3SM

"We are stars - watch us shine with the gifts that God gave us!" 

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use; the more you have!" 

Welcome to Class 3SM

Dear Year 3 children and parents,

My name is Miss McTiernan, I have been a teacher here at St. Edward’s since I started my teaching career; over 13years ago. I have taught in many year groups including Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 and I have thoroughly enjoyed them all for different reasons. I am currently teaching in Year 3, specifically 3SM, and I lead R.E. This was a subject that I chose to study at University whilst training to be a teacher.  I am also the lead teacher for Behaviour across the school. This year I have taken on a new role as Assistant Head Teacher which is a very new and exciting challenge for me.

I did Irish dancing when I was younger, so have always liked to keep active, I still run and do other things and always enjoy seeing the children from St. Edward’s out and about on my travels. They always look quite shocked to see me somewhere other than school! The children in my class will often hear me talking about my family and I particularly like to share stories about my nieces and nephews.

If I had to describe myself in 3 words I would say I was happy, energetic and enthusiastic.

I am really looking forward to the year ahead, getting to know you and your child. If you need anything, I am always here to listen and help where I can. There are many adults who may be working with your child at some point but incase any of you are unsure of what I look like see if you can find me on the 'Who's who' page in the information tab.

We have many ways to communicate here at school, but currently the most efficient way would be to email the teacher@stedward.bham.sch.uk email address which will be checked regularly and will try to respond to you as quickly as I can.

As the children are now Year 3 and part of KS2 we are encouraging them to try and be a bit more independent and to think about what they can do for themselves to prepare for the school day. To help get the children into routine to start with please could you help us by checking that your child always has the correct school uniform, a drinks bottle as currently we cannot have spare cups in the classroom and their reading bag with their reading book in everyday. Your child has been issued with a login for TTRS (Times Tables Rockstars) so that they can start practising their times tables, they can also use this log in to access Numbots which will allow them to ensure that their basic number bonds are also secure. If you have any issues with devices or computing equipment could you please let us know and we can arrange alternative provision. Now that the children are in KS2, we will be monitoring homework.

Our current PE day is on a Tuesday and Thursday, and the children can come into school in PE kit for the day, we will notify you if this changes as we do have external providers associated with school to enhance our provision; and they are only available on certain days. Please remember no earrings should be worn for health and safety reasons and a white round neck t-shirt and plain blue or black shorts/ tracksuit bottoms should be worn.

The children have settled in extremely well on on their transition days. From the first day they have come in with big smiles and full of stories and things to tell me, it really does make me smile! Initially, we will be establishing routines and reminding the children of the rules which will help us to learn and keep everyone safe all at the same time, they are so eager to please and have already earned lots of track it light points! 

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 and have already been introduced to. I love stories and at times get carried away when reading them, but the children's enthusiasm fuels this even more. I am really looking forward to seeing the journey we go on this year and the wonderful things we can share together.

Take care everybody,

Miss McTiernan

Autumn 2 Week 3

This week we had a Diwali workshop to celebrate the festival of light, we explored the character and learned all about the story. We have nearly finished our story about Stone Age Boy and he is just about to go back into to cave….what will he find? We have written letters to his family to let him know all of the amazing things he has seen and learned. We have continued our work on measure but it has got really tricky as we are comparing and ordering the measurements. It is even trickier as the units of measure are all different! In History, we learned about the ice age, did you know we are in an ice age now!? We have started to learn the Angelus prayer to get ready for Advent. In Art, we have started to learn about cave paintings and how people used them to communicate.

Autumn 2 Week 1 and 2

We have had some busy first weeks back already. We had out anti bullying workshop and also our mindfulness workshop where we explored strategies to keep our minds healthy. We have started our Stone Age topic and have been using the book Stone Age Boy to learn some interesting facts, we are using fiction to learn non fiction! We have been exploring measure in maths and have been making out brains work by converting measurements using mm, cm and m!. In Italian, we have learned our numbers to ten now, ask us to teach you. We have continued learning out reconciliation and how it brings us closer to God through saying sorry and being forgiven.

We had great fun on our outdoor day finishing out Geography topic on Rivers. We started by mapping puddles to see why water levels in rivers rise. We then used this to explore the water cycle and vocabulary like evaporation and condensation. We will be pros by the time we learn all about it in Year 4.

Autumn 1 Week 6

This Week we enjoyed putting all of our learning in Geography about river to the test on our trip to Woodgate Valley. Pam and Dr Des were so impressed with all of our knowledge and awarded us all a River Researchers certificate! We also celebrated Harry Potter Day, where we welcomed into Miss McTiernan’s School of Wizardry for the day. We had a go at spell casting, some Hogwarts inspired maths and a read the picture activity using some pictures from the book. On top of all this, we still managed to explore our book further and complete some work on place value for numbers beyond 100.

