Welcome to Year 3!

We are a class of 22 children. We are very lucky to have lots of adults working with us in year 3.

Our teacher is Miss Savage, our senior teaching assistant is Mrs Askew and our teaching assistant is Miss Megson.

Miss Graham works with us every afternoon.

Every Friday mornings, Miss Whitfield is our class teacher. 

If you require any further information or queries, please contact me via Class Dojo or using my email: l.savage@distington-comm.cumbria.sch.uk.

Key Information:

• Our PE days are every Wednesday and Friday. 
• Read five times a week to gain your Strive for Five target. Children receive a raffle ticket each time they read at home which they sign and enter into our weekly reading raffle! There are lots of exciting prizes to be won.

Our Curriculum 

We learn through a creative curriculum and we have lots of exciting, purposeful continuous provision opportunities that allow us to develop and grow through memorable, fun activities. Our Learning Challenge topic for Autumn 1 was: Did the Stone Age Rock?

The Stone Age is the name given to the earliest period of human culture when stone tools were first used. In Britain, the Stone Age was around 12,000 years ago. Throughout this unit of work, children will explore Stone Age homes, tools and food sources using lots of resources including artefacts and a virtual assembly provided by Tullie House. We will discover how we know about Prehistory from artefacts left behind. Children will have opportunities to construct weapons using natural materials and discover what they would have been used for. 

Stone Henge

We have explored the mysteries surrounding Stone Henge. We have looked at the possible uses of Stone Henge during The Stone Age using evidence provided by archaeologists. We carefully crafted 'biscuit structures' to replicate Stone Henge.

Autumn 2

Our Learning Challenge topic for Autumn 2 is: What make the Earth angry? We have explored natural disasters such as tornadoes, volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes in terms of where in the world they tend to happen/ located, how they are formed and devastating impact they can have on people and the environment. 

Erupting Volcanoes!

We made a chemical reaction to replicate an 'erupting volcano' (on a much smaller scale of course)! By mixing the acid (vinegar) and the alkali (bicarbonate of soda), bubbles of carbon dioxide (CO2) were released like in a pyroclastic flow. These move very fast and are extremely dangerous, whilst lava flows more slowly.

Spring 1 and 2

Our Spring 1 Learning Challenge question: Can you walk like an Egyptian?

We are exploring the chronology of Ancient Egypt, putting key dates onto a timeline in chronological order. We are delving into Ancient Egyptian beliefs of the after-life, their Gods and replicating our very own 'mummification'. We will also look into the way they used to communicate using hieroglyphs.

Our key book for this half term is: Cinderella of the Nile. 

Please have a look through our curriculum map (below). This outlines our core topics for the year. 

We will keep you updated with your child's learning throughout the year via. Earwig, Class DOJO and parents meetings.

* Helen Haraldsen Author Visit *

Helen Haraldsen, local children's author, also known as the 'The Writer in Wellies' conducted a workshop with year 3.

During Helen's visit to our school, we learnt all about the behind-the-scenes work involved in taking a story from first draft to a published book.  We discovered all the stages a story goes through, in order to be 'publication ready'. We even got an opportunity to edit and revise some pages out of Helen's current book that she is writing.

Seeing a real person speak openly about the ups and downs of their writing career allowed us to raise our aspirations and realise that achieving goals is possible to anyone willing to put in the work, wherever they're from and whatever their strengths and weaknesses are. 

Helen emphasised the importance of self-motivation, discipline and perseverance: traits that help us succeed in our education and lives.

Kingswood Residential September 2023

We had an amazing time on our two night stay residential to Kingswood. We took part on lots of outward bound activities such as fire lighting, high ropes, obstacle challenges, problem solving tasks, shelter building... As a class, we demonstrated leadership skills, team building skills, independence, physical strength, agility, mental strength and at some point during our visit we all had to face a fear! It was noted by Kingswood staff how polite and well-behaved our children were on residential! We are all very proud of you!

Strive 4 Five!

In Year 3, we are all 'Reading Rockets'. We aim to read at least 5 times per week and are rewarded for our efforts with raffle tickets. These are entered into a weekly draw and children can win some brilliant prizes! 

Year 3 children will bring home 2 reading books. One book will directly match their current reading ability, and the other an Accelerated Reading book. Accelerated Reading books are used to help develop your child's comprehension skills and your child will sit regular (informal) online 'quizzes' to assess their comprehension of the story. 

Earwig and Class DOJO

Please access your child's Earwig and class DOJO page regularly for updates on, and photos capturing, their year 3 learning journey. 

If you have difficulty in accessing either of these, please let Miss Savage or the school office know and we will help you with this. 

Class Councillors

Year 3 would like to introduce our Class Councillors for the year... Tahlia and Baiden.

Our Class Councillors were nominated into their position by their class friends. They will attend annual whole school councillor meetings with Mrs Kellett to discuss some very important issues and will report back to their class with their outcomes.

Year 3 Mental Health Ambassadors...

This is a new role within our school which will require training. Mayson and Olivia are raring to go with their new roles and have been given new badges so they can easily be indentified in school. 

Mental Health Ambassadors is an early intervention initiative that helps increase our capacity to prevent the onset of mental health problems in children. Through the delivery of the programme, groups of children – Wellbeing Ambassadors – are trained in a variety of wellbeing approaches and strategies for providing peer support. These include listening, communication, being supportive and sharing wellbeing strategies to help peers.