Monksmead School

Welcome to Year 3

Teacher: Mrs Moynihan

Support Staff: Mrs Waller, Mrs Pasarica, Miss White, Mrs Altayar, Mrs Ward

Happy New Year to all of our wonderful Year 3 families. Can you believe that we are now in 2025! I hope that you all had a restful break and that the children are ready for the new term ahead. Here is a little look at what we will be learning this term.

English

In English we will carry on following a book-based curriculum and will be reading, The Fossil Girl and Wisp, and learning how to write recounts and narratives. I will continue to review the phonics taught in Key Stage 1, but with a focus on spelling. Plus, the children will have an extra spelling lesson once a week, taught by Mrs Phillips, looking at common spelling patterns, suffixes and prefixes. We will also have whole class guided reading sessions twice a week, focussing on the key areas children need to know and understand, in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

Maths & Science

In Maths, we will continue the Herts for Learning curriculum, starting off with a recap of column addition and subtraction and then applying these skills when solving problems. We will then move on to statistics, shapes and angles, followed by multiplication and division. In Science this half-term, we will be investigating forces, including magnetism. After half-term our topic will be light.

PSHE

In PSHE this term we will be learning all about keeping safe, including online and managing risks. We will move on to learn about rights and respect, whilst concluding the term by delving into the area of money and work.

PE lessons will still take place every Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon. This term, we will be swimming on Wednesdays, so please make you’re your child arrives with their costumes and towels. For our tag rugby and yoga lessons on a Friday, they will need appropriate PE kit for both indoor and outdoor PE.

Reading

Children will continue to read with an adult on their designated reading day. Please make sure that the children have their reading books in school every day, as there may be opportunities for extra reading with an adult as and when. In addition, guided reading is taught on a whole-class basis, twice a week, following the Vipers scheme. Buddy reading will take place every Wednesday morning and children are welcome to bring a book in from home to share with their Reception buddy.

Homework

Homework will be handed out every WEDNESDAY and expected back in on a MONDAY morning. Homework is meant to practise skills that have been previously learned in class and shouldn’t be a source of stress or anxiety. Children also have access to Mathletics, TT Rockstars, Sumdog and Purple Mash, should they want to challenge themselves further.

Thank you for your support. It really is a privilege to spend each day teaching your children. If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to speak to me before/after school, or through email.

Many Thanks,

Natasha Moynihan

Year 3 Spring Timetable 2025

Reading in KS2

In KS2 children have daily whole-class reading lessons. At Monksmead, we use VIPERS from Literacy Shed Comprehension Plus to help structure the learning and ensure that all key skills are being learnt.

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts. The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc. As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions. They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards.

To support the children in accurately answering comprehension questions, we use A.P.E. This stands for 'Answer', ' Prove it' and 'Explain it'.