We also celebrated St Edward’s feats day, the patron Saint of our school. All of KS2 joined Father Denis to celebrate mass in church.

Autumn 1 Week 5

We had a very exciting start to the week this week, with Bikeability and our bug hotel workshop focusing on sustaining our environment using recycled materials.

We have continued with out tennis skills and our games skills with coach Alex from Aston Villa. In Maths, we have been using our number bonds to ten and using adding our multiples of ten to help us with our n7mber binds to 100. It has been tricky but we have persevered and worked hard. In English, we have explored our book further and we decided wit make some changes to the original by changing some of the characters. We worked with Phil to create a bug hotel to help the creatures in God’s wonderful creation. We have really challenged ourselves and have either developed our confidence in riding a bike or for some of us we have learned how to ride a bike.

Autumn 1 Week 4

We are working harder week on week! This week, we have been adding multiples of ten to make 100, if we use our number bonds to 10, it really helps. We have been solving problems that require adding 2 multiples of ten and then have challenged ourselves by adding three multiples. In our fluency lessons, we have been given a number of the day and then we have to answer remember all of the key facts about that number; is it odd or even, 2 more and 10 less, partition it, draw it and so much more. 

In English, we have been learning about how to use commas in a list. We have used them to separate items in a list and also adjectives as we were learning about them last week. It is important that we always remember and try to include what we have already learned. We started our new book ' Into the Forest' and we are already noticed similarities between this and 'The Tunnel' we have finally found our what happened to dad and have written some cryptic riddles about fairytale characters. In RE, we have been learning about the 7 sacraments and different symbols associated with them. In Geography, we learned about what GIS is and how it stopped a terrible disease many years ago. In Science, we have continued learning about plants and have been keeping an eye on our cress. We have learned some basic tennis skills, some foot work skills in netball and how to evade with Alex the Aston Villa coach. As it was National fitness day this week, we even did a Joe Wicks PE lesson.

Autumn 1 Week 3

3SM have had yet another busy week! It started with our Millie time as we were awarded Dog Mentor class of the week. She came and helped us with our maps in Geography as she knows the school so well. We then had a workshop with our parents where we were looking at how we belonged to different groups and what made us feel like we belong aswell as helping others to feel like they belong too. In English, we decided that the author of our book must have forgotten to write about one of the important events in the story so we decided to help and we wrote it for him. In Maths, we have explored the number 100. We know that 100 is made up of 100 ones, ten groups of ten, 4 groups of 25, 5 groups of 20. 

We were also lucky enough to have the Loudmouth Theatre group come and visit us. They were training us to be Bully Busters and to spot bullying and help to stop it where we can.

Autumn 1 Weeks 1 and 2

We have already had some busy weeks in 3SM! So far we have written all about our summer holidays and have been given our first targets to work on in English. We have started a new book called The Tunnel by Anthony Browne, we have had to make lots of predictions as there are so many unusual events! We have been working really hard on our comprehension and answering different types of questions about the text to make sure we know it really well.

In Maths, we started with out TTRS baseline tasks so that we could see what we needed to work on and since then we have been focusing on the number 100 and different ways of making it and representing our answers. Through our fluency lessons we are recapping some key facts that we should know up to twenty to ensure that we are secure before moving on. 
In Geography, we have been looking at plans and maps and making some of our own ready to use maps as part of our work on rivers ready for our trip.

we have been looking at groups we belong to and how we can show we belong, this had led us to look at how Jesus’ friends knew that they belonged and why he chose them specifically. This has helped us with our PSHE work and looking for some of Gospel Virtues and Catholic Social Teachings in our work.

We had our first PE session with Alex from Aston Villa and are going to play lots of different types of games in all of our PE lessons.

Academic Year 2022/23

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

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

Summer term week 5

It was mental health awareness week as well as outdoor day for children. We enjoyed learning Maths and creating art in the outdoors which gave a boost to our mental health. Not only did children learn how to play new games as a class and they also learnt about the flora and fauna around school. Ralph, our mentor dog, also checked in on us and we were able to show him how well we were playing together as a class.  

Summer week 3

Children shared about who they were dressed as this week on aspiration day. On Friday, the school sang the national anthem and children had a lovely teddy bear picnic. We will be looking forward to sharing how we spent the long weekend celebrating the coronation of the new king. 

Summer week 2

Greenshoots returns! Children learnt about food miles and how we could reduce this by growing our own food. We created paper pots from recycled scrap paper and planted peas in them. Perhaps this is something children could continue at home even if it is just growing herbs on a window sill to reduce our food miles. Well done Year 3s!

Welcome back!

Warmer weather awaits us! Children are ready to learn during this summer term. We look forward to more interesting lessons outdoors, such as the Science lesson on plants, where both Year 3 classes ventured out of the classroom and into nature. 

