de Vere Primary School

Welcome to Class 3 – Andersen Class 

We are Mrs Norris, who teaches Monday to Thursday and Mrs Westrop who teaches on a Friday. We are supported each day by the lovely Mrs Donaghy and Mrs Champion.  

Year 3 is the start of KS2 and it is full of fantastic and interesting topics for the children to get excited about. There’s lots of learning and lots of fun to be had in Year 3, across the whole of our curriculum. Here are our main themes for each half term. 

Autumn Term 

1) Stone Age 2) Mountains and mining 

Spring Term 

1) Ancient Egypt 2) Settlements and use of land 

Summer Term 

1) Rainforests 2) Romans in Britain 

These are great themes and where possible learning in other subjects is linked to these, such as learning about animals and plants in science when we are learning about Rainforests and when learning about mountains the children will be painting mountain views in art. At de Vere, it is important to us that children are engaged in their learning in different ways, that we are creative across the curriculum and encouraging children to be creative too. We look for ways we can help children to connect their learning, knowing more and learning more across the curriculum. We also want children to be able to think logically, make links between their learning and develop an understanding about people and places. 

Key dates of experiences and trips  

More information and letters to follow about these nearer the times. 

Stone Age day in school – 16th October 

​Egyptian Day in school – dress in white and/or black – 12th February  

Local walk to map the local area – date to follow in Spring 2. 

April 22nd – Colchester Zoo Group to school, workshop on Rainforest Layers. Geography - Rainforests (approx. £2.50 – costs to be finalised) 

June 5th – Morning trip to Pizza Express – DT – Cooking savoury food: pizza (£4.50 per child) 

Reading 

Reading for enjoyment is important at us all at de Vere through their reading books, class reading and the texts we look at in different subjects. Children should aim to read at least 4 times a week at home. This could be the child reading to you, sharing a book together or perhaps reading to help make a cake or build a Lego set.  

PE 

PE in Andersen Class is on a Wednesday and a Friday each week. Earrings must be taken out for all PE lessons and long hair must be tied up. If your child is unable to take out their earrings independently, then please ensure they are removed before coming to school.  

Forest School will be every 4 weeks on a Tuesday afternoon. 

If there is anything you would like to talk to us about, please get in touch via email or telephone via the school office. 

k.norris@devere.essex.sch.uk            m.westrop@devere.essex.sch.uk  

22nd March 2024

We have been very busy practicing the production songs ready to share with you next week for the Year 4 and 3 show of Pirates vs Mermaids. We’ve also had time for lots of other exciting work too.

In Geography, we have also compared land uses in a village, town and a city and the good points of living in each of these types of settlements.

We’ve been learning about branching databases in computing, exploring how we can sort information by using yes and no questions and have started to build our own databases too.

Science week was lots of fun – we found out about Jane Goodall and her work with chimpanzees and worked on our sketching skills trying to draw our own. We also found out about the rainforest, birds of prey, used lots of science skills and really enjoyed the Science Dude’s assembly too.

8th March 2024

Class 3 enjoyed their local walk this week as it gave them a good opportunity to see how land is used in different ways in Castle Hedingham and then trying to put this correctly onto maps. They did well with their map reading skills and in spotting all the different uses of land there are in the village.

In DT, they completed their poster pages about Ancient Egyptian Inventions. They had to use moving parts using links and levers and some also had parts to flap open. There were lots of lovely ideas and moving pictures with some good facts written too about the inventions.

Class 3 have also been really busy working on their measuring skills in maths, their multiplication and division methods and working as a team to problem solve. They did some great performance poetry which we all really enjoyed watching and we are looking forward to writing adventure stories next in English.

16th February 2024

What fun Class 3 had for Ancient Egypt Day. They made head dresses and built their own pyramids using Lego bricks. They also practised using hieroglyphs to write their names, we even had some papyrus that the Ancient Egyptians used as paper to write on and make bookmarks. We learnt about the Book of the Dead and their journey to the afterlife, showing this on a scroll. Class 3 find out about mummies and sarcophagus as well as the different Gods and Goddesses they worshipped and even some ancient games they used to play. It was a great day and enjoyed by all.

The class has also been working hard on their multiplication and division methods in maths and it has been great to see their times tables scores improving. They have been writing explanation texts in English – explaining why the London Aquarium would be an amazing place for a sleepover, giving clear detail and reasons.

The class has been working hard on finding out about levers and links in creating interesting moving parts. They have designed a poster using these skills ready to make posters about inventions from Ancient Egyptian times. In computing, pupils have used their publishing skills to create an information page about Mountains, thinking carefully about how they are setting their work out to make it look interesting. The class also enjoyed Internet Safety Day, discussing ways they can be safe online but also coming up with ideas about what technology might look like 20 years from now – some great ideas.

19th January 2024

What a great start to the new year. Class 3 has been really busy working on their times tables and division skills in maths; using these facts to answer questions given to them in all kinds of different ways. Times tables come up in so many different areas of maths - having recall of those numbers really supports their learning.

