3IW

"Today is a great day to learn something new!"

"Whatever you do, do it in the glory of God!"

Welcome to 3IW’s class page! 

Dear Year 3 children and parents,

My name is Miss Westwood and I am really excited to be teaching Year 3 alongside Miss McTiernan. This will be my first year at St Edward’s, having previously worked in Year 2 and Year 5. I am thoroughly excited for the year we have ahead and I am particularly looking forward to helping the children prepare for their first Holy Communion. 

Outside of school, I enjoy going on long walks, training in the gym and playing football. If I was to describe myself in 3 words I would say I am funny, creative and motivated. 
 

Children will be aware that they have now transitioned to Key Stage 2 and they are encouraged to become more independent, particularly, being prepared for the school day including the correct school uniform and reading books to be in school everyday. Now that the children are in KS2, we will be monitoring homework. Our current PE day is a Tuesday and Thursday which also requires a correct PE kit. Please remember that there are no earrings to be worn for health and safety reasons.

The children have made a brilliant start to the school year and I am looking forward to the rest of the year with them. The first two books we will be studying are ‘The Tunnel’ and ‘Into the Forest’ both by Anthony Browne which the children will really enjoy. 
 

If you have any questions or queries, I am always here to help. You can wait until after dismissal to speak with me on the playground or alternatively you can send an email to teacher@stedward.bham.sch.uk

Please allow up to 48 hours for a response via email. 
Any urgent messages should be communicated to the school office. 
 

Best wishes, 

Miss Westwood.

Autumn 1 Week 1 and 2

What a fun and brilliant start to the year. The children have settled back into school so quickly and are already working super hard in all of their lessons! We have started in English a new book called The tunnel by Anthony Browne which we have made lots of predictions about as lots of exciting things unfold within the book. We have started the year with Maths TTRS (Timestable Rockstars) baselines assessments so we can workout what we need to work on.

The children have also been working hard in maths to find ways to make 100 also considering the ways we can represent this.

In Geography children have been discovering every area of St Edward’s and getting ready to put this information onto a map. Using maps will be important and will prepare us for our rivers trip. 
We have had our first PE lesson with Alex from Aston Villa which the children enjoyed as well as some other indoor sports that will be taught across the year. 
 

Paul Klee was the first artist of many that we started to look at this week, children have started to understand how important colour can be in art and have made some wonderful art self portraits in the style of Paul Klee.

Autumn 1 Week 3

Another brilliant week in 3IW with the children earning reward time! We also had parent workshop this week which gave us the opportunity to look at how we belong to different groups and what makes us feel like we belong to those groups. In English we have been busy working out what could have happened to one of the characters after he became stuck! In Maths we have continued to look at the number 100 particularly focusing on the number being composed of ten groups of ten, 4 groups of 25 and 5 groups of 20. 
The Loud mouth theatre group came to visit us, they were training us to be Bully Busters and spot bullying by helping when we can.

We started an exciting investigation this week in science focusing on how much an experiment can change dependent on the control we have over our variables. The science experiment we are conducting focuses on the growth of cress and how the amount of water can affect the growth. The children had lots of fun preparing for this experiment.

The children also had to chance to do some acting during our RE lesson which they thoroughly enjoyed! 

Autumn 1 Week 4

Another fun filled week in 3IW with all of the children working very hard. This week we have been continuing to explore the number 100 which focus on number bonds to 10 and addition with multiples of 10. 

In English we started our new book ‘ Into the Forest’ which the children were very excited about as they love the author Anthony Browne and this was another of his books. The children worked very hard this week in English putting together some puzzling riddles based on traditional fairy tale characters. 
 

In Geography we have been studying GIS and how diseases affected water.

In Science we have continued to explore plants and write up a conclusion for our results. Some children were shocked with how tall cress can grow from such a tiny little seed!

In Pe the children throughly loved a netball session really focusing on how to throw the ball but also remember the rule about footwork.

Autumn 1 Week 5

What a very exciting week! The children enjoyed having the bug man in for a workshop where they created a bug hotel using bamboo and exciting tools. They was able to take this outside and think about what bugs might live inside.

