Y3 Weekly News 28.11.25

Dear
Parents and Carers,

This week,
we continued our poetry unit in reading by exploring a range of exciting poems
and developing our performance skills. The children practised reading aloud in
pairs, focusing carefully on tone, intonation, volume, rhythm and actions.

We studied The
Sound Collector by Roger McGough and watched his performance of the poem.
We discussed why he chose to speak more quietly and seriously in the final
stanza, noticing how this reflected the silence left behind after all the
sounds had been collected.

We also
explored a poem called The Force of Nature. Before revealing the title
of the poem, Miss Roney encouraged the children to analyse the imagery and
predict what the poem might be about. The class came up with fantastic
alternative titles such as “Terrorcane,” “The Eye of the Storm,” “Brutish
Beast” and “Mighty Monster.” Many of us thought our versions were even better
than the original!

We were
introduced to personification and discussed why poets might use this technique.
The children identified examples within the poem and collaborated brilliantly
to create their own. Along the way, we learnt some ambitious vocabulary
including defiant, retreating and cowering.

In writing
this week, we read the book Fox and used our inference skills to deepen
our understanding of the characters and setting. The children drew on clues
from the text to explain how the characters might be feeling and what their
actions revealed about them.

We also
analysed a WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) titled Bear and the Fawn.
We learnt that this was a fable, and discussed how fables always contain an
important moral message. We linked this to our vehicle text, Fox, and
thought carefully about the possible messages and themes in the story.

After this,
we annotated the WAGOLL to identify language features and structural devices,
which will help us as we begin planning and writing our own fable-style
narratives inspired by Fox.

In SPaG, we
focused on conjunctions and how they can be used in different ways. We learnt
that conjunctions can be used to connect two sentences:

Fox knew Magpie would be difficult to
convince although he never once doubted his ability.

Or they can
be used as sentence openers:

Although Fox never doubted his ability, he knew
it would be difficult to convince Magpie.

The
children enjoyed experimenting with both structures and using conjunctions to
improve the flow of their own sentences.

In Maths,
we have been practising addition using partitioning, learning two strategies to
solve calculations such as 234 + 345:

Strategy One – Add each place value
separately:

Hundreds: 200 + 300
Tens: 30 + 40
Ones: 4 + 5
Total: 579

Strategy Two – Build up from the original
number:

234 + 300 = 534
534 + 40 = 574
574 + 5 = 579

We explored
several calculations using both methods and decided which strategy worked best
for us. We also talked about how, when no exchanges are needed, we can rely on
our place-value knowledge to calculate mentally.

In History,
we learnt about Julius Caesar’s two failed attempts to invade Britain. We
explored the reasons behind his desire to invade, including expanding the Roman
Empire and gaining access to Britain’s valuable resources such as gold and
silver.

We examined
a primary source—an extract written by Caesar himself—which described the
Celts. We discovered that Celtic warriors painted themselves with woad to
intimidate their enemies. We finished the lesson by learning that nearly a
century later, during the reign of Emperor Claudius, the Romans finally
succeeded in invading Britain.

Despite the
extremely chilly weather, we had a fantastic Forest School session! Continuing
our art unit, we created large collaborative Christmas collages on tarpaulin
sheets. The children searched the field for natural materials and used them
creatively, sprinkling flour over their work to create a snowy effect. Our focus
vocabulary included collage, line, layering, materials and abstract.

Mrs Roney
and Mr Hadfield were incredibly impressed with the teamwork, creativity and
thoughtful peer evaluations. We finished the session huddled around the
campfire, enjoying toasted marshmallows to warm up!

This week in our new science topic, we have been investigating the
fascinating world of contact forces—the pushes and pulls that
happen when objects touch. We also looked at how contact forces are part of
everyday life—from opening a door to riding a bike.

We also had the
pleasure of welcoming PC Nick into school to talk about stranger danger and the
importance of keeping ourselves safe. We discussed different situations in
which we might meet a stranger and talked about what we would do. We had some
great discussions, and it was wonderful to see everyone taking on board the
important advice PC Nick shared with us.

In RE, we
learnt about the story of Jonah and the Big Fish. We discussed how people
sometimes feel scared when asked to do something difficult, and how having
courage and faith can help us through. The children enjoyed creating their own
story wheels to retell Jonah’s journey.

Rain and
mud didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for hockey this week! We continued mastering
the foundational skills of dribbling and passing before building up to 5-a-side
mini-games. The children focused on how to use space effectively and showed
great teamwork.

Thank you
for your continued support. I am so proud of the children’s hard work and
enthusiasm. We can’t wait to celebrate our learning from this term with you in
Wednesday’s class worship!

Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Roney.