Year 3

Key information for parents:

• Year 3 children come into school at 8.40am and enter school through the playground door. 
• Year 3 leave school at 3.15 pm through the same door.
• Year 3's PE sessions take place on a Wednesday and a Thursday, children should come to school in their PE kit on these days. If it is non-uniform day on their PE day, children will need to wear appropriate clothes and footwear for their PE lesson. 
• Reading books are changed on Tuesdays.

Mrs Hollins, Mrs Hobson and Mrs Southwick-Williams look forward to welcoming you to Year 3.

🎅 🎄 🎁 MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE 🎅 🎄 🎁 

Wishing you all a wonderful time over the festive period. 
We look forward to welcoming the children back on Tuesday 6th January 2026.

Science -Forces and magnetism

Today we began exploring our new unit - Forces and Magnetism. We reminded ourselves that forces are pushes or pulls and then went on to learn about contact forces and how to represent these as force diagrams. As the unit progresses we will explore helpful and unhelpful effects of friction as well as investigating the non-contact force - magnetism.

Be Bright . Be Seen

We have spent time this week talking about how to stay safe when walking outside during the dark winter evenings. The children have investigated fluorescent and reflective materials and made their own dangler to attach to their coats or bags.

STONE AGE WORKSHOP

The children have had an incredible day. They started off by meeting Bug who, after they had woken up, hunted them round the hall. After that they, were taught to use a bow and arrow to hunt for their dinner. They then looked at many Stone Age artefacts, before making their very own spears. In the afternoon, the children looked at the bones of animals and tried to work out how they would have been used in the Stone Age times. They finished the day creating their very own cave drawings on slate. What a wonderful experience and exemplary behaviour by all!

🪩 🕺 HOPE HOUSE CHILDREN’S HOSPICES 

DANCE FUNDRAISING EVENT 💃 🪩 

YEAR 3 READING BREAKFAST 18.9.25

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend our reading breakfast. The children had a wonderful time, and it was a great opportunity for them to share a book with you in their learning environment. 

🗺️ 🌍🌍 Geography 🌍🌍🗺️

In Geography, we have started our new topic ‘Are all settlements the same?’

Today we identified cities within the United Kingdom by using an atlas to find where they were located. After that we looked at the different types of settlement which could be found here in the United Kingdom and matched the aerial photographs, description and OS maps together.

Descriptive writing ✏️✍️📝

To start off our new text this week we have given our partner a clear description of a picture. They had to listen to the instructions and draw the picture described.

🧭🗺️Geography Fieldwork🗺️🧭

Year three planned and completed an expedition to Antarctica. 🧊🇦🇶🗺️🧭

Using Digimaps to show them the Ariel map of our school grounds they created their own and wrote instructions using compass points to guide them to the iceberg. 
Everyone had a set of instructions, a compass and an aerial photograph of Hugo Meynell and off they went! 

💻👾Micro bits 💻👾

During our DT and computing sessions we learnt how to use a micro bit and how we can programme it to have flashing lights and to make a noise.

As part of our Science topic about ‘Light and Shadows’ we used a light meter to test where the lightest areas of the school were. 🔦💡🕯️

🎾 Tennis 🎾

Year 3 visited the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Stoke today. After taking off our shoes, covering our hair and washing our hands, to show respect in their place of worship, we went into the prayer hall. We were impressed by how fancy and colourful it was. We loved seeing the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, with beautiful covers under a canopy.  We sat on the floor and the children asked lots of great questions. We were invited to have Langar, which is food and drink shared by everyone. We learned that some Sikhs go to the gurdwara at 4 am to worship the creator!   

Today we were lucky enough to be visited by Valor Ju- Jitsu. The children were taught some pad work as well as self-defense and how to fall to the ground safely. The enjoyment was clear to see from the smiles on the children's faces and we hope that some of them continue to learn this martial art!

