Monday 5th January 2026
Dear Parents/Carers of Year 3,
Re: Year 1 Curriculum Letter Spring 1 – Quakes and Shakes’
Welcome back!
Our topic this term is ‘Quakes and Shakes’ which has a geography focus. We will be learning about volcanoes and earthquakes and the impact it has on human life. This will also be linked to our science topic, which is ‘Rocks and Soils’. In English, we will be studying the books ‘Winter’s Child’ by Angela Mcallister, ‘Jabari Jumps’ by Gaia Cornwall and ‘The proudest Blue’ by Ibtihaj Muhammad and S.K. Ali. We will be writing personal narratives and we will be learning about tenses, using conjunctions to join clauses and punctuating dialogue. In Maths, our main focus will be multiplication and division. We will be consolidating our 2, 10, and 5 times tables from Year 2 before learning multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 times tables. Please see our curriculum mind map on the school website for further information on our Learning Journey.
P.E. Lessons
On PE days, your child will be wearing their PE kits all day so please ensure they have the appropriate kit (white T-shirt, grey/black bottoms and their red school jumper), including trainers/plimsols every Friday.
Year 3 have additional PE on PPA days every other week. These dates are: Tuesday 20th January and Tuesday 3rd February.
Uniform
Encourage your child to wear full school uniform and ensure they have a coat appropriate for the weather. It is important that your child does not wear jewellery (unless it is for religious reasons) apart from stud earrings. Please ensure their coats and jumpers are labelled with their names. This helps us reunite misplaced items with their owners.
Home Learning:
Daily Reading
Children will choose a book to take home each week. They can also read books they already have athome or from their local library.Reading is essential to help your child make progress in all areas of the curriculum. We would like children to read at home each day. It is best for an adult to check how they’re getting on, either by listening to them read or by asking them questions to check their understanding. This will help your child make progress with their reading. Please do make a note in their reading journals regularly. It makes us aware of how much and how well they’re reading and what they’re enjoying. Please put the reading journal back into their book bag after writing in it as it is handy to have them in school each day.
Books will be changed weekly:
Emerald: Thursday
Jade: Friday
Maths
We will continue to set weekly tasks using Mathletics. In addition, children can practice their times tables by using cards or games to randomly select times tables, drawing groups of items to make groups, counting in groups e.g. counting in 3s – 3, 6, 9, etc and practising online using websites such as https://www.timestables.co.uk/ .
Spellings
Children will be given spellings to learn at home this half term. They will be tested on each week’s spellings the following Monday. Please help your child practice at home.
Topic Projects
Please see further details for our home learning project for this half term. Please send in any completed projects by Monday 9th February so that we can put them on display.
Other Information
Please ensure your child brings a named coat and a filled and labelled water bottle to school each day. With the colder weather it is especially important all hats, scarves and gloves are also clearly named.
School Trip
A reminder that Year 3 have their trip scheduled for Thursday 15th January. Please see the letter sent out last term. We do need parent helpers for this trip, please let the office know if you are able to help.
Thank you for all your support, and as always if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.
Mrs Legouix, Mrs Clark and Mrs Blanks
Year 3 Team
Please see Year 3’s Topic Home Learning here:
