We hope that you had a lovely Christmas break. Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.

Reading

Our goal is to create confident, fluent and independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. In Year 3, we focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. These are based on comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference, summarising, making links, prediction and vocabulary.

Year 3, we will be studying ‘Flat Stanley - The Great Egyptian Grave Robbery’ by Jeff Browns, ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’ by Shirley Climo, ‘Gender Swapped Fairy Tales’ by Karrie Fransman & Jonathan Plackett, ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Rachel Isadora and a variety of poetry and non-fiction.

Maths

Our curriculum is based on the White Rose Maths programme. This research-based initiative ensures that the skills and concepts children taught are fully embedded before moving on. The children are taught strategies such as bar modelling and have plenty of opportunities to use ‘manipulatives’ such as counters and dienes all the way through the school.

This term we will be focusing on; multiplication and division, length and perimeter, fractions, and mass and capacity.

Children should also use the Times Tables Rockstars program to increase their quick recall of multiplication and related division facts. We are looking at our 3, 4- and 8-times tables in Year 3.

Curriculum Highlights

This term, we will be learning about:

History – What were the Ancient Egyptians most significant achievements?

Science – Light and Shadows

PSHE – Safety and Citizenship 

Physical Education – Dance, Hockey and Football

Religious Education - How and why do people try and make the world a better place? and Why do Christians call the day Jesus died ‘Good Friday’? Easter and Holy Week

Geography – Kingston Upon Thames

 Home Learning

From this term, Year 3 home learning will move from the previous Home Learning Grid to a new 3-2-1 tasks approach. Instead of choosing from a wide range of optional activities, children will now complete three clear daily tasks related to reading, learning of times tables and spellings. This new structure aims to provide clearer expectations and help families balance home learning with other commitments. By prioritising these core skills which are essential foundations for success across the curriculum, we can help children build confidence, develop fluency, and strengthen the knowledge they need to progress in all areas of learning. Please see the 3-2-1 home learning document for further information and note that the expectation is that children complete these daily.

To support this please also remember to send your child’s reading journal and book to school every day. Spelling lists will go home on a Monday. The spelling quiz will take place on a Thursday.

Thank you in advance for all of your support,

The Year 3 Team