🐒🐼🐻🦍🐘🦘🦛Year 3 - We are Zoologists

After introducing the career - zoologist, we watched a video clip showing a typical day in the life of a large mammal zoologist. We found out about how they targeted the animals to help support them when they need medical attention. We then went on a scavenger hunt around school to uncover lots of fascinating facts about different animals.

Year Three parents challenge

Thank you to everyone who came and supported us with the tower building. There was a lot of competitive parents during the morning. Well done to everyone. Some very impressive towers!

🧫🔭🔬⚗️🧬🥼🧪👨‍🔬Dr Tonge - Interview a scientist. 🧫🔭🔬⚗️🧬🧪👩‍🔬

Following post-doctoral roles at the School of Veterinary Medicine (Nottingham) and the Medical Research Council, Dan worked as a Senior Scientist for the Health Protection Agency and as Senior Executive Officer at Public Health England. During this period, he sat on the agency-wide Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) committee across PHE (now the UK Health and Security Agency). Dan joined Keele in 2015 and manages and/or teaches on a range of UG and PG modules including Clinical Pathology, Clinical Applications of Biomedical Sciences, Advances in Medicine and Research Methodologies. Dan undertakes research in the broad area of molecular sequencing and bioinformatics (now almost exclusively computer-based, he still owns a lab coat) with a focus on increasing our understanding of human health and disease. Outside of his research and teaching roles, Dan serves as the Director of Postgraduate Research, and is the Human Tissue Authority 'Designated Individual' for the HTA research-sector licence held at Keele University.

🌏📕📗📘📙📖📚📒World Book Day 🌎📕📔📒📘📗📙📚📖

Safer Internet Day 2025

Year three have been thinking about how scams affect other people and what harm they can cause to others.
They started off by watching the live BBC lesson and took part in the ‘Scam Smashers’ game. It taught them that scams can appear when playing games or searching online. They explained that scams can be exciting and tempting but there is nothing real behind them. If something seems too good to be true always ask a trusted adult.

In the afternoon we looked at pop up gremlins and how they can deceive people into thinking something is not what it seems. Following this we gave advice to staff members about how to avoid scammers online.

Roman Day

Today we had an amazing day. We investigated how Romans built their towns. We had the opportunity to build large-scale keystone arches, a hypocaust and a Roman macellum (marketplace) using traditional building techniques for example a post and a lintel.

During the artefact handling session we handled replica and authentic Roman artefacts and match them to their uses; play some Roman games and dress in typical Roman clothes. We loved finding out what each thing was for.

We explored the sites of ancient Rome and the Romans in Britain, using Virtual Reality headsets. Some of the places we visited included Hadrian’s Wall, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Pompeii, the Roman Baths at Aquae Sulis and much more.

Finally we learnt about the evolution of the Roman Army, from the days of Regal Rome up until the Roman Legionary that may have been seen patrolling the upper boundaries of Britain on Hadrian’s Wall.

Number Day

To start off the number day we completed Fizz Buzz with the 5 and 3 times tables, it became very confusing when they changed any number in the times tables with fizz or buzz. Following the maths games they solved Buddy's key challenge.  Buddy lives in a magical forest where he has been visiting schools through a special door in an enchanted tree. He really wanted to visit Hugo Meynell but the door was locked and there was a problem with the key; when Buddy sent the key to us it was broken into ten pieces!

We were given some clues to solve the problems and found the pieces of the key around the classroom. Now the key is put back together we have been able to open the magic door to meet Buddy!

Mental Health Week

Year 3 have spent this week thinking about 'Know yourself, grow yourself'. They thought about how they ensure they support their own mental health by completing activities they enjoy doing now and what they want to achieve in the future. They have listened to a variety of No Outsider stories about how discrimination can be upsetting and how some people can be unkind. We discussed what makes our school amazing and how everyone is welcome. After reading the book 'We're all wonders' we decided on a key message we can share with everyone. 'Look with Kindness and you will find Wonder'. 

