Writing:   

Year 3 will use the story Stone Age Boy to hook us in to writing in the first half term. We shall start our writing by making a prediction from details stated and implied using adjectives, apostrophes and past tense words to make our writing interesting for the reader. To write speech between characters we will be learning how to use a “speech sandwich.”  By the end of this half term, we will be writing a narrative based on the Stone Age Boy and we will be publishing this for displays in school.  

The story of The Silence Seeker will help us in the second half term to write a 3rd person narrative. The narrative will include simple past and past progressive to describe characters and settings.   Year 3 will write a descriptive paragraph using our five senses to add impact and use direct speech using the speech sandwich rules we learnt in the first half of the Spring term. We will be writing a diary entry using past and present tenses to create a timeline of events from a narrative in the 3rd person. 

Grammar: 

During the Spring Term, we will be continuing to use Grammarsaurus  to help us build upon our knowledge of single- clause sentences, learning what a subject, noun and clause are within a sentence and how to use these. 

Reading: 

In the Spring Term, Year 3 will be continue to explore a range of fiction and non-fiction texts from Grammarsaurus’s ‘Comprehension Crusher’ resources. Our Non-fiction (information texts) will help us learn about The Arabian Peninsula, a persuasive text called “Join our wicked crew’ and a non-chronological report about Africa. 

Our fiction texts will include the myth of ‘King Midas’, ‘A voyage of discovery’ about the explorations of Charles Darwin and playscript from the traditional tale of ‘Hansel and Gretal’. 

Some children will explore other texts as part of their learning, as well as continuing to develop their Phonic knowledge. 

We will assess our reading progress by undertaking  regular ‘Bugclub’ assessments. 

Spelling: 

In our Spelling lessons, we will learning about words with the digraph ‘ai’ and tetragraph ‘aigh’; the digraph ‘ei’ and tetragraph ‘eigh’; the digraph ‘ey’ makes an /ai/ sound; the suffix ‘–ly’ and words that are homophones. 

In the second half-term, we will be learning about words ending in ‘al’ and ‘le’; words ending in ‘-ly’ where the base word ends in ‘le’; words ending in ‘-ly’ where the base word ends in ‘-ic’ and words ending in ‘-ly’ that are exceptions.

Maths:  

Maths during the Spring Term sees us building upon our skills learnt in the Autumn Term. Our Multiplication and Division lessons see us multiplying a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number both using exchanges and no exchanges, we will be understanding how to link multiplication facts to division to help us divide 2-digit by 1-digit numbers both with and without remainders. 

During Length and Perimeter lessons, we will measure in meter, centimeters and millimeters, we shall be exploring equivalent lengths and adding and subtracting a variety of lengths. Year 3 will measure and learn how to calculate the perimeter of shapes. 

In the second half of the Spring Term, year 3 will begin to understand the denominators of unit fractions, compare and order fractions and understand both the whole and non-unit fractions. We will learn how to count in fractions on a number line and find equivalent fractions using bar models and fraction walls. 

Finally, during Mass and Capacity, we will use scales to measure mass in grams, kilograms and understand equivalent masses to compare the mass of objects. We shall be using the skills learnt in mass to help us understand and compare equivalent capacity and volume in liters and milliliters. 

Science: 

In the first half-term, our science learning will be based on ‘Forces, Friction and Magnets’. We will learn how forces are needed to make things move before investigating how a surface can impact how long an abject can spin and then how a surface affects sliding. We will then explore magnets and learn how they affect each other because of their poles and investigate items that are magnetic. Our last investigation will involve exploring the link between the size and strength of different magnets. 

Our science topic for the second half-term will be ‘Rocks, Soils and Fossils’. We will explore how rocks are different based on their properties before learning about how they are used. We will then learn about the role soil plays in our lives and how it can be different, as well as investigating water retention in different soils. Finally, we will learn about fossils including learning about the famous palaeontologist Mary Anning and her scientific achievements. 

RSHE: 

Our first lesson of the term will be our ‘No Outsiders’ lesson and will focus on the theme of being welcoming, using the text ‘Beegu’ by Alexis Deacon for inspiration. We will then learn about being ‘Caring and Responsible’ by knowing our responsibilities for both ourselves and others; knowing how we can respect personal boundaries by recognising and respecting personal space and how showing empathy is an important element of being a caring person. We will then continue with our e-safetyin RSHE by learning how someone’s feelings can be hurt by what is said or written online. 

