Year 3 news – what lies ahead!

This newsletter outlines the term’s learning for your child’s year group. We hope that this provides you with a picture of what is ahead.

This newsletter provides an overview for your child’s learning this term, which fits within our approach to:

Welcome to term one!

Welcome back for the start of a new school year. We are really looking forward to getting to know your children, establish positive routines and have a great start to the school year.

A new year brings lots of wonderings and questions, as well as a few nerves. We will spend the first few days setting up our routines and expectations and getting to know each other in our new classes.

There is lots to look forward to in Year 3 including a term one walking excursion to Darebin Parklands, graphic novels, school swimming and much more.

Year 3 teachers

A typical day

A typical day will start with the Literacy block and Numeracy in the mornings, with humanities subjects (Geography and History) taught in the afternoon (specialist timetables and special events can affect this order). Our Specialist timetables are available in Compass.

Literacy

Our Literacy work this term will support our Geography unit on Australia and its environments. Students will explore mentor texts such as:

Mr Chicken All Over Australia by Leigh Hobbs
Exploring Countries: Australia, Climate in Australia
Australia and Oceania: An Amazing Australian Road Trip

These texts help build geographical vocabulary, expand knowledge, and strengthen comprehension as students make connections and ask thoughtful questions about what they read.

In Reading and Writing, students will be building on their understanding of persuasive writing. They will analyse real examples and learn how authors use reasoning and emotion to convince their readers. Students will plan, draft, revise and publish persuasive pieces connected to Geography topics such as caring for our environment and celebrating Australian places.

Weekly handwriting, grammar and punctuation lessons will support clear and accurate writing. Our grammar, punctuation and spelling focus will be determined through assessment and analysis of student writing samples at the beginning of the term. We will be continuing with our weekly explicit phonics, parts of speech, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary lessons as a part of our Literacy block sessions.

At home you can:

Read together daily and talk about what your child is reading.
Encourage your child to read aloud with expression and fluency.
Explore new words in books or daily life and discuss their meanings.
Support writing at home; letters, notes, stories or persuasive pieces.
Encourage correct punctuation and neat handwriting. By the end of year 3, students are expected to be able to write words using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size.
Model a love of reading and writing by sharing your own!

Mathematics

In Mathematics, students will be revising and extending their understanding of place value to the tens of thousands. They will be representing numbers using materials such as MAB blocks and exploring number patterns, including odd and even numbers and patterns created through addition and subtraction.

Students will also continue to build their understanding of time, working towards reading analogue clocks to the nearest five minutes or minute. To link with Geography, students will explore how numbers and measurement are used when reading and creating maps of Australia.

Students will develop their understanding of shape and space by identifying, describing and comparing 2D and 3D shapes, recognising right angles, lines of symmetry, and exploring how shapes can be combined to create designs and models.

They will also investigate chance and probability through hands-on experiments, conducting simple chance games, listing possible outcomes, describing the likelihood of events (certain, likely, unlikely, impossible), and recording results using tables or graphs.

At home you can:

Play number games and create multidigit numbers to compare.
Practise reading and writing large numbers in words.
Count forwards and backwards by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s starting from different numbers.
Encourage your child to tell the time on an analogue clock.
Talk about the value of each digit in a number.
Look for and name 2D and 3D shapes around your home.
Build or draw objects using different shapes.
Play simple chance games (coin tosses, dice games) and discuss which outcomes are more or less likely.

Further ideas to support students at home can be found here: Literacy & Numeracy Tips to Help Your Child.

Inquiry – Geography

In Geography, students will explore places and their connections. They will investigate natural and human features, learn how places are connected locally and globally, and develop an understanding of caring for places and environments, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ connections to Country and Place.

Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR)

RRRR learning supports our school values of Community, Respect, Excellence and Creativity. Our first unit focuses on Emotional Literacy, where students learn to identify, understand and manage their emotions, as well as recognise the feelings of others.

Students will develop emotional literacy, build positive and respectful relationships, recognise personal strengths, and practise skills for cooperation, problem-solving and help-seeking. Through stories, discussions and collaborative activities, students will continue to learn how to contribute positively to our school community.

NAPLAN

In Year 3, students will be participating in NAPLAN (The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy). Families will be informed of the dates of testing for Fairfield students via Compass and the newsletter. In the lead up, students will be made familiar with the testing format and sample questions linked to Reading, Conventions of Language, Writing and Numeracy.

Specialist subjects

French

Students will be practicing classroom routines. They will revise personal information by asking and answering questions about their name, age, address, favourite colour, and pets. Students will also revise and extend their knowledge of greetings.

Performing Arts

Students will be reviewing expectations and procedures used in the Performing Arts room and how these will be expressed differently when learning Music, Drama and Dance. The focus will be on exploring these three disciplines safely and fairly.

Physical Education

Students will be revisiting the expectations and the procedures used in PE. To help further develop their fundamental motor skills they will participate in target games. Students will be given a chance to learn and practise the school cross country course and complete laps of the course as part of the school's cross country trials.

Science

Students will be focusing on biological science. They will explore how living things have characteristics that distinguish them from non-living things and things that were once living, including fossils.

Visual Arts

Indigenous landscape artist Albert Namatjira and his great grandson Vincent Namatjira, a contemporary portrait artist will be the spotlight for study this year.

Initially, students will be decorating their art folios and Visual Art journal. They will then be focussing on the art element colour, expressing it through paint. They will continue to study, examine and reflect on their prior knowledge, with complementary colours as their focal point.

Finally...

We look forward to establishing positive relationships with your children, and also to work in collaborative partnerships with yourselves.

Kind regards,

Millie, Jack, James, Sophie, Jess & the Specialist teachers

Year 3 News

Respect • Creativity • Excellence • Community • Since 1885

Issue 1 · 10 Feb 2026

In this issue