Year 3

In English Innovation, Year 3 students are deepening their exploration of fairytales by analysing common themes, traditional character roles and narrative structure across a range of classic and modern texts. They are applying this understanding to craft their own original fairytales, with a strong focus on developing rich vocabulary, engaging storylines and well-structured plots. Building on these skills, students are collaborating in groups to create fractured fairytale scripts, thoughtfully reimagining familiar tales with inventive twists, humour and alternative perspectives. This work will lead into group performances, where students will bring their scripts to life while strengthening their confidence, creativity, and ability to work effectively as part of a team.

In Mathematics Innovation, students will continue their investigations into the properties of numbers and explore how patterns emerge within number systems. They will investigate square numbers and develop sequences and patterns based on numbers, making connections between numerical patterns and visual or geometric representations. Students will describe the rules underlying patterns, strengthening their ability to generalise and reason mathematically. Students will work collaboratively to solve worded problems and through sharing their thinking, will explore a variety of problem-solving strategies, processes and techniques, comparing their effectiveness. They will be encouraged to clearly communicate and justify their thinking through both verbal explanations and written responses.

In Languages Innovation class, students will continue to embark on an exciting journey into the world of Chinese folk tales and shadow puppetry, combining history, creativity, and performance. Through engaging storytelling, they will explore the cultural significance of traditional stories such as Nüwa Patching the Sky, Hou Yi Shooting the Sun, the legend of Nezha, and the 12 Zodiac Animals.

Working collaboratively, students will research, design, and create their own shadow puppets, developing an appreciation for this ancient art form. They will showcase their learning through group performances, bringing their stories to life while demonstrating their creativity and storytelling skills, and celebrating the rich heritage of Chinese folk traditions.

In Animation Innovation, students will build on their understanding of how individual frames, changed slightly and viewed in sequence, give the illusion of movement. This semester, they will create a stop-motion animation using technology. As part of this process, they will consider the message that they would like to convey and plan their ideas using storyboarding. Additionally, students will learn about the 12 principles of animation and incorporate aspects of these to enhance their creations.

In Coding and Game Design, students have been working collaboratively in small groups to create their own board or strategy game. These will be tested and played by their peers with the opportunity for valuable feedback. After this, students will delve into learning about digital video games. We will use the Scratch interface to firstly explore various digital video games then to create our very own video game! Using block-based coding, students will create sprites (characters) to include in a game style of catch, pong, or jumping games. They will be able to test and modify their code as they deepen their coding skills, ready to share their video games with each other at the end of the semester.