In the second half of the term our ‘No Outsiders’ lesson will explore how we can recognise a stereotype through the use of ‘The truth about old people’ by Elina Ellis.

Following this, our focus will be families and committed relationships where we will learn about boundaries and behaviour in positive relationships and about what belonging and caring can look like in our family lives. We will then learn about diversity and what living in a diverse community is like.

We will then continue to develop our skills in being safe online by exploring how our online reputation is impacted by the choices we make whilst thinking carefully about the type of information we share about ourselves online. 

Geography: 

In Geography, we will be learning about land use in our region of the East Midlands. We will learn about the types of land use. We will then learn about important features of settlements and why people may choose to settle there.

Following this, we will undertake some field work where we will investigate how land is used in our immediate locality around school as well as undertaking a traffic survey to learn more about transport. 

History: 

History will a significant part of our learning during the Spring Term as our topic will be ‘Stone Age to Iron Age – How did life in Britain change?’ and we will look forward to our trip to a site of historical significance when we visit Creswell Craggs.

We will begin by learning about life in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times including learning about how early humans lived, what they ate and how their lives changed as we move on to learning about the Neolithic and Bronze Age. We will learn about how tools and farming were significant developments, as well as learning about the significance of the Beaker people. 

We will then find out more about how daily life changed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, learning about roundhouses and hillforts before investigating what we know about these periods of history in our East Midlands region. 

Art:

Our art learning this term will be centered around some of the world’s most inspiring buildings and their architecture. We will learn about different architectural styles and the works of Sir Christopher Wren. We will then investigate the design, patterns and colours in famous landmarks including St. Basil’s cathedral, the Taj Mahal and the Sydney Opera House before designing our own building for a particular purpose.  

Computing: 

Data and Information will see Year 3 using Branching Databases to create questions with yes/ no answers. We will be collecting data to create branching databases and explain why these are helpful in creating an identification tool. 

Computer Systems and Networks will see us explaining how digital devices function, how to input and output with these devices.

We will understand how a computer network can be used to share information, how they can be connected and how to recognise the physical components of a network. 

RE: 

Our RE learning this term will involve exploring the role prayer plays in religion, community and family. We will learn about how Christian’s pray and the words, symbols and actions that may be part of this.

We will then learn about how Muslim’s pray and the meaning of symbols, words and actions used in Muslim prayer. We will then learn about similarities and differences in Christian and Muslim places of prayer before considering personal points of view about prayer. 

Music: 

Year 3 shall be completing the topic of 'Using Your imagination' to understand the pitch and rhythm of a piece of music. We shall be listening to music and responding to this with our thoughts and feelings evoked by a piece of music.

We shall be learning how to sing songs and play instruments along to the beat of the music to enable us to perform a song to others. 

During the second half of the Spring Term, we will be building upon the skills previously learnt in music. We shall further develop our musical skills and learn how to compose a piece of music using improvisation.  

Physical Education:

During our Gymnastics lessons, Jackals will sequence tiptoe, step, jump and hops. Perform Chassis steps, jump in straight half terns and cat leaps, developing the quality of the actions of our performances with control and confidence. We will compete against both ourselves and others in a controlled manner describing how our performance has changed over time. 

Dance lessons will see Jackals, begin to improvise with a partner to create a simple dance, creating motifs inspired by our Class topic. We will begin to compare and adapt movements and motifs to create a larger sequence including changes of speed, level and direction. Jackals will use simple dance vocabulary to compare and improve work and perform awareness of rhythm and expression. We will perform learnt skills and techniques with control and confidence. 

Modern Foreign Languages - French 

French lessons in Year 3 see us developing our understanding of the phonics used in French before we move on to the topic of ‘Les Instruments.’

During these lessons we will learn to recognise and recall 15 instruments names in French, we shall learn how to pronounce the names of these instruments and spell them in French. We will understand how to use the verb ‘jouer’ to describe how we play an instrument.

In the second half of the Spring Term, we will learn that the verb ‘je peux’ means I can. Year 3 will consolidate 10 verbs to enable us to say what we can and can’t do. We shall begin to use the conjunctions ‘et’ (and) ‘mais’ (but) to help us build sentences and consolidate all the language covered in this unit. 

Design & Technology:

Design & Technology will take place during the second half of the Spring Term. We shall be investigating mechanical systems and linkages to create a poster featuring moving parts.

We shall design a recycling poster by first making a prototype to test our ideas. We will then be creating the final piece and evaluating its effectiveness to see if it meets the design brief.