Spiritual Development Day 

Today, we all took part in a Spiritual development session. We learnt that it is very difficult to put into words what ‘spirituality’ actually is because it is a personal experience. We discussed how this may differ from person to person and that spirituality is not the same as having a religion or faith.

We used the analogy of a doughnut and used this to think of ourselves as the ring of the doughnut with an invisible hole inside all of us. This hole is filled in order for us to feel whole. It is filled with those things that give our lives meaning and enables us to feel joy, happiness, calmness and to feel at peace🍩 

Take a look at us in action 📸 , we even had a cheeky, mini doughnut to mark the occasion 🌟

English - The Stone Age Boy

This week, year three have made predictions about what they think will happen in the story. Their favourite lesson was using inverted commas. They were asked to write a conversation between two characters using a white board pen. They were all very shocked when they were told to write on the tables. They have been given strict instructions ‘Not to try this at home!’

The Stone Age Day

Soup!! 🥣
 

As part of our DT project looking at seasonal vegetables we created our own soup. 
We discovered fruits and vegetables from each season and looked at the vegetables for Autumn. We learnt how to cut and peel our vegetables before making into them soup. 
 

We made a mushroom soup and a carrot and parsnip soup.  🍄‍🟫🥕🥔

Before the children tried the mushroom soup there were lots of comments stating they didn’t like mushrooms. There were lots of surprised faces when they tried it and decided they actually quite liked it! 
😋😁👍🏻🫶

 

Science 🧲🔭🔬
This week in Science we have been investigating the strength of magnets.

The children were given a selection of magnetic and non magnetic materials and were asked to find out if they were attracted to the magnet. 
When they had determined if they were magnetic they needed to see if the strength was the same when they added in a piece of card between the magnet and the material.

World Mental Health Day

Year 3 have been thinking about how different feelings can affect us. They learnt that you can experience over 400 emotional experiences every day. They talked about how they can keep their minds healthy and what they could do to do this. They also talked about who are their trusted adults to go to if they need help.
Taking care of your mental health is important, year 3 explored the acronym ‘Yellow’ and how it can support their own mental health.
Y - Your feelings matter 
E - Everyone needs support
L- Listen to your body
L - Learn to relax
O - Offer kindness
W - Wiggle and move

Gestural drawing

As part of our gestural drawing for art we have explored drawing by candle light this afternoon. The children investigated what cave paintings were and how they were used as a form of communication during the Stone Age. 
The children went into their caves (under the tables) with their sketch books, a range of drawing material and a battery powered candle. 🕯️✏️📚
They had a fantastic afternoon and the drawing produced were amazing.

Music - ballads

Year 3 have been exploring ballads during this half term. They have listened to and appraised different ballads which include Space Oddity by David Bowie, Winds of Change by Scorpion, Hello by Adele and Run by Leona Lewis. 
They have learnt that a ballad is a story which is through a song and have started to write their own verse to accompany the short video Soar.

Eccleshall Rugby Fest

Year 3 took part in a Rugby Megafest, run by Eccleshall Rugby Club. They had the opportunity to play various games that gave them a taster of the rugby game. This was a fantastic experience for the children to be involved with and there was a real buzz around school.

Year three have made a fantastic start to their life in Key Stage 2. 

In English they have written super sentences which include a verb and a noun and have practised their joins when writing. There seems to be some fierce competition about who will get their pen license first! We will have to wait and see!

Reading and writing numbers to 100 and 100 was that start to the place value unit in maths with presentation being a big focus. They all accepted the challenge and the presentation was fantastic! We were all very impressed. 

Well done Year Three! A fantastic start.

Science.

Year three have been exploring the structure of plants and the use of each part. They started by sketching the plant before labelling and explaining what each part was for and how it kept the plant alive. 
As part of our scientific enquiry we will be testing to see how watering a plant affects its growth. Plant A will be given 20ml of water a day, plant B will be given 10ml and plant C will be given no water at all! Come back in a few weeks to see what happened to the plants! 🌱🪻🪴