A very warm welcome to Year 3!

St. Martin de Porres

Teachers: Ms. Sullivan, Mrs. Oglesby (TA) & Mrs. Clarke (Wednesday am)

Autumn 2 - 2025

With the clocks going back, we know we are into the second half of this term. It might be windy and rainy outside but we have lots of fun activities planned and terrific topics to engage your child in our class.

Key Dates 2025/26

P.E. lessons will take place every Wednesday.

Class Assembly will take place in school on Wednesday 21st January ay 9am 

Class Mass will be in St. Cuthbert's RC Church on Thursday 5th February 2026 at 10am

All parents/carers are very welcome and encouraged to attend both.

Religion 

Thank you to the families who shared their child’s photographs of Baptism with us. During Other Faiths Week, we will learn about the similarities between Islam and Catholicism. The children will realise the many ideas and people who are relevant in both these major world religions. As we move towards Christmas, our learning will be focused upon visitors as we think about the roles of those who first were involved in Jesus’s life on Earth. 

English 

Our English links well with our topic as our first book is Stone Age Boy. We will continue to build on our learning involving descriptive language and conjunctions as well as beginning to look at different types of adverbs: time, place and manner (when, where and how). We will also begin to use apostrophes to show possession. Our second book will be a compilation of poems to view how poets use words and to perform some poems. We will take part in a Michael Rosen workshop to help us. 

Maths

We will consolidate our learning with addition and subtraction. Our strategies will include using Base-10 equipment, number lines, column method and mental strategies to solve calculations, including word problems. We will then move onto estimating and the inverse operation to check our answers. After a couple of weeks, we will be ready to move to our next unit which is multiplication and division. We will first look at what these two operations are before finding out the inverse relationship between them.  

Science

If we are learning about the Stone Age then it is only right that we look at soils, rocks and fossils in science. We will begin by exploring what soil is made from before taking a good look at different rocks. We will learn about the rock cycle and investigate what type of rocks are best used for different purposes. Finally, we will research how fossils are formed. 

P.E. 

The children will continue with gymnastics during their morning hall slot. They will be creating routines in groups incorporating moves such as pike, straddle and tuck jumps, balances and rolls. They will enjoy games outside with Mr. Casey. 

P.S.H.E. 

We are continuing to learn the importance of developing healthy relationships, minds and bodies. In school we will be using a variety of ways to learn, including using journals, drama and giving presentations. At home we encourage children to write down or draw your thoughts and feelings to help recognise and regulate emotions. We will also remind ourselves what to do if we witness or are a victim to bullying, learning lots of strategies to keep ourselves and each other safe, especially during anti-bullying week. Remember to wear those odd socks! 

Topic 

We move from learning about people and places now to during the past as we head back to the Stone Age. In history, we will learn when the Stone Age was and the three distinctive eras within it. We will compare life and learn how it evolved as people developed better technologies, including the discovery of bronze. 

Autumn 1 - 2025

Well, that summer holiday flew! Thankfully, we had some sunny weather so I hope that all of our families enjoyed spending some quality time together.

Your children have returned to St. Cuthbert's raring to go! All of the adults have been so impressed by the lovely manners, positive attitudes, teamwork and focus for learning shown already - it is going to be a great year! It can feel like a big jump from Year 2 to Year 3 but all of the learning is carefully planned to meet the needs of each child. Children begin to learn Spanish with Mrs. Douglas which is exciting. They will also continue music lessons with Mrs. Dirkin and will begin to play the tin whistle soon. The yearly overview will be posted below so that you can see what else the children will be learning in Year 3. There are also a few reminders and dates for your diary so please keep reading... 

Please ensure children bring in a labelled water bottle and that children's jumpers / cardigans also have their name written on. Students frequently take them off outside so without their name, it can be difficult to reunite the jumper with its owner! 

Children will need to remember to bring in their reading book and signed Reading Diary. Weekly homework of reading, spelling and learning number facts will resume this half term. Reading should take place daily. Weekly homework will be given out each Friday and should be returned by the following Thursday.

Religion

We will begin the year by thinking about what it means to be part of a family. We will then learn about the family of Jesus and how was a role model for us all. His Golden Rule reminds us to love one another. We will reflect on how God’s love is always with us and think about how we can best contribute to family life at home, in school and as part of the St. Cuthbert’s community. 

English 

We will first recap some of the learning from Year 2 by thinking about where we use capital letters, full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks. Our first shared book is a story where a brave girl and her friend search for gold. The beautiful illustrations will give us lots of opportunities to describe using expanded noun phrases. After describing characters, we will move onto a story about a mysterious giant. Our descriptive learning will include similes and we will look at how conjunctions and adverbs join ideas and sentences. 

Maths

Place value is the first topic of the year whereby we look at Hundreds, Tens and Ones, including how to recognise and write numbers. We will use Place Value counters and Base-10 equipment to help us show and explain our learning. We will use known number facts to help us, for example knowledge of doubling, halving and number bonds. We will then move onto addition and subtraction using lots of different ways to find more or less of various numbers. We will begin with mental strategies before using number lines and learning formal written methods.  

Science

Our first topic is always a favourite: forces and magnets. We will begin by recapping what forces are before investigating how friction can help or hinder us. We will play with magnets to discover which poles attract or repel and whether magnets need to touch an object to move it. We will investigate which materials are magnetic and look and how magnets are used in our world. 

P.E.

Rugby is a focus for our outdoor P.E. sessions while the children will be starting with gymnastics as well inside, 

P.S.H.E.

We will look at what it means to be part of a family and think of ways we can keep safe. We will continue to learn about our rights and responsibilities in school and create a class charter.  

Topic

Our first topic in Year 3 is maps. In geography we will be comparing maps and globes before learning about O.S. maps. We will look at lots of types of maps from world, to street maps, transport and village maps. We will find out how symbols, a compass rose, scale and grid references all help us to find out where we are. Finally, the children will work in groups to present their learning. In art, we will learn about Saoirse Morgan – an artist who uses collage and painting to create landscapes. Using her techniques, we will create our own pieces based on Withington.