In English, we have watched a short film called ‘The Dreamgiver’ which is about a creature that uses golden eggs to give children amazing dreams about their favourite things. We have used this to write persuasive letters asking to have one of these eggs. There have been some really great ideas!

We’ve also started practising the skills for playing Handball and learning dance moves in PE and starting our new history topic on the Ancient Egyptians – everyone is already really enjoying it.

15th December 2023

What an end to the term! Class 3 has worked very hard. In maths, we have started working on multiplication and sharing and grouping.

Class 3 have loved creating their own animations in computing. They have used a background picture and moved figures in front of it, taking photos of each stage to make their own short, animated films. We’ll get to watch these next week! What a great last few days it will prove to be.

In music, they have been creating their own compositions and have been able to compare using a keyboard with the sounds they can make using a computer. The class has worked on their pencil techniques to shade and sketch and created amazing paint and pencil pictures of mountain landscapes.

1st December 2023​

We have had great fun in English. We watched The Snoozatron from Wallace and Gromit (which was a machine to help Wallace to get back to sleep) and we then made up our own machine ideas. These work in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways and the children have come up with great ideas about how their machines work. We have then used these to write explanation texts to explain exactly how our machines work and what each part does.

In computing, we have started our unit about animations which has been exciting. We have made flip books and then started to draw simple pictures to show something happening and taken photos of these, putting them together to see how it creates an animation. Everyone is looking forward to making animations and seeing each other’s at the end of term.

Class 3 have also been super busy working hard in maths with addition and subtraction methods as well learning about using estimates and inverse calculations to check their answers. It has been lovely to see their confidence grow.

3rd November 2023

I hope you have all had a lovely half term and enjoyed seeing some pictures from our Stone Age Day. What a lot of fun we had. I have added a few more photos from Stone Age Day of the children with their woolly mammoths and houses that they made.

In DT, we have continued with lots of designing and making by creating biscuit boxes. Everyone did really well using nets to make cubes and cuboids – what great perseverance and concentration they all showed in doing it. They thought really hard about what the box should look like, how they would present their biscuits as well as trying to make sure the boxes were protected so that the biscuits didn’t end up broken. They loved making their boxes and we hope you all like getting to see their end products.

Class 3 have also been incredible in their maths, using pictures to add and subtract and showing great effort and understanding – I have been so impressed with them all.

What a great start to the half term Class 3! Thank you and well done.

What great fun we had for Stone Age Day. The children all seemed to really enjoy it. We started the day by going to the woods. We talked about how we would survive living there, what food we could see and find around us. With foam javelins, they took turns to be the hunters whilst everyone else got to be the animals. Some great aim was shown as well sneaking up quietly whilst hunting as they moved around the woods. Everyone then had a go making shelters, making great use of the environment around them and working well in tribes to build them. A lot of time and care was taken – we were very impressed! Finally they left trails to show the others what way they went through the forest using sticks and stones to leave clues and messages.

When we got back to school, the children played a game where they had to make some tricky decisions about being a farmer and being r a hunter-gatherer during the Stone Age times to see if they could collect enough food for the tribe to survive the winter. In the afternoon, we worked on our art skills, making woolly mammoths out of milk bottles. The children really enjoyed this and many were able to then make a model of the types of houses they had at the end of the Stone Age.

Hope you enjoy having a look at the photos and meeting the woolly mammoths! They all really enjoyed the day, as did we – thanks Class 3 for another amazing day with you all.

13th October 2023

I can’t believe it’s nearly half term already. How busy the children have been!

Class 3 has worked so hard, finishing writing their stories where they were travelling back in time to the Stone Age. These were all full of great ideas. In Maths, Class 3 are gaining confidence in working with larger numbers in all kinds of different ways. They have also been using addition and subtraction skills with larger numbers and I have been impressed with how well they represent and work with numbers using pictures and equipment to support them.

The class were brave sharing information about one of their interests in PSHE, they all did so well and were a great audience for each other.

The highlight that I think we would all choose was finding out about artwork in the Stone Age times. There was much laughter as they had paper stuck under their tables, with the lights off while they were trying to recreate as much as we could what it would have been like painting in caves. Then they had another go sitting at their tables which they found much easier and they have created some lovely artwork. Lots of Stone Age fun to come next week for our Stone Age Day on Wednesday!

29th September 2023

We have been reading the book Stone Age Boy which the children have really enjoyed. The class have used drama to help explore what is happening and to help them to start using speech marks correctly. We will be using the story as inspiration for writing our own stories about travelling back in time and having our own time travel adventures.

Year 3 have also done lots of great place value work, using equipment to show different amounts and being able to use number lines up to 1000. They are enjoying the challenge!

We have loved finding out even more about life in Stone Age times, comparing what life was like then. We have also learnt about Stonehenge and we have been wondering how they managed to move stones that big and those big distances without machines. Everyone got to make their own Stonehenge ideas, we hope you enjoy having a look at their great creations