St Mary's Catholic Primary School

Y3 is the exciting transition year from KS1 to KS2.  It is an important developmental stage in the children's life where they begin to become more independent with their organisation and learning and build on the social skills they have acquired in the infants.  To support this, we have packed the year with fantastic topics, trips and learning experiences to inspire the children. 

Beginning the year by returning to prehistoric times for our topic of Stone Age to Iron Age gives the children an historical perspective of where modern humans have come from.  We write adventure stories that take the children back in time and create cave art using charcoal skills.  To help cement the new knowledge the children have, we take a trip to ancient Stone Henge in Wiltshire, where the children can see firsthand how neolithic people lived and find out about some of the amazing artifacts archaeologists have discovered.

The Autumn term in Y3 is also an opportunity for the children to begin learning a new language and instrument.  The children begin to learn simple Spanish phrases such as how to say their name, age and how they feel.  The first few notes are learnt on the recorder and the children learn to play in a group, keeping time to different fun, upbeat backing tracks.

The Spring term in Y3 brings a new Geography based topic of The Rainforest.  Within this unit we learn about longitude and latitude and how this affects the earth's climate.  The children are always really excited to learn about the strange and wonderful plants and animals that live in this biome but also how they are often under threat from deforestation and loss of their habitats.  

The Summer term brings our final history topic on The Romans in Britain.  This is also our local history study as we are extremely lucky to live so close to the Roman Baths, which is our 2^nd full day trip for the year.

Alongside these yearly trips and topics, we are always looking for ways to enhance the curriculum and often have the opportunity to visit other cultural events such as the Children's Literature Festival and shows at The Egg Theatre.