Year 3 Term 1 Newsletter

Meet the teaching team

3A - Kate Burman (PLC Leader)

3B - Bec Crawford

Welcome to Term 1

Welcome to Year 3 and 2025!

We have been delighted with how the children have settled into their new classes. We have all enjoyed getting to know each other through the beginning of the year

activities.

 Specialist Timetable

Important Dates

18/02: Whole School Photo Day

07/03: Community Picnic

10/03: Labour Day—Public Holiday

12/03 - 19/03: NAPLAN testing

04/04: Last Day of Term- 2:30 dismissal

Electronic Rolls

Our electronic rolls are legal documents therefore we must be accountable for any absences. Please assist with this by informing the school by replying to the text message sent by Sentral in the event of your child being away.

Teaching and Learning

English

Reading

Students will read for enjoyment and participate in activities to improve their ability to decode and comprehend texts. They will consolidate their knowledge of sounds (phonemes) of less common combinations of letters (graphemes) e.g. ph, wr, and practise different strategies to read and spell more complex words. In comprehension sessions, students will be exposed to a range of different text types and will be explicitly taught to identify text features, find the author’s purpose, identify facts and details and make simple inferences. They will develop their reading fluency and be exposed to new language to expand their vocabulary.

Writing

Students will focus on the typical structure of narrative and persuasive text types. They will be supported in generating ideas and be explicitly taught how to create a plan to help them organise their ideas to fit the required structure for each genre. They will practise referring to their plan when writing. Students will also consolidate their knowledge and skills in structuring simple and compound sentences and will be taught how these sentences can be used and developed, using different writing strategies, to engage the reader. Students will be supported in developing skills to reread and edit their work for structure, grammar, spelling and punctuation to clarify meaning. As part of our study of English Orthography, students will investigate how the written word works.

Speaking & Listening 

Through a range of activities, across all areas of the curriculum, students will listen for

key points in discussions. They will be supporting in actively contributing to

class, small group and paired conversations, varying language according to context. Using our class texts as a springboard, they will be encouraged to share and justify their thoughts and ideas about the characters and events. They will also have opportunities to present their completed work to the class.  

Mathematics

In Maths, students will engage in rich, hands-on investigations to develop their mathematical thinking. They will be supported in reading worded problems and exposing the key information that will allow them to solve the problem. They will make connections between different concepts, employ a range of strategies to solve the problem and justify their reasoning using mathematical language. The problems will be challenging and students will learn to be comfortable with struggle. 

Our lessons will have a strong emphasis on Number and Algebra topics, starting with the fundamental concept of place value, before moving on to addition and subtraction. Work samples and assessments will be used to build on what the students already know and students will be supported to develop their ability to set and work towards achieving their own maths goals. Maths games at the start of the lesson aim to build speed and accuracy with counting and recalling single-digit addition and subtraction facts. Students will have access to Mathletics to support their learning.

Humanities  

This term, our Humanities inquiry focus question this term is, "What makes a great community?" Students will investigate the importance of rules and laws, whilst exploring the difference between the two. Students will consider the purpose of creating rules for groups and how rules and laws affect them. Students will also explore how individuals participate in their community, cultural diversity and how belonging to different groups can shape personal identity.

Wellbeing

CEPS VALUES

COURTESY    RESPECT    CO-OPERATION    RESPONSIBILITY 

Each week both classes will engage in a The Respectful Relationships sessions as well as discuss our CEPS Skill of the Week. These lessons will encourage the development of skills that promote our school values and the positive and personal growth of all students. When possible, students will have set time allocated for structured ‘free play’ on Friday afternoon. These sessions support the development and monitoring of key social skills.

LEARNERSHIP: Students will be supported in developing understanding that our abilities are not fixed. Students will be taught that each one of them is on their own learning journey. We will explore learning zones and encourage students to move out of their comfort zone into their learning zone in order to grow. Students will be supported in becoming active, thoughtful learners who feel confident in embracing new challenges. 

In Year 3 we continue to give out weekly awards on a Friday afternoon assembly  for students who have displayed the CEPS values.

Your child may receive a CEPS raffle ticket for displaying the school values! Award winners will be drawn and announced during assembly on Friday afternoons. 

Supporting learning from home

Read. Support your child in developing a habit of reading for a minimum of 15 minutes every night. They can: read aloud to develop fluency and expression; be read to; participate in shared reading of a book. Discuss what they have read so they can practise their comprehension skills. Become a member of the Kingston libraries; they have an amazing collection of books - something for everyone. 

Maths. Practise counting forwards and backwards from any three digit number by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to develop accuracy and fluency. Play games to develop the automatic recall of addition and subtraction facts. Provide your child with incidental opportunities to read a clock and calculate elapsed time, use measurement when building and cooking, calculate change when shopping; these are all great opportunities to support mathematical understanding. Complete the assigned activities on Mathletics.

Writing. Provide opportunities for children to engage in meaningful writing, for example send an email to a loved one, write a persuasive letter for that toy they really want, write a shopping list or write a card for a friend. For those who want to, encourage them to create books with their own stories or design a comic. 

Homework: In Year 3 Homework is expect to be daily reading routines and completion of assigned Mathletics tasks. From time-to-time there will also be tasks provided to consolidate classroom learning. e.g. Writing /Handwriting / English Orthography. 

Term 1 Additional Information

Headphones

Most students have brought a pair of head phones to school primarily to use during NAPLAN testing.  If they haven't already, your child can still bring their own set of headphones to school. Please ensure that you label them and that they have a jack.  Bluetooth headphones are not suitable our school technology. We do have some spare headphones in our classrooms which your child can use if they do not have a personal set. 

NAPLAN

NAPLAN, which stands for The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy, is a standardised set of tests that are sat by students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.  The results give parents and schools an idea of where each child is at in their development, and help education bodies identify areas of the curriculum that need specific focus.

This year NAPLAN will be held from 12-19 March.  More information about the specific testing schedule will be provided soon. Please speak with your teacher if you have any questions.

Communication

If you have any queries along the way, please feel free to contact us using our emails listed below or you can send a Class Dojo. If any more urgent concerns arise, please organise a time to meet with your child’s teacher.

Kate Burman (catherine.burman@education.vic.gov.au)

Bec Crawford (rebecca.crawford2@education.vic.gov.au) 

If you need an important message to be passed onto your child, we ask that you communicate this via the office.  

We use Sentral to communicate School and Year 3 Information and Class Dojo to communicate the following: - 1:1 communication between teachers and families. 

On occasion,  we will post photos to celebrate classroom learning.