October 20th, the children will be doing cross country training on Friday afternoons.  We recommend that they bring an additional kit for this, so that it can be taken home and washed as required, and their normal PE kit will be saved from getting wet and muddy.

After Easter, we will be going swimming on Friday afternoons.  For this, your child will need a proper swimming suit (NOT baggy shorts or bikinis).  They should have earrings and other jewellery removed, and hair tied back or in a cap.  They will need a towel of course and probably a hairbrush for afterwards.  Goggles will only be permitted with express direction from a doctor.