Maths

Meet the Staff

Class Teacher: Sam Rogerson

Teaching Assistant: Jodie Groombridge

Year 3 Term 2 curriculum overview

Discovering the Stone Age

This term, Year 3 will explore how we find out about life in the distant past. Stone Age Boy and information texts will inspire our reading, discussion and writing. We will investigate rocks and soils, design model Stone Age villages and develop confidence in explaining our ideas with evidence.

English: reading and responding

Our class text, Stone Age Boy, will help us think about how an unfamiliar world is presented through words and illustrations. We will make predictions, sequence important events and infer how characters feel by looking closely at what they say and do. Children will explain which details support their ideas, and consider how a character’s feelings change during the story.

Alongside the story, we will read non-fiction about the Stone Age. We will use headings, captions and glossaries to locate information and clarify unfamiliar words. Comparing these texts will help children distinguish an author’s imagined story from historical information, while recognising how both can prompt questions about the past.

Writing: two viewpoints and an interview

Children will write a dual-perspective narrative: an account that presents events from two characters’ viewpoints. We will explore how the same meeting might feel exciting to one character and confusing to another. Planning and oral rehearsal will help children keep events clear while choosing thoughts, feelings and descriptions that suit each narrator.

Our second outcome is an imagined interview with a Stone Age person. Children will prepare open questions about everyday life, such as finding food or building a shelter, then use historical learning to develop plausible answers. Role-play will help us practise listening, asking follow-up questions and organising an interview so that a reader can follow it.

Grammar, vocabulary and editing

We will choose precise adjectives and explore figures of speech, including similes, to help readers picture a setting or experience. For example, children might compare a dark opening to a tunnel or describe a tool as sharp and jagged. We will discuss whether a description adds meaning, rather than simply adding more words.

Children will reread their drafts to check sentence punctuation, spelling and clarity. Sharing work aloud will help them notice missing words, improve a description and check that each viewpoint is easy to recognise.

Key vocabulary: viewpoint, narrator, inference, evidence, adjective, simile, interview, non-fiction.

At home: Ask, “How might another character describe that moment?” Encourage your child to explain a new historical word in their own words.

Mathematics and science

Mathematics: addition and subtraction

We will deepen our understanding of adding and subtracting with three-digit numbers. Children will use place-value equipment, drawings and number lines to explain what happens to the hundreds, tens and ones. They will compare mental and written methods and learn to choose a strategy that suits the calculation.

Mental work will include adding or subtracting ones, tens and hundreds, partitioning numbers into manageable parts and using known number facts. For example, to calculate 246 + 30, children can explain why the tens change while the ones stay the same. We will also consider efficient adjustments, such as adding 20 and subtracting 1 when adding 19.

In column calculations, we will align digits by place value and explain regrouping. Children will see why ten ones can be exchanged for one ten, or one hundred for ten tens. We will estimate before calculating and use the inverse operation to check: if 268 + 157 = 425, then 425 − 157 should give 268.

Word problems will ask children to identify what is known, what needs to be found and which operation is useful. They will represent missing-number problems and explain their reasoning, including why changing the order works for addition but generally changes the answer in subtraction.

Key vocabulary: sum, difference, partition, exchange, column, estimate, inverse, missing number.

At home: Invent a short addition or subtraction story using three-digit numbers. Ask your child to estimate, solve it and explain how they could check.

Science: rocks and soils

Children will examine rock samples and group them by observable features, such as colour, texture, grains and layers. They will explain their sorting choices and compare simple physical properties. Carefully planned observations and tests will help them investigate questions such as whether different samples absorb water in the same way.

We will explore how some fossils form when the remains or traces of living things are preserved in rock. Children will use pictures and simple models to sequence this process, recognising that a model helps explain an idea but does not reproduce the long timescale involved.

Our soil investigations will explore its ingredients, including rock particles and organic material from living things. Children will look closely, record similarities and differences and discuss why observations may lead to new questions. We will practise using labelled drawings and clear comparisons to communicate findings.

Key vocabulary: rock, grain, texture, absorb, fossil, soil, organic material.

At home: Look at stone used in buildings or paths. What can your child observe, and what would require a test to find out?

Exploring the past and big questions

History: the Stone Age

We will place the Stone Age on a timeline and explore the idea of prehistory: the time before written records. Children will learn that the Stone Age lasted a very long time and that people’s lives changed within it. They will compare hunting and gathering with the later development of farming and more settled communities.

