Maths

At Humberstone we follow White Rose and use the Small Steps planning to structure our curriculum and lessons. Children will work through the units with opportunities to develop their fluency skills alongside their reasoning and problem solving. In Year 3, the children work with numbers up to one thousand and are introduced to place values in three digit numbers. In lessons, children will use formal written methods for the four operations as well as using practical resources. Children all take part in daily skills and drills to develop their rapid recall of times tables, key number facts and mathematical strategies and to review and recall prior learning. The children take part in chanting and quizzes regularly to support their long term memory. 

English

In Year 3, as part of their English teaching the children will read: Cinderella of the Nile, The Firework Maker’s Daughter, Greta and the Giants, Nelson Mandela: Long walk to Freedom and Journey to Jo’Burg. The children will complete a range of outcomes, including narratives, letters and non-fiction pieces. Within lessons, the children will analyse and explore the language and grammatical features within these texts and will use this to support and enhance their own writing and understand purpose and audience. They will develop their grammatical knowledge and learn a variety of sentence structures. The children will build upon their prior learning from year 2 of what a simple sentence is to understand what makes up a simple sentence to then apply this knowledge to writing compound sentences. They will also be introduced to subordination and use these conjunctions to write complex sentences. Within guided reading sessions there are further opportunities for the children to analyse and read extracts from a wide range of high quality fiction, non-fiction texts and poems.

Science

Science is taught discretely and twice a week at Humberstone. In Year 3, the children will develop their substantive and disciplinary knowledge through a range of taught topics. The children will begin the year learning about light. By the end of the topic, the children will know what a light source is and how light reflects off certain surfaces. They will also carry out investigations to discover what affects the length of a shadow. Children will then move on to learn about rocks, where they will learn about the three different types of rock and their properties, the rock cycle and the components of soil. In the Spring term, the children will build on their prior learning of animals including humans. During this topic they will learn about the function of the skeleton and the muscles, as well looking in more depth about the amounts and types of nutrition humans need. During the Summer term, the children are introduced to forces and magnets. They will learn that a force is a push or a pull. They will also explore how magnets work as well as which materials are magnetic.  Throughout the year, the children will have the opportunity to carry out scientific investigations to develop and deepen their knowledge of fair testing and being introduced to variables. 

History Projects

In year 3, children will have the opportunity to explore two different areas of history. They will first learn about the Stone Age in Britain and will develop their understanding of what life was like for people in prehistory and learn about each stage of the Stone Age. In this project, children will have the opportunity to visit where a Stone Age site was found in our city and will get to explore different artefacts that were excavated. Later on in the year, children will learn about the history of canals. They will gain an understanding on who designed, created and built canals and learn their purpose and how they contributed to the industrial revolution.  

Geography Projects

In Year 3, children will focus on two areas of geography in two projects throughout the year. They will first focus on why we have volcanoes and earthquakes whilst learning about the three different layers of the Earth. Children will also learn about when tectonic plates move and why people choose to live near volcanoes. In the second project children will build on their understanding of human and physical geography and then compare the differences and similarities between canals and rivers. The children will study the changes in land through studying different types of maps  to track how land use has changed due to industrialisation in cities like Birmingham.

Art

Within the Art curriculum in Year 3, the children will study a range of artists, paradigms and outcomes. In the Autumn term, the children will apply their learning of tone and techniques such as shading and cross hatching to create a sketch of a character in the style of Quentin Blake. In the Spring term, children will develop their understanding of how to make a picture move so they are able to create their own animations. They will then apply this knowledge to create a piece of animated artwork in the style of David Hockney. During the Summer term, the children will build upon their prior learning of sculpture from Year 2 and will study the artist Henry Moore. As part of their gallery visit, they will attend The Yorkshire Sculpture park, providing them with the opportunity to see some of Henry Moore’s work first hand. For their final outcome, the children will apply their learning of moulding and carving to create their own sculpture inspired by Henry Moore.  

Design

Within the design and technology curriculum children will learn about the design cycle and will plan, design, make and evaluate in line with different design briefs. The children will use research to inform their designs and will create innovative, functional and appealing products that are fit for purpose and aimed at particular individuals or groups. In Year 3, the children will apply their science knowledge of a balanced diet in order to create a healthy lunch. They will also use mechanisms such as linkages and levers to produce a greetings card for a friend or family member. In the Summer, the children build upon their prior learning of textiles in Year 2, using various stitching techniques to create their own pencil case.

RE

RE lessons are taught weekly and children learn in depth from different religious and spiritual ways of life about the key concepts of God and Prayer. Children are encouraged to share their own ideas, views and experiences where appropriate. The children begin by learning about what Hindus, Muslims, Chritians and Atheists believe about God before focussing more in depth on Christianity. While learning about Christianity, the children will be asked to consider why the Bible is important to Christians and what it means to be a Christian in Britain today. During the Autumn term, the children will also visit a local church where they have a chance to experience the sacred building where Chrsitians worship and ask believers about their faith. 

PE

The children will take part in 2 PE lessons a week, alongside other active lessons and opportunities which are taught by a specialist sports coach and their class teacher. They are taught: gymnastics, handball, dance, football, hockey, cricket, netball, basketball, OAA, rounders, tennis and athletics. During the summer term the children will take part in swimming lessons where they will be grouped appropriately in order to build upon the skills in swimming they already have. Lessons are 25 minutes long and the children are taught by specialist swimming teachers.

MCT

In year 3, children will continue to develop their understanding of coding through using the Scratch Jr programme. Children will build on their knowledge of designing and debugging code for a specific purpose and be introduced to variables. Children will then learn about how computers are connected and understand the different roles of technology in networks. Later on in the year, Children will then move on to learning about animation. In this, children will gain an understanding of what stop frame animation is and how it works. They will then gain the knowledge using the Imotion programme on how to create their own stop frame animation video. 

Music

In music, the children will be learning how to play simple melodies on a recorder by exploring different notes and how to position their fingers correctly in order to create different notes. Year 3, will also learn about different famous composers from different eras such as Tchaikovsky, Steve Reich and Benjamin Britten. Children will also look at different movements within music such as Classical, Minimalism and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Throughout the year, children will also explore  the meanings of technological vocabulary such as rounds, repetition and unison.