Welcome to Year 3

Happy New Year

We hope that everyone had a brilliant Christmas holiday and wish everybody a happy and fantastic new year 2022.

We will update this Year 3 page of the school website regularly

We will aim to update this page regularly. We will let families know via Class Dojo whenever there are updates to this Year group page.

Introducing the Year 3 teaching team

Every member of the Year 3 teaching team is thoroughly enjoying teaching the children and getting to know them.

Miss Dyer – Hawthorn Class

Mr Thomas – Poplar Class

PPA cover on Wednesdays – Miss Bridson and Mrs Powell

Learning Support Assistant – Miss Wood

Reading

During the Spring Term 2022 reading will continue to be our top priority.

We (Miss Dyer and Mr Thomas) will be re-allocating books colours and books to the children during the first two weeks in January 2022. It is not an ‘exact science’ and we hope the children enjoy the books that they are reading. We particularly hope that 95% or more of the words that they are reading in their books are readable. Do let us know if you think the book colour that your child has been allocated is too easy or too hard and we will look at with your child.

We encourage the children to read daily at home (ideally for ten minutes per day) and we hope that they really enjoy this. Please continue to record children's reading using the Go Read App. If you require any help with the Go Read App please contact us via Dojo.

If your child is reading green, blue, orange, turquoise, purple or non-fiction gold books, please can they read the book 3 times. This is a new development in reading as research suggests that reading the same book three times (or more) before moving on to a new book really helps a child’s decoding, fluency and comprehension.

We suggest that the first time they read the book is used to decode and discuss unfamiliar words. The focus for the second time the child reads the book can then be fluency and expression as they will (hopefully) be more familiar with the words. The third read can then be used to discuss the book and, if possible, ask your child some questions about the books and discuss it to help their comprehension. We hope this makes sense and helps.

If you have any questions, please let us know via Dojo or pop to see us after school.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Miss Dyer and Mr Thomas

Reading books

The love of reading is a wonderful thing and if your child would like to bring a book from home to read in school, they are more than welcome to. We look forward to listening to them read it and enjoying the book with them.

P.E.

Indoor PE - Monday - Health Related Exercise

Outdoor PE - Thursday - Netball

On P.E. days please can the children wear their P.E. kits to school on P.E. days. Here is a link to our school uniform policy https://www.hannahmoreandgrove.co.uk/school-uniform-1/ .

Equipment

Children are invited to bring in one small pencil case. However this is not essential as resources will be provided.

Handwriting Homework

We are really pleased with the efforts that every child is putting in with their handwriting. They are making great progress with trying to join their handwriting and make every letter, word and sentence as neat as possible. We are really proud of them! 

We would like to supplement their fantastic efforts in school with setting one piece of handwriting homework each week. The children will bring this home on a Friday and please can they complete it by the following Friday. We will also send a copy of the handwriting sheet each week on Dojo and put it on the school website.  

Our top tips for brilliant handwriting: 

• Use a very sharp pencil 
• Try to use the correct pencil grip (with the pencil between your thumb, index and middle finger) it is never too late to train your hand and fingers to hold the pencil correctly even if this doesn’t come naturally at first 
• Sit at a table or desk if possible 
• Take your time and concentrate  
• Try to keep your pencil on the paper while you write the entire word and then go back and dot the ‘i’s’ and cross the ‘t’s’
• Enjoy it and try to think of it like an art lesson 

If you have any questions, please come and speak to us or contact us via Dojo. 

Many thanks for your continued support. 

Miss Dyer and Mr Thomas 

Times Tables

We hope your children are enjoying the learning their times tables. We’ve been really impressed by their efforts with their times tables during the autumn term and we will build on this in the Spring term. 

Our aim is that the children will know all of their times tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of year 4 and earlier than that if possible. We aim to get them there with daily practice in school and as much practice outside of school as possible (four times per week). We aim to make it fun, enjoyable and engaging.

Our aim by the end of Year 3 is that children know their 2,3,4,5,8,10 and 11 times tables.

The children will no longer complete the Diamond Challenge (which was a weekly times table test that the children progressed through) and this is being replaced with informal times tables practise and ‘fun’ quizzes that will still allow us (Ms Dyer and Mr Thomas) to monitor their progress and understanding and ‘plug gaps’ but in a hopefully more fun and engaging way without any ‘test stress’.

Times table of the term

Spring term 1 - 8 x table and 3 x table

Spring term 2 - 6 x table

Please can the children practise their times tables of the week at home (ideally every day but a minimum of four times per week) in some way. The more fun and creative the better.

Some suggestions and top tips to help children learn their times tables:

• Times Tables Rock Stars https://ttrockstars.com/
• Fun quizzes, times table bingo, ‘beat the adult’ and challenges e.g. ‘how many times table questions can you do in 1 minute?’ these can be written down or said out loud or a bit of both
• Quick fire fun questioning
• Chanting the times table
• Find fun and creative ways (e.g songs and rhymes) of remembering particularly the trickier ones i.e. “I ate and ate until I was sick on the floor; eight times eight is sixty four.”
• Counting in the times table
• Teach the children in your house the way we learned times tables at school; it worked for us
• If the child has stairs in their house they can chant their times table each times they go up or down the stairs? This is a great way for the adult to hear if they are counting up in that times table correctly
• Internet games and apps. Many are free and really engaging for the children.

Two top tips if a child is finding a some times tables tricky

• Use the times tables they know and are confident with to help them learn the trickier ones eg if you know your 2 times tables you can use that to help you with your 4 times table (and when you are ready you could use your 4 times table to also know your 8 times table) for example 3 x 2 = 6 you can use that to find 3 x 4 by doing 3 x 2 = 6 then doubling the answer
• If you find a certain times table question difficult it might help to reverse the numbers as that might help you with the answer for example if you think 5 x 8 may be tricky, reverse if to do 8 x 5 (as you may feel more confident with you 5 times tables) and then answer will still be the same.

Some useful websites for times tables

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check

https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/306/Maths-Fishing-Multiplication

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables

Spellings

All year groups are embarking on an exciting new journey with teaching and learning spellings. Research suggests that the ‘old school’ way of learning spellings with children taking home spellings to learn and then being tested on them the following week is not the best way to help children get a firm grasp of how to spell the thousands of words in the English language.

Both schools are now undertaking a new way of teaching spelling following a programme devised by the spellings Guru Jane Consedine. This has worked brilliantly in other schools and we are excited to bring this to our schools.

Children will no longer bring spellings home to learn them and then be tested on them the following week. Instead children will learn word and spellings patterns over a two week period in a number of fun, engaging and investigative ways. A huge emphasis is placed on helping children to (hopefully) foster a love of words, vocabulary and spellings. A large part of the teaching involves the class and teacher working together to find fun and creative ways to ‘make the spellings stick’ and then, once they have secured the understanding of the spellings pattern, we look for associated words and be word detectives and ‘grapheme grafters’. There will still be fun quizzes of the words to help teachers to support children with these spellings.

If you have any questions, please speak to us in the play ground or via Dojo.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Below are a few websites where children can practise their times tables at home. In Year 4 they will have a statutory Multiplication Test Check (MTC) where they will have 6 seconds to answer times table calculations. 

(Remember to put on the 'Num Lock' button so that you can use the number keys in the bottom right corner of the keyboard to speed up your typing)