A very warm welcome to Year 3!

St. Martin de Porres

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

Summer Term 2026

It is hard to believe we are in the final term of the school year already! This is often the term where the most learning occurs as children make links and develop their independence. Please continue reading with your child at home as it is vital to all areas of the curriculum, especially as they go through Key Stage 2.

Key Dates 2026

P.E. lessons will take place every Wednesday.

Please ensure your child is dressed appropriately as PE takes place both inside (no tights as children need to be barefoot) and outside (trainers please).

Thursday 23rd April - St. George's Day where all children are invited to wear red and white

Saturday 23^rd May – First Holy Communion at St. Cuthbert’s Church

Friday 26^th June – trip to Pizza Express

W/B Monday 29^th June – Sports’ Week

Thursday 2^nd July – trip to Manchester Museum

Religion

Our topic for this half term is To the Ends of the Earth. We begin by meeting Jesus on his journey to Emmaus and discover when the disciples learn of his Resurrection. We will also learn of Mary’s importance to Catholics and the events surrounding Pentecost.

English

We are using the books The Dragon Machine and Dare to Care: Pet Dragon to collect vocabulary, conjunctions and phrases using the perfect tense before we will write our own information pages.

Following this, we will read a story set in ancient Egypt to put our grammar and punctuation learning in context. We will further our understanding of punctuation dialogue and extend our knowledge of tenses to include the perfect present tense. We will also continue to practise using conjunctions and expanded noun phrases in newspaper reports and nonchronological reports.

Maths

We begin the term by looking at mass and capacity. It will help the children if they can have a look at bags of flour or sugar, tinned foods and drink containers at home to spot whether they are measured in g, kg, ml or l.

We will then continue learning about fractions by adding and subtracting them. Finally, we will learn how to solve problems involving money, time, shapes and data.

Science

This half term, we will continue learning about plants learning how flowering plants reproduce. All children planted sunflowers which they took home last term so please continue to care for these so the children can witness the life cycle.

Next, we will learn about what foods we need to survive and the human skeleton. In the last half-term, we will learn about light and shadow as, hopefully, we will be enjoying lots of sunlight by then!

P.E. 

P.E. continues to take place every Wednesday with both indoor and outdoor sessions. We will celebrate the Cricket World Cup in lessons and at lunchtimes.

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.

Topic

This half-term has a geography and a history focus. After debating whether living near a volcano is a beneficial or risky idea, we will move onto learning about Egypt. We will use our map skills to locate the country and continent using an atlas before researching the reasons why it is a popular tourist destination. We will then go back in time to discover what life was like for the ancient Egyptians. We will be able to compare this great civilisation with the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages which were taking place in Britain at the same time.

Art & D.T.

Tying in with our science, we will learn about the Eat Well plate to find out what and how much food we should be eating to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This will help us to choose toppings when we visit Pizza Express.

In Art, we will learn about the artist Adam Hernandez who uses hieroglyphics in his street art. We will use our knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphs to create original pieces of art.

Spring 2 2026

After a wet half-term, here's hoping that Spring will finally bring some sunshine. As ever, it is a busy few weeks. We have noticed that only some children are reading regularly at home. It is vital that children have an opportunity to practise the skills taught in class by reading aloud to an adult and discussing what has happened, predictions of what characters might do next and definitions of new words encountered. Reading underpins every other subject and as it is the National Year of Reading across the UK, we would appreciate this support in ensuring that every child reaches their full potential.

Key Dates 2026

P.E. lessons will take place every Wednesday.

Please ensure your child is dressed appropriately as PE takes place both inside (no tights as children need to be barefoot) and outside (trainers please).

