Welcome to Class 3C - St Mary

STAFF: Miss Claffey

Spring 2025

Key Information

Class Assembly - 7th May 2025 (taking place at school)

Class Mass - 24th June 2025 (taking place at St Mary's Church)

Other Key Dates this Term:

17th January - Maths Workshop for parents

5th March - Ash Wednesday Mass at Church 

7th March - World Book Day / Poetry Cafe

12th/13th March - Parents Evening

Sacramental Programme Dates:

Meeting 1 - 26th February 2025

Celebration Mass - 2nd March 2025

Meeting 2 - 2nd April 2025

First Confession - Tuesday 8th April 2025 at 6:30pm

Meeting 3 - 11th June 2025

Holy Communion Mass - 22nd June 2025 at 1pm

PE

PE will take place weekly on Monday and Wednesday.

On Mondays we will be inside using the hall, therefore indoor kit can be worn:

1. White shirt
2. Navy Blue shorts
3. Trainers

ALL children should come to school dressed in their PE kit and remain in this all day. 

Outdoor PE lessons will be on Wednesday. Outdoor PE kit includes:

1. White shirt
2. Navy Blue shorts (plain, navy tracksuit bottoms weather dependent)
3. Trainers
4. School jumper/plain, navy jumper
5. Suitable waterproof jacket (weather dependent)

During the Summer Term when swimming is taking place, children should come into school in their school uniform and bring their swimming kit with them in a suitable bag. This should include:

1. Costume
2. Towel
3. Swimming cap (for long hair)

Girls:-

• One-piece swimming costume – no bikinis*
• A swimming hat is required to be worn if the hair covers the eyes or airways
• A towel
•  

* Please note that in order for your child to benefit from the swimming lessons appropriate aquatic clothing must be worn. Should your children wish to wear items of clothing that cover up parts of the body, there are specific aquatic clothing designed for this purpose. Cotton leggings are detrimental to teaching and are a risk to health and safety.

Boys:-

• A pair of traditional swimming trunks
• A swimming hat is required to be worn if the hair covers the eyes or airways
• A towel 

No Bermuda or long shorts are allowed, as these can be dangerous - for reasons of safety the swimwear should be sufficiently tight fitting to allow the freedom of body and limb movement without causing unsafe water resistance.  

Jewellery of any description should not be worn in the School Swimming lesson.  It is important that earrings in particular are removed.

Goggles are only permitted for medical reasons.  Parents must produce a letter from either a Doctor or Optician to state that your child has a medical condition and is required to wear goggles in the school swimming lesson.

HOME LEARNING

Children are expected to complete home learning activities to help with their Maths and English.

SPELLINGS - Given out on a Monday to practise. They will be tested on Friday. 

READING EGGS - Weekly lessons set at your child's reading level - expected to be completed weekly.

MATHS SEEDS or MYMATHS - Online activities linked to classwork - they are expected to complete the weekly activities when set.

TIMESTABLES ROCKSTARS - Children should be aiming to practice their multiplication and division fact recall as often as possible. 5-10 minutes each day is ideal. Knowledge of these facts feeds into almost all other mathematical units we cover throughout the year. Short, frequent practice can be the most useful to support your child with progress in maths. 

CURRICULUM

RE

This term we will be exploring the themes of Local Church, Eucharist and Lent with our preparations for Easter. We will also explore Caritas where we will understand the social teachings of the Church. We will be taking part in Collective Worship as part of our ongoing journey within our faith.

English

In English we will be developing our reading, writing, spelling and grammar skills through a range of fiction writing and non-fiction opportunities. The focus this term will be on strengthening our writing through recounts as well as poetry ahead of the Poetry Cafe in the second half of this term. We are currently focusing our writing around one of our science topics from last half term, fossils by exploring the life and story of Mary Anning. 

Reading

Guided reading sessions, whole class reading sessions and our daily class read will enable children to develop their reading skills and comprehension alongside an ever growing love of reading. We are currently reading 'The Boy who made the World Disappear' by Ben Miller as well as continuing with the Wolfsong series!

Reading at home

We encourage parents to read with their child for 30 mins every night. This can be a school book or a book from home. 

Reading Records should be signed daily and brought in everyday for a member of staff to sign and change the book where necessary. 

Maths

At the beginning of this term we will start by exploring formal written methods for multiplication and division before moving on to length and perimeter. In Spring 2 we will be learning how to compare and order fractions followed by our unit on mass and capacity. 

Keep learning your times tables - You should know your 2s, 5s and 10s from Year 2 and will be learning your 3s, 4s and 8 times tables in Year 3!

Practise your times tables everyday by logging onto Times Tables Rockstars and working on the battles and completing soundchecks regularly!

Science

This term we will be exploring how light is made and recognising different sources of light. We will carry out an experiment to discover reflective materials as well as observe the change of shadows throughout one day. In our plants unit we will be describing the functions of parts of a flowering plant as well as experimenting with what plants need for life and growth. 

Topic

In Topic, we will enjoy learning all about the Ancient Egyptians continuing to explore the development of the earliest civilisations. We will look at how the people lived and important aspects of their culture before moving on to looking at Rivers in Geography. In Art, we will be practising our printing skills in order to make an Egyptian collar known as an Usekh. In Computing, we will explore sounds through the programming software 'Scratch'.

PSHE

Throughout this term we will be exploring the topic 'Living in the Wider World'. We will be looking at the themes of belonging to a community, money and work as well as media and digital resilience.  For any further information please see the TenTen parent portal.

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

Children have been given logins for:

- Reading Eggs

- Spelling Shed

- Times Tables Rock Star

- My Maths

These apps and webpages are fantastic resources for the children to access independently to help improve their core skills of reading, spelling and times tables. 

Any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.