Summer week 1

We recounted the amazing events at Emmaus when Jesus appeared once more to his followers. We heard about how Thomas doubted the Lord's resurrection and his profession of faith in the words "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). Year 3 classes also learnt about writing fractions that represent parts of a whole. In English, we delved deeper into Narnia and we immersed ourselves into the magical land so as to create our own adventures in imaginary worlds. We used story plots to draft a narrative with a beginning, build up, problem, resolution and ending. We also celebrated St George's Day on Friday by dressing in the colours of England's patron saint.

New teacher joins Year 3

Dear Year 3 children and parents,

My name is Miss Chen and I have been teaching in primary schools since 2017. I have taught all year groups in primary schools including Early Years and have thoroughly enjoyed them. I am really pleased to be in Year 3 as I particularly enjoy teaching the children about the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. Currently, I am preparing a group of children at the parish of Our Lady of Fatima for their First Holy Communion as well.

I am originally from Singapore and moved to Birmingham to start University where I gained a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Psychology. For seven years, I worked in research and met many wonderful people who had suffered from stroke or trauma who taught me about the meaning of resilience. I have also volunteered  in various places and worked with inspiring individuals and families who have come from places of unrest or instability.  In 2016, after visiting and helping in a school, I decided train as a teacher in Birmingham.  Since then, I have been teaching in schools around Birmingham and Singapore.

If I had to describe myself in 3 words, I would say I am funny, kind and also quite firm: I hope to inspire children to want to learn and extend themselves to achieve their best.

I am really looking forward to the summer term to get to know you and your child, if you need anything I am always here to listen and help where I can.

We have many ways to communicate here at school, but currently the most efficient way would be to email teacher@stedward.bham.sch.uk .  

I will try to respond to you as quickly as I can.

Miss Chen

Thursday 9th March

The children were excited to see the snow today and declared it was just like 'Narnia'.   Please continue to discuss the recent snowfall with them as this will support their vocabulary development and creative writing.  Please read and discuss chapter 3 of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

The English work should be completed on Friday, with the work on the 8 times table completed during the weekend as homework.  

Dear Year 3 children and parents,

My name is Mrs. Hill. I have been a teacher here at St. Edward’s since I started my teaching career; over 13 years ago. I have taught in many year groups including Reception, Year 1 and Year 3. I have thoroughly enjoyed them all for different reasons. I am currently teaching in Year 3; specifically, 3DH and I lead Outdoor Learning and Geography. This is an area very close to my heart as I grew up on a farm in Ireland and thoroughly enjoyed spending time in the outdoors. I am passionate about children accessing nature especially considering the technological society we live in. Learning in the outdoors creates excitement, engagement, teamwork, creativity, problem-solving, independence, confidence and more.

I did Irish dancing when I was younger, so have always liked to keep active. I still run and do other things and always enjoy seeing the children from St. Edward’s out and about on my travels. They always look quite shocked to see me somewhere other than school! The children in my class will often here me talking about my family and I particularly like to share stories about my sons and brothers and sisters.

If I had to describe myself in 3 words I would say I was passionate, caring and funny.

I am really looking forward to the year ahead, getting to know you and your child. If you need anything, I am always here to listen and help where I can. There are many adults who may be working with your child at some point but incase any of you are unsure of what I look like see if you can find me on the 'Who's who' page in the information tab.

We have many ways to communicate here at school, but currently the most efficient way would be to email the year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk email address which I will be checking daily and will try to respond to you as quickly as I can.

As the children are now Year 3 we are encouraging them to try and become independent and to think about what they can do for themselves to prepare for the school day and at the end of the day when taking their belongings home. To help get the children a into routine please could you help us by checking that your child always has the correct school uniform, a drinks bottle as currently we cannot have spare cups in the classroom and their reading bag with their reading book in every day. Your child has been issued with a BGFL login incase any home learning needs to take place, could you please access it and send us a quick email to the Year 3 email address so that we know the children's details work. If you have any issues with devices or computing equipment could you please let us know and we can arrange alternative provision.

Our current PE day is on a Monday and Thursday, and the children can come into school in PE kit for the day, we will notify you if this changes as we do have external providers associated with school to enhance our provision; and they are only available on certain days. Please remember no earrings should be worn for health and safety reasons and a white round neck t-shirt with the school badge and plain blue or black shorts/ tracksuit bottoms should be worn.

The children have settled in extremely well. They have come in with big smiles and full of stories and things to tell me, it really does make me smile! Initially, we will be establishing routines and reminding the children of the rules which will help us to learn and keep everyone safe all at the same time. They are so eager to please and have already earned lots of track it light points!

The first two books we will be studying are 'I am Henry Finch' and 'How to wash a woolly mammoth' which the children will really enjoy and have already been introduced to. I love stories and at times get carried away when reading them, but the children's enthusiasm fuels this even more. I am really looking forward to seeing the journey we go on this year and the wonderful things we can share together.