The children also had the opportunity for Bikeability which was fabulous to see! 
We have continued to use our football skills of finding space and creating chances for players with Alex our Aston Villa Coach.

We have worked very hard in Maths continuing to work with the number 100, looking at addition and subtraction. In English we have continued to read on and look at what exciting changes we could make to some of the characters.

Autumn 1 Week 6

This week, on our excursion to Woodgate Valley, we had a great time putting all of our geography lessons to the test. We all received a River Researchers certificate after Pam and Dr. Des were really impressed with our level of knowledge! In addition, we observed Harry Potter Day, spending the day being admitted into Miss Westwood’s School of Wizardry. We attempted to perform spells, did some maths inspired by Hogwarts, and completed a read-the-picture exercise using some of the book's illustrations. Despite all of this, we were still able to delve deeper into our book and finish our study on place value for numbers larger than 100.
Our school's patron saint, St. Edward's Day, was also celebrated and Father Denis joined us for Mass.

Autumn 1 Week 7

A brilliant week beginning with the African mask workshop, children thoroughly enjoyed being creative with all of the different coloured paints and trying to make sure the mask looked symmetrical. 
In maths we continued to exploring working around the topic of place value, addition and subtraction with multiples of ten is a big focus this week which you will see through the children’s homework. In English we are exploring Hansel and Gretel alongside lots of focus on conjunctions. Conjunctions are very important to use in our writing and children really enjoy the SPAG lessons we do.

Autumn 2 Week 1 and 2 

We have had some busy first weeks back here at St Edward’s! Starting with an anti bullying Worksop and a brilliant mindfulness workshop which the children had the chance to explore strategies on how to keep their minds healthy. We have started our Stone Age topic and have been using the book the Stone Age Boy to learn some intriguing facts, using fiction to learn non fiction! 
We are exploring measurement in maths looking at different units of measure. The children are enjoying being practical with it.

We are currently learning about reconciliation and how it brings us closer to God.

Autumn 2 Week 3

We have celebrated Diwali through a fabulous story telling workshop exploring why we celebrate the festival of light, we explored the characters and learnt all about the story. We have continued to look at measurement in maths and are now focusing on how to convert between different units. 
We have nearly finished our Stone Age Boy book and he is just about to go back into the cave…

The children have completed some excellent pieces of writing a diary entry and some very interesting letters as if they were stuck in the Stone Age.

The children thoroughly enjoyed sport with Alex this week trying to complete all of the different challenges he set looking at why it is important to move forward and create space with the ball.

Finishing the Autumn term
 

Wow!
 

What a busy few weeks to end the Autumn term and didn’t the children just flourish! Every opportunity for the variety of activities each and every child had a go applying new knowledge and skills. We thought the best way for you to see how many fun learning opportunities we had was through uploading some our favourite moments.

Spring term Week 1

We hope you had a lovely enjoyable Christmas break, the children have came back to school ready and raring to go. They have had lots of fabulous stories ready to share.

This week, the children have studied a book called the refuge, which tells a story of a man and woman who had to travel to a different town on a donkey, and whilst they were there had a baby in a stable. The troubles of the holy family really resonated with some children, and remind us of some of the unsettled places in the world today. we have started to look at the world Day of peace, and how we see peace through our own eyes.

This week we have continued working on number and place value in maths. We are now applying our knowledge to number lines and scales. To continue our study on the Stone Age we have began reading a new book called Stig of the dump.

Spring term Week 2

This week we have continued to explore peace in our everyday life, we need to make sure we find as many opportunities as we can to feel at peace with such a busy world. The children have really enjoy the activities.

In Maths this week we have been applying our Mathematical knowledge of number lines and using this to help us read scales for G, Kg also beginning to look at capacity and volume exploring millilitres and liters. In English the children have came up with some interesting predictions about what happens in ‘Stig of the dump’ some have even managed to predict the exact story from their amazing inference skills.

The children have got stuck in with their sports with both coach Dylan and Alex. 

The children got stuck into their geography work thinking about what makes up the British Isles and what Britain used to be like before the Mesolithic time period.

Science has been very interesting and the children will begin to present research next week on Mary Anning.