We will investigate how people met their needs for food, shelter, clothing and tools. Photographs of archaeological finds and sites will help us ask questions about everyday life. Children will distinguish what they can observe from what they infer: a tool may suggest a task, but it cannot tell us everything about the person who used it.

We will also compare fiction with evidence. Children will explain which details in an imagined Stone Age scene seem plausible and which need checking. They will practise using language such as “This suggests…” and “We cannot be certain because…” to make thoughtful historical claims.

Key vocabulary: prehistory, archaeology, artefact, hunter-gatherer, farming, settlement, chronology.

Design and technology: Stone Age villages

Our structures project will bring historical learning into a practical design task. Children will sketch and label ideas for a model dwelling, consider which features relate to the period they are representing, and agree criteria for success. A model should stand securely, have joined parts and communicate the designer’s ideas clearly.

We will explore ways to strengthen a structure, such as using a wider base, adding supports or improving joins. Children will select suitable classroom materials, measure and assemble components, and test their models as they work. Building a village together will involve discussing how individual structures fit into a shared layout.

Evaluation will focus on explaining choices and making improvements. Children will identify a successful feature, describe a problem they encountered and explain how a change helped. They will distinguish the materials used for a classroom model from those available to people in the past.

Key vocabulary: structure, base, support, join, stability, design criteria, evaluate.

Religious education: How did the world begin?

We will explore creation accounts and different responses to questions about the world’s beginnings. Children will discuss what a story communicates about beliefs, ask respectful questions and recognise that people may interpret accounts differently. We will consider how beliefs about the world can influence how people care for it, while making room for different religious and non-religious views.

Bringing learning to life

The curriculum map includes a planned Natural History Museum visit and making Stone Age villages. Visit arrangements will be shared once confirmed. These experiences will offer opportunities to ask questions, make observations and connect classroom learning with objects and models.

Skills, creativity and wellbeing

Computing: presenting and typing

Children will be introduced to Google Slides, learning how to add and organise slides, enter text and position images. They will consider what makes information easy for an audience to read, including clear titles, suitable font sizes and uncluttered layouts. A short presentation could explain an aspect of our Stone Age learning.

We will also introduce touch typing, practising sensible finger placement and accuracy through short activities. Children will learn to name and save their work so they can find it again, and to use images and information provided or approved for the task.

Key vocabulary: slide, layout, text box, image, presentation, keyboard.

Music: singing and playing melodies

We will sing songs and play short melodies, listening carefully to pitch and keeping a steady pulse. Children will practise starting and finishing together, remembering a musical phrase and repeating it accurately. Listening to one another will help us adjust our playing or singing and discuss how rehearsal improves a shared performance.

Key vocabulary: melody, pitch, pulse, rhythm, phrase, rehearsal.

Spanish: what is in my pencil case?

Children will learn nouns for familiar pencil-case items. Listening, repetition and matching games will help them connect spoken words with objects and recognise familiar words in print. We will practise careful pronunciation and recall, gradually moving from repeating a model to naming an item independently.

Key vocabulary: un lápiz (a pencil), un bolígrafo (a pen), una goma (a rubber), una regla (a ruler).

PSHE: celebrating difference

We will explore similarities and differences in interests, experiences and strengths, and discuss how everyone can contribute to class life. Through stories and everyday scenarios, children will consider how assumptions and unkind comments can affect others. We will practise inclusive language, inviting someone to join in and seeking help from a trusted adult when someone is treated unfairly.

Key vocabulary: similarity, difference, inclusion, respect, fairness.

Physical education: dance

Children will link movements into short dance sequences, exploring changes in direction, level and speed. They will practise controlled transitions and use movement to communicate an idea or mood. Working with a partner or group will involve remembering a sequence, keeping time together and offering specific feedback, such as making a shape clearer or a transition smoother.

Key vocabulary: sequence, level, direction, tempo, control, expression.

Supporting learning at home

Read and talk together, ask your child to explain how they solved a calculation, or invite them to teach you a new Spanish word. Discussion in your home language as well as English supports clear thinking. Everyday conversation and simple household materials are enough; these ideas do not require extra purchases.

Class Newsletter

Term 1

Term 2 

Term 3

Term 4

Term 5