Mrs. Hill

Walkers For Church 

If you are available to help us walk up to church, please could you let your child's teacher know.

Thank you

Looking forward to forthcoming dates: 

Sacrament of First Holy Communion - Sunday 14th May at 1pm

Mass of Thanksgiving - Sunday 21st May at 10.15. Children to receive First Holy Communion attire and receive their certificates.

Spring 1 - Week 5

This week brought about 'Outdoor Day.' We immersed ourselves in Stone Age life. We role-played being Stig from our book, 'Stig of the Dump.' We created Stig's den by making sure our foundations were strong and secure, they even survived us playing in and around them all day.  The role-play continued to making journey sticks, wind chimes and a river. We learnt that Stone Age people set up camps near a water source when they settled and this gave us the chance to review and revise the material we learnt in Geography back in September. The wonder and awe arrived when we tested to see if the rivers worked! All the children were delighted with their creations and they now have pride of place in the classrooms. We love outdoor day! We develop and learn so many new skills. Some of these skills are confidence and self-esteem, communication and social skills, physical skills, develop a greater understanding and awareness of the natural environment, natural motivation and a positive attitude to learning, the ability to recognise and manage risk and we are developing a healther lifestyle. 

In English this week we continued with our work on dialogue. We learnt how to recognise dialogue when someone reads to us and we know how to recognise dialogue when we read books independently. We also added narration to our dialogue. We are becoming quite the authors! In our maths lessons we have been adding hundreds, tens and ones fluently. To date our art lessons have seen us exploring with charcoal but this week we used these skills to draw a picture with charcoal using the skills of drawing, smudging and layering. 

Spring 1 - Week 4

What another great week! The highlight of the week was when we visited Birmingham Hippodrome. The children absolutely enjoyed the pantomime Dick Whittington. 

In Maths, we have started looking at how we partition three digit numbers in different ways. In English we have been learning how to use prepositions to help extend sentences. During the week, we have also experimented with charcoal in Art to create different pictures using our fingers. The children also had fun in Music playing pentatonic melodies on glockenspiels. 

Spring Week 3

It has been an exciting week this week! During the week, we took part in a Living things and Habitats workshop during which we learned about the impact of plastic pollution on the ocean and beaches in our country. The children, then decorated fish made from cork using recycled paper and buttons which they absolutely loved! 

In Science, we learned about the three different types of skeletons. It was interesting to find out that some living things don't have a skeleton at all. In Art, we experimented with pastels and had lots of fun making different marks while smudging and layering our patterns. In History, the children came up with different theories as to why Stonehenge was built. We also had our first Italian lesson this term and have started to learn the names of the different musical instruments. 

In Maths, we have successfully learnt how to add three numbers together and loved solving word problems. In English we attempted our first Big Write of the term and wrote a diary entry from the perspective of Barney. 

Spring 1 - Week 1 and 2

We have had a great start to the Spring term. It has been lovely hearing all about what the children have been up to over the holidays.

In English, we have started looking at our new focus book, Stig of the Dump. So far we have written predictions, collected adjectives and developed our thesaurus and dictionary skills. The children are loving this story and some have even drawn pictures of Stig's den for our classroom doors. In Maths, we have been looking at how we can use our number bonds to help add or subtract three different numbers. We have also looked into depth at the meaning of the equals symbol.

In P.E. we have started gymnastics on Mondays and really enjoyed practising the different rolls we know before attempting the teddy bear roll. During Music, we have started to look at music played during Chinese New Year and danced to the different rhythms and melodies. In Art, we have started our new topic, Cave paintings linked to the Stone Age. The children had fun analysing and annotating pictures of various cave drawings. Lastly, in D&T we will be focusing on Stone Age tools and will be attempting to create spears by the end of this half term. 

Autumn 2 - Week 7

We hope you enjoyed the Christmas Nativity this week. The children were excited to perform and really got to character. 

The Year 3 classrooms had such a buzz this week as we were undertaking both History and Science. The children are showing such enthusiasm for our Stone Age and Rock topics. They display such curiosity and are full of questions and predictions. We are nearing the end of our Science topic on Rocks and will be moving onto a new topic after the Christmas holidays.

We continued our work on expanded noun phrases in English and undertook our Big Write which was based on 'The Assumption.' In maths this week we continued to use our number bonds to a hundred to add two double digit numbers together. 

Autumn 2 - Week 6

This week has been a very busy week. We have had school photos, maths and reading assessments, Nativity book look and Nativity practices, a dodgeball tournament and a Rudolf run for charity. In between all of these activities we undertook Guided Reading and English lessons where we were working on expanded noun phrases. 

As this week was really busy our Star of the Week will undertake 'Tea with Mrs. K' on Friday 9th December.

Autumn 2 - Week 5

We had our Mass of Commitment on Sunday 27th November and thank you to those who attended. The children were reverent and read beautifully which I am sure you would all agree with!