Mad Science - an assembly will take place on Tuesday 24th February

World Book Day & Poetry Cafe - hero & villain themed dress-up on Thursday 5th March

Parents' Meetings - book your slot via Parentmail for Wednesday 11th March

World Maths Day - class competitions on Thursday 26th March

Easter Bonnet - an assembly will showcase hats on Thursday 2nd April

Religion

Our topic for this half term is Desert to Garden. While we will be on our spiritual journey from Lent to Easter Sunday, Jesus's journey will be addressed during class worship, assemblies and in our Lenten Reflections from Monday 30th March.

In class religion lessons, we will start with a miracle described in all four of the Gospels: Jesus feeding the 5,000. We will learn about the Catholic Mass, especially the Eucharist and the Last Supper. This will be particularly relevant to our children who will soon be receiving their First Holy Communion.

English

To cooincide with the Poetry cafe, we will start this term looking at poetry from authors including James Carter. We will look at homophones and word choice as well as how to perform poetry. Following on, we will read The Water Horse by Dick King Smith.

Maths

As a school, we are continuing to focus this half term on mental strategies and how they help us solve reasoning questions efficiently. Units include length and perimeter; fractions and mass and capacity. It is always helpful if Maths can be taken from the classroom to the outside world. We will make links wherever possible but nothing beats real life experiences like measuring, sharing food (fractions), baking and looking at the units of measurement of food and drink items at home.

Science

This half term, we will begin learning about plants by naming and describing the different parts and functions of flowering plants. We will grow our own to discover what conditions are most beneficial.

P.E. 

During their morning hall slot, children will focus upon dance with Ms. Clarke. They will enjoy games outside, weather permitting, 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.

Topic

This half-term has a Geography focus. We will be learning about mountains and volcanoes, including how they are formed. We will then compare mountains in the UK with those found in Italy.

Spring 1 2026

Happy New Year! We would like to thank all of our families for their kind words, cards and gifts before Christmas - they were not expected but very much appreciated. Spring is an exciting time for Year 3 as we have Forest School, our Class Assembly and Mass plus visitors to support us with our History Learning.

Key Dates 2026

P.E. lessons will take place every Wednesday. As we also have Forest School, please dress children wearing clothing which can also be worn for dance/games lessons, e.g. jogging bottoms or leggings instead of jeans. Please send children to school with socks and trainers on and any tights or wellies in a bag.

Class Assembly will take place in school on Wednesday 21st January at 9am - parents welcome

Yellow Brick Road History Workshop (Stone Age to the Iron Age) in school on Thursday 29th January 

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

Religion

Our topic for this half term is Galilee to Jerusalem. We begin with the Epiphany by learning about how and why the three wise men visited Jesus and what the symbolism behind the gifts they brought represent. We will then learn about some of the parables shared by Jesus.

English

Our learning this half term centres around the brilliant book written by Ted Hughes: The Iron Man. We will use lots of descriptive language to describe this immense creature and use drama to explore characters' feelings. Children will write both a newspaper report and their own story based on the first 3 chapters of the book. We will continue learning about conjunctions and verb tenses.

Maths

We are focusing this half term on mental strategies. While we will learn written methods for multiplication and division before moving onto fractions, the children need to be able to apply their number fact knowledge across all learning. We will talk daily about how we calculate and what the most efficient strategies are.

Science

This half term, we are continuing to learn about soils, in particular how to conduct an investigation to find out which soils are more permeable than others. We will then move on to learning about plants.

P.E. 

The children will each have one slots of PE due to Forest School. During their morning hall slot, children will focus upon dance using volcanoes as their stimulus. They will enjoy games outside, weather permitting, with Mr. Casey. 

P.S.H.E. 

We are continuing to learn the importance of developing healthy relationships, minds and bodies. This half term will introduce the idea of how different foods can affect our physical and mental health. 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.

Topic

From learning about the Stone Age and Bronze Age last half term, we will now look in more depth at the Iron Age. We will continue to discover how homes, technologies, farming and communities evolved over this time. We will also use cave art to support our prehistoric knowledge and will take part in a fantastic workshop in January which will summarise and reinforce all of our learning.

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.