Hello everyone and welcome to Year Three. We are extremely proud to teach your children this year. Mrs Lupton will be teaching Chestnut class and Mrs Oestreicher will be teaching Sycamore class. Our classes are supported by Mrs Randall, Mrs Davidson, Miss Tring, Mrs Oliver, Mrs Houghton Small, Mrs Rahman and Miss Drew.

We are delighted with the maturity that the children have shown on returning to school after the summer holidays. They have been keen to share their exciting news with us and to start making new friendships in their new classes.

We are particularly impressed by how the children are applying their understanding of the school values (Pride, Compassion, Respect and Responsibility) in their everyday school life and have got used to new class routines and expectations. The children have been particularly keen to earn Dojo points, which are awarded to children for specific instances of living the values.

Year 3 is the start of key stage 2. We continue with our core curriculum subjects of Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, RE, Music, Art, DT and PSHE, and in addition the children start learning French this year. They have been very excited about this and keen to share that some of them have people in their family who already speak French. Another source of great excitement has been that we will be going to Saxon pool for swimming as part of our PE curriculum. Swimming lessons will be on Friday afternoons for both classes and will be in the second half of the term.

This brings us on nicely to our PE days. This year the children will be doing Outdoor PE on  Friday afternoons (delivered by sports specialists from Premier Education) and Indoor PE on Tuesday afternoons. Please ensure that your child arrives to school on these days in their correct PE kit (see website for further details)

Our library day is Friday and the children will be able to choose new library books on a fortnightly basis. As with previous year groups, all children receive a reading book from our reading scheme once a week. We encourage children to read at home with adults as much as possible to help fluency and understanding. Your child will receive a reading comprehension and Maths homework to be done at home once every two weeks. Please could you support your child to help them set up good homework habits which will be of benefit to them as they move through schools.

We have an exciting term ahead of us. We start this half term with learning about climate and weather in Geography; finding out about animal movement, skeletons and nutrition in Science; exploring shape and space through sculptures and 3d in Art; and learning about music notation in Music.

We are very much looking forward to meeting you in person at Meet the Teacher on Monday 21^st September at 3.35 in your child’s classroom, but if you would like to talk to either Mrs Lupton or Mrs Oestreicher please don’t hesitate to contact us through the class emails: GMA-sycamore@bestacademies.org.uk  or GMA-chestnut@bestacademies.org.uk   or have a chat with us after we have said goodbye to the children at the end of the day.

Here’s wishing everyone a very happy autumn term!

Mrs Oestreicher and Mrs Lupton

The document below provides an overview of the knowledge, skills and understanding that children are generally expected to achieve by the end of Year 3. It is intended as a guide to help you understand the learning that has taken place throughout the year and the expectations as your child prepares to move into Year 4.