Once again it was a very busy week. We began with our outdoor day where we traveled back in time to the 'Stone Age' and created stone age jewellery and stone age homes. It was amazing to witness the team work and problem solving that evolved from these activities. This then led us into beginning our History topic of the stone age. The children were so curious and wanted to miss their morning break so we could learn more about the topic and answer their numerous questions. It is lovely to see the children curious and active in their own learning.

In Maths lessons, we were focusing on crossing the hundred barrier and using the children's knowledge of place value by counting in tens, e.g. 80, 90, 100, 110 etc but also 83, 93, 103, 113. In English we are looking closely at blurbs at the back of books and writing our own for 'Stone Age Boy'. 

Christmas carols can be heard from every corridor now! It is beautiful to just take a moment and listen!

Autumn 2 - Week 4

We have had such a busy week! We had Anti-Bullying Week and Road Safety Week. We watched a BBC live lesson to introduce Anti-Bullying Week. The children were taught to identify what bullying means and to 'REACH OUT' to an adult. With regards to Road Safety Week we focused on how to cross the road safely using the Green Cross Code and made posters for our Road Safety Walk which has had to be postponed due to the weather.

We have also had Bikeability where some children learnt how to ride bikes - well done!

We also undertook a Catholic Retreat Day where the whole day was dedicated to reflecting upon Creation. It was a beautiful experience for both children and staff.

In maths this week we have been crossing the hundred barrier by counting in tens and this will continue into next week also.

We have began our new book this week called 'The Stone Age Boy' and we have been making inferences from the front cover and making predictions.

Autumn 2 - Week 1

Our first week back to school was eventful. We welcomed Ofsted inspectors into our school and told them all about our exciting, engaging curriculum. We also held our Open Morning/Evening for the new intake of children beginning September 2023. Once again the children were proud to share their learning with our visitors and explained all about our local river flooding and how we wrote to our local councillor to clean out the gulley's as this caused the recent flash flood in our local community. 

In maths this week we learnt all about skip counting in tens and the children were excited to move across the one hundred barrier. We skip counted forwards/backwards to 200 and identified 10 more/less from a random number. We used money to count in tens and worked out some real life problems based around this concept.

We began the week by learning about compound sentences and used a conjunction to join them together. This type of sentence moves us away from simple sentences into making our work more interesting to the reader. The highlight of our week was when we wrote to our local councillor using compound sentences to clean out the gulley's as this caused our recent flash flood on Dad's Lane. 

We also took part in a Diwali art workshop. The children learnt about Diwali and were excited by the activity that they undertook. The children asked if they could display this artwork for a week so everyone could see their creations and admire it. 

Autumn 1 - Week 5

This week we have delved into Black History Month and the children have been really curious about how black people were treated during those times. We have been focusing on Rosa Parks and all the children fully support her in standing up for her rights. This has led to some wonderful pieces of writing where we focused on Rosa Parks' life and her timeline of events. We have been thinking about adjectives, verbs and synonyms to describe her life and this will lead into writing a poem about her next week. 

It was Maths Week this week and we have been exploring Fibonacci and his famous sequence that we see all around in nature. We learnt about his life and undertook a creative piece of art based around his fascination of circles. The outcome of this artwork is so creative and is now displayed in the classroom. Fun Fact: Did you know he created the number system! In Maths lessons we have been focusing on ninty and a bit and our number bonds to one hundred. We are really showing our quick recall of our number bonds!

The highlight of our week has been our trip to Woodgate Valley. As we have been learning about rivers in Geography we decided to take the children out to measure how fast the water flows. To undertake this experiment we needed some unusual equipment. We needed a satsuma (yes, a satsuma!), a metre stick, a stop watch and a child to record the results. Two children had to stand in the river about two metres apart. Another child had to place the satsuma into the water next to where the first child was standing. The stopwatch was started and it was stopped when the satsuma reached the second child who was two metres away. We found out that the satsuma went faster when there was more force pushing the satsuma, e.g. we tested a part of the river where there was a very small waterfall (about 2 inches) and found this to be the case. It was really exciting for the children when they found out this information and they wanted to find other places along the river to prove their theory correct. I can honestly say, that the children learnt a lot but it was the experience of actually standing in the water and feeling the force of it that amazed the children. The vocabulary we learnt in class really came to life on the trip as the children could see this vocabulary in action. It was truly amazing to observe the teamwork that was happening between the children. They were helping and supporting each other down the bank into the river. They were supporting each other when in the river especially the children who were a little nervous at first. There was problem-solving, communication, co-operation, listening to each other and perseverance. These children are a credit to you as parents! It was amazing to observe it in action. I would recommend that you bring your child to a river, put on your wellies and explore our shallow rivers together. It is such a fun day out, free and bring some sandwiches. 

Autumn 1 - Week 4:

Time is flying!

In English this week we have been building up to our 'Big Write' which is based on Henry Finch. We have been recapping sentence structure, adjectives and punctuation. After reading the stories the children wrote I can certainly tell you that we have some budding authors! We are really enjoying our class read which is 'Dirty Bertie'. The children cannot believe the mischief he finds himself in. Please continue to encourage your child to read comics and books of their choice outside school. We want to instill a love of reading.

During math lessons we are counting forwards and backwards in fifty's to work out number problems. The children are becoming used to their new math partners and together they use the apparatus and prove their answers.  

In RE we have recapped what we know about Baptism from previous years and built on this to look in-depth at the symbols of Baptism. We have held our Sacramental meeting this week and we have already received some of the children's Baptismal candles in preparation for their First Holy Communion. We attended an assembly this week on St. Therese who happens to be our class saint and we learnt that she was a nun who was very kind and humble.

Science is becoming a firm favourite among the children in the class and they will tell anyone who asks that they are budding geologists! This week we have been classifying rocks, drawing diagrams and labelling them as all scientists do daily. The atmosphere in this lesson is electric with all children excited to share what they have learnt with anyone that enters the classroom.

We had our Outdoor day this week too! We were able to do Maths, Science, Orienterring and RE, it was a very busy day! We are now experts in using maps and seeing why they are useful.

We always look forward to our Gameshow Quiz on a Friday where we have to try and remember things we have learned that week, but also things we have learned this year.

Autumn 1 - Week 3

This week brought a reflection on the Queen's funeral where we watched a clip of the funeral on Newsround and discussed how the soldiers worked as a team to ensure the Queen was laid to rest in peace. We then thought about teamwork within our classroom and how we work as a team to ensure success and to make sure we are all working toward a common goal for the greater good of all the children in our class. Our focus book, 'I am Henry Finch' became real this week as the teachers hot seated the beast and the children were trying to persuade the beast to stop eating the finches. As you can imagine, everyone got into character and this led into a discussion on how we are all unique just like the characters in the story. The work that was produced in this lesson can be seen on display in our classroom as we were very proud and wanted to show that we are all different people with unique characteristics. In math lessons we were focusing on number lines and learnt that not all number lines go up in 1s. In R.E. we were thinking about belonging to God's family and how Jesus' disciples are role models for us on our journey in getting closer to Jesus. Art saw us learning about Paul Klee an artist that was born before the war and we produced a portrait based on his technique. Again, these pieces of artwork are on display in the classroom as we were so excited with the process of creating these.

This week we were lucky enough to welcome three new children to our class. We have made them feel very welcome and are integrating them into school life and routines. 

Next week.... IT IS OUTDOOR DAY!!!!

Autumn 1 - Week 1 & 2

The children have made a very positive start to key stage two and their new class this week. We have embarked upon our new spine book, 'I am Henry Finch' and we were becoming familiar with the main characters in the story. We have become detectives and searching for capital letters and full stops in our reading and writing. Our math lessons have taken us down the route of number and place value and we are recapping numbers up to one hundred and learning that the number one hundred has the same value as ten tens. We are lucky enough to have villa teaching us ball skills in PE and we were surprised to learn that they don't just teach football! You may have noticed us undertaking the daily mile every morning before the bell rings and we have found this to be a great way to get to know each other in an informal setting where we can have a catch up and a chat between teachers and children. I have already learnt so much about your children's ambitions for the future and their interests outside school.

The year that was 2021-22!

Commonwealth Games Homework

Following on from our Commonwealth Games assembly, we are asking you to create a project as part of the Commonwealth celebrations.

Our class country is...

Northern Ireland

We would like you to create a project that is inspired by our class country. You might decide to research facts, sculpt, paint, draw, cook, design etc...

This is down to you.

Please return your projects to your class teacher during the week beginning the 20th of June.

We look forward to seeing your projects. 

Useful Websites to Support Project Work

Holy Communion and Thanksgiving Mass

Well done to all of the children who made their Holy Communion over the past two weeks, we hope you enjoyed your special day! You conducted yourselves so reverently and certainly did your parents, families, teachers and indeed our whole school and parish community proud.

Thank you for your support at home with preparing for Holy Communion. We look forward to seeing the children again in their Holy Communion clothes at the Year 3 Thanksgiving Mass on Sunday 22nd of May at 10:15 in church. 

Also, a big thank you to the children who supported those making Holy Communion by attending the mass and singing beautifully. Your attendance was much appreciated! 

WALKERS FOR CHURCH - 5th April @9.15am

If you are available to help us walk up to church, please could you let your child's teacher know?

Thank you

Useful Dates

• Thursday 31st March - Y3 Reconciliation meeting at 7pm in church
• Sunday 3rd April - Sacrament of Reconciliation at 2pm on Sunday in church

Reminder: Year 3 have our Outdoor Day on Thursday 24th March. Please make sure children are wearing suitable clothing for the cold and possible wet day. Thank you.

March 25th Dress Up Day - Stig of the Dump Theme

We would like to inform you of our dress up day, Friday 25th March, as part of our Lenten fundraising project. There will be a contribution of £1 which will be donated to our school Lenten charities. 

Year 3 have collectively decided to dress up as characters from our class text, Stig of the Dump. The children can choose to be one of the following characters.

1. Stig (Stone Age person)
2. Barney and Lou (children from the 1960's)
3. Grandmother 
4. The Snargets (scruffy boys from 1960's)

Please do not feel any pressure to go out and buy a costume. There should be a character that the children can dress up as, with items from home.

PE for Spring 2

This half term PE will be taking place on a Monday and a Tuesday. 

English Homework W.B. 7th March 2022

This week the children have been given the task of creating a short story or non fiction mini book using the paper template they were provided with in class. The children can use their imagination to create their own story or they can retell a favourite story.

Ash Wednesday Mass - 2nd March

We need walkers for Mass up at church on this date. If you can help, please email us at year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk

Thank you

REMINDER: Year 3 have our Outdoor Day on Tuesday 1st February. PLease make sure children are wearing suitable clothing for the cold and possible wet day. Thank you.

Reminder, Year 3 children to be collected at 5.30pm after the Pantomime from the front entrance. Thank you.

REMINDER

Non-uniform Day 14th January 2022 in aid of our school PTA funds. Please support us by wearing own clothes and donating £1.

YEAR 3 OUTDOOR DAY 1st FEBRUARY 2022

Please take note of our Outdoor Day and ensure that children have adequate clothing/layers to be outside all day. Look out for an emailed letter regarding further information. Thank you.

Christmas

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas holiday. We have asked the children to take a photograph of themselves having fun over the Christmas period and email it to us at year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk

It would also be wonderful, if they completed a crafty activity over the two weeks based upon the Stone Age. Perhaps they could make a lego Stonehenge, paint a picture of Skara Brae, baking cooking cookies that look like a Stone Age house, Woolly Mammoth cake???? Let your imagination run riot!

All Year 3 children are to wear their school uniform on Wednesday 10th November as we have Mass in the morning followed by our Year 3 Open Afternoon. Thank you.

2021/22

Maths Homework

Times Table Rock Stars - (Complete every night) Login details have been given to your child, please keep them safe.

Fluency Booklets - (Complete every night) Children have been given an A5 booklet containing fluency questions. Please complete 4 questions per night only. 

Staff in Year 3 would like to introduce you to how the school day is working and what you can do to help your child at home. A big thank you to everyone who has watched our video last term and has kept the blue book bags and small lunch box bags, it is much appreciated as it makes class routines such as giving out letters, collecting books and freeing up space, much easier.

Everyday, there is the same routine to allow all children to come to school, wash and sanitise their hands, then settle to work.

Morning sessions are rotated and consist of:-

Maths Fluency, where we revise Number Bonds, Times Tables and any other individual misunderstandings.

SPaG – Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar sessions where we are focusing upon sentence structures, spellings from Year 2 and Year 3, and developing the correct use of punctuation such as commas, exclamation marks and question marks.

Handwriting – focus being on letters y,g,q, and f being written below the line and letters h,b,d,k,l showing a clear height distance to other letters, almost touching the top line. We aim for all children to have a neat, legible and cursive style of writing.

Reading Sessions – during these sessions we will sometimes do Guided Reading in small groups, listen to our class reader or individually read to members of staff.

Please could all reading books be brought into school on Mondays and Thursdays so that they can be changed?  As you may already be aware, the children have been given their own Reading Diary to record the books they are reading, any comments about their understanding and suggested ways forward. Please ensure that reading books and diaries are brought into school every day as we take any opportunity to develop our children's love of reading and to hear them read.

We then have other curriculum subjects throughout the day, with opportunities for learning outside incorporated where possible. 

Every Tuesday and Wednesday we endeavour to have our PE lessons, although this can be weather permitting during the colder/wetter months. PE kits are blue shorts or tracksuit bottoms, white PE shirts with the school logo on and a blue jumper for the colder days (school jumpers may be worn). Please could we check that earrings aren’t worn on PE days as they can pose a safety risk during physical lessons.

All children have returned to school eager and ready to learn. They have been amazing at following the new routines and are already getting used to life in the Juniors. Should you wish to contact your child’s teacher, please contact them at year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk

Thank you for your continued support of St. Edward’s and the vision we have for your children.

Mrs Bettam, Miss Mason and Mrs Carr

2020/21

Year 3 Reconciliation and First Holy Communion - Initial Sacramental Preparation Loom Video (December 2020) 

A Loom recording of our initial sacramental meeting can be accessed through the link below. Click on the link and then you will need to scroll half way down the page to find the Loom recording.

HOMEWORK

Homework will be uploaded to Mirodo every Friday for the children to complete. Please could they also complete daily practice on Times Table Rock Stars and their LSCWC.

If you have any issues with online work, please contact Mrs Carr on year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk and an alternative can be arranged.

3CC Outdoor Day

We will be having our Outdoor Day on Thursday 5th November. Please could all children have warm clothing, with waterproof shoes and coats as we will be outside all day even if it is raining. An extra set of warm clothes would be very beneficial, along with a change of shoes to wear when we go indoors for dinner/toilet breaks.

Our main focus is to be The Stone Age and linked to our Rivers topic. Following on from discussions with the children, we will be making Stone Age Dens, creating our own river course by digging into the ground, hunting for rocks and classifying them, and creating our own Stone Age implements to help with our building of dens. 

We will post all our photographs of the day on our class page as soon as possible.

Welcome to Class 3CC

Welcome to Year 3!

Staff in Year 3 would like to introduce you to how the school day is working and what you can do to help your child at home, especially as we haven’t been able to have the usual meetings at the start of the year. Thank you to everyone who has watched our video last term and has kept the blue book bags and small lunch box bags, it is much appreciated as it makes class routines such as giving out letters, collecting books and freeing up space, much easier.

Everyday, there is the same routine to allow all children to come to school in their staggered times, wash and sanitise their hands, then settle to work.

Morning sessions are rotated and consist of:-

Maths Fluency, where we revise Number Bonds, Times Tables and filling of any gaps from last year due to the prolonged time at home.

SPaG – Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar sessions where we are focusing upon sentence structures, spellings from Year 2 and Year 3, and developing the correct use of punctuation such as commas, exclamation marks and question marks.

Handwriting – focus being on letters y,g,q, and f being written below the line and letters h,b,d,k,l showing a clear height distance to other letters, almost touching the top line. We aim for all children to have a neat, legible and cursive style of writing.

Reading Sessions – during these sessions we will sometimes do Guided Reading as a class, listen to our class reader or individually read to members of staff.

Please could all reading books be brought into school on Mondays and Thursdays so that they can be changed? All books are put into quarantine for 72 hours so we would really appreciate your help by making sure the children return them on the correct day.

Reading Diaries are unable to be carried back and forth to school so an online system has been created using BGFL 365. (A separate email has been written to explain how to use the diaries.)

We then have other curriculum subjects throughout the day, with opportunities for learning outside incorporated where possible. Topics for the Autumn Term are shown in the table below, should you wish to assist your child further. 

Every Wednesday we endeavour to have our PE lessons, although this can be weather permitting due to current guidelines, but if children could also have waterproof coats on Wednesdays (possibly wellies that can be left in school) we will ensure they have some form of activity outside even if raining. PE kits are blue shorts or tracksuit bottoms, white PE shirts with the school logo on and a blue jumper for the colder days (school jumpers may be worn). Please could we check that earrings aren’t worn on Wednesdays as they can pose a safety risk during physical lessons.

All children have returned to school eager and ready to learn. They have been amazing at following hygiene and distancing guidelines and are already getting used to life in the Juniors. Should you wish to contact your child’s teacher, please contact them at year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk

Thank you for your continued support of St. Edward’s and the vision we have for your children.

Mrs Carr and Mrs Bettam

Meet Your Teacher

Welcome to Class 3CC. We are a class of 28 children working with Mrs Carr and Miss Atkins. So we can get to know each other a little better, I have put together a little something for you to read.

Dear Year 3 parents and children,

As we were unable to meet as we usually would before you joined us in Year 3 and as some of the usual events we would normally have may not be able to go ahead, I have written a short piece about myself to help you get to know me a little better.

I am beginning my ninth year teaching and sixth year working at St Edwards. I spent my first three years teaching Year 5 in my previous school before gaining experience teaching Reception and now Year 3 in St Edwards. I am currently class teacher of 3CC. As well as being a Year 3 class teacher, I am also History, Geography and Eco coordinator. I enjoy this role as I have always had a keen interest in these subjects and love to share this with children.

I grew up in Galway, Ireland and come from a family of eight children. After leaving school, I gained a degree in Human Resource Management before moving to Birmingham in 2011 to train to be a teacher. When I have the opportunity to I love to go home and visit my family and friends in Ireland. I also enjoy sharing a few words of Irish with the children in my class. In my own time, I like to paint, draw and spend time outdoors.

I am really happy to be teaching Year 3 and look forward to working with the children this year. If you would like to contact me please use the email address for our year group year3@stedward.bham.sch.uk  and I will get back to you as quickly as possible.

Mrs Carr

Prayers for year 3

Here are some of the prayers that the children will be learning this year. Please fell free to say them at different points throughout the day whilst your child is at home!