Croeso i Dosbarth Usk!

The Year 3 team

Miss A Richards-Cooper        (Class Teacher)

Mrs D Thomas                                                 (LSA)

Communication

Schoop - 17699

Twitter - @StDavidsCiWPrm

Email - usk@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk

Google classroom - fqkxo3n

 

Overview of the school day 

8:45 – Children arrive and settle in class to complete registration time activities and register.
9:15 – 9:30 – Collective Worship
9:30 – 10:30 – Literacy, Language and Communication
10:30 – 10:45 – Snack/Break time

10:45 – 11:55 – Mathematics and Numeracy
11:55 – 1:00 – Lunch time
1:10 – 1:45 – Phonics/Spelling

1:45 - 2:10 -  Guided Group Reading
2:10 -3:00  – Creative/STEM/RE/MFL sessions
3:00 – 3:15 –Helpwr Heddiw
3:15 – Home time

Key dates for Autumn Term 1:

Christian Value – Thankfulness 

4th September - Children return to school

      Y7 Secondary School Applications open today 

7th September –  Values Day - Thankfulness

     After School Clubs begin tonight

8th September – Family Learning Sessions for Y4-Y6 begin today 

9th September - Meet the Teacher sessions for Parents - Session 1 at 3:30pm and 

    Session 2 at 4pm based in your child’s classroom.

15th September - Flu Vaccinations for Reception - Year 6

16th September - Judaism Day

21st - 25th September - Fairtrade Week

22nd September – RWI (Phonics and Reading) Workshop for Parents – 2:30pm

24th September – European Languages Day

25th September - Macmillan Coffee Morning (Parents welcome)

1st October – Black History Month

5th October – Harvest Festival Worship - 9:30am – Food bank donations 

8th October – Y1 and Y2 Kerbcraft Pedestrian Training 

9th October - Food Bank Collection

          World Mental Health Day

13th October – Autumn Disco - Rec-Y3 (3:30-4:40pm) & Y4-Y6 (4:45 – 5:45pm)

15th October – Y2 Kerbcraft Pedestrian Training 

19th October - Rags to Riches Collection 

19th -23rd October - Scholastic Book Fayre – opening times to be confirmed 

19th and 20th October – Parents Evenings (in person at the school)

22nd October – Individual & Siblings School Photos

23rd October - Year 6 Family Worship at 9.15am (Parents welcome)

             Last Day of term

26th- 30th October 2025 - Half Term

Return to school 2nd November

 

Classroom Routine

Snack

Please bring a bottle of water to school daily, clearly labelled with your name. Healthy snacks can be purchased from the snack trolley (ordered via ParentPay) or brought in from home. 

PE

Please wear your PE kit to school on Thursday. Children should wear black shorts, house colour or white t-shirt and trainers, labelled clearly with their name. They may also wear black jogging bottoms when completing activities outdoors. 

Uniform

Please ensure that all items of clothing are clearly labelled with your child's name.

 

Current Learning:

Our Topic: "Jurassic Planet"

This term, our Year 3 learners will be exploring the exciting inquiry:

“What was our Earth like during the Jurassic Period?”

Through this topic, pupils will be exploring and contrasting modern-day Earth with the Jurassic period through scientific investigation.

Pupils will develop their understanding of how our planet has changed over millions of years by studying fossils, prehistoric creatures, plant life and habitats. They will investigate how scientists use evidence from fossils to learn about extinct species and discover how the dinosaurs and other animals of the Jurassic period differed from the wildlife we see today. Through hands-on enquiry and discussion, children will explore changes in the climate and ecosystems, helping them to understand the processes that have shaped life on Earth over time.

Areas of Focus:

• Language, Literacy, and Communication: Narrative writing in familiar settings  
• Humanities: How has Earth's landscape changed over time? Who was fossil hunter Mary Anning? 
• Maths and Numeracy: Place Value 
• RVE: Creation and Fall 
• STEM: Living things
• Expressive Arts: Study of Welsh landscape artists

Pupil Voice

Pupil Voice is very important to us at St David's. We look forward to generating more ideas together as a class for our new topic.

See below some of the areas we will be exploring thanks to Pupil Voice questioning:

• How long did the dinosaurs live? 
• Where did the dinosaurs live?
• How did the dinosaurs go extinct? 
• Where are the dinosaurs?
• How did the dinosaurs live and die?
• If the Giganotosaurus was a real dinosaur?
• If the dinosaurs never went extinct, would they still roam the Earth and would they be dangerous?
• How loud is a dinosaur's roar?
• How strong were the dinosaurs?
• Were humans alive at the same time as the dinosaurs? Did people keep dinosaurs as pets?
• How were fossils made?
• How many dinosaurs were alive?
• How many teeth did dinosaurs have?
• How many years have geodes/fossils been on Earth?
• I want to learn about fossils.
• Did dinosaurs fly?
• How did dinosaurs roar?
• Did dinosaurs jump?
• How far could dinosaurs smell and hear?

 

Planning

Please see the PDF section below to find our Medium Term Planning for our Autumn Term Topic.

 

Homework

Weekly homework

Each week, children will be asked to complete either a piece of numeracy or literacy-based homework which will alternate from week to week. Please find this homework on our Google Classroom page. Homework will be published every Friday on Google Classroom. Please submit all homework by the following Wednesday so we are able to look at all of your wonderful work. 

Children are allowed to complete their homework in whichever format they wish to choose, i.e. Hwb, PowerPoint, on paper, videos etc.

Children will be awarded Dojo Points for completing their homework.

Termly homework

Please see below our termly homework grid relating to our topic. Children may do as many homework tasks as they wish over the course of the term.

 

 

The Four Purposes   

 

The four purposes are that all children and young people will be:

Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.

Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.

Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world.

Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

In Dosbarth Usk, we will support ourselves and each other in becoming Ambitious, Capable Learners; Enterprising, Creative Contributors; Ethical, informed citizens and Healthy, Confident Individuals. This will be achieved through collaboration and independent work both inside and outside our classroom.

Christian Value – Thankfulness

This half-term we will be focusing on 'thankfulness' as our Christian value. 

Literacy

Read Write Inc is taught Monday-Thursday in PS1 & 2. Children are grouped according to their current ability. In each session, we focus on identifying and learning Read Write Inc sounds; reading green and red words; and spelling green words.

 

Reading

At St David’s, we believe in the power of reading: “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

In Year 3, we’ll continue to read daily during our Guided Reading (GGR) sessions and daily Read Write Inc sessions.

We kindly ask that you read with your child for at least 10 minutes a day at home to support their growing love of books and reading.

Scheme readers – Children will be given an appropriate level book to read. We aim to change this weekly during your child's Guided Reading session. Please ensure that children bring their reading book to school daily.

Please also make use of Oxford Owl E-Books that are free to use! - https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk

Mathematics

This term we will be focusing on 

Place Value

Learning our 3X tables and revising our 2X, 5X and 10X tables.

Times tables songs:

2X tables - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGWMPqh04o4

3X tables -  Counting by 3s

5X tables -  5 Times Table Song (Learning is Fun The Todd & Ziggy Way!) - YouTube

10X tables - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxMJUHBslY

Welsh Language

In Dosbarth Usk we will be completing daily Helper Heddiw sessions for the children to enhance their oracy, written and reading skills in the Welsh language.

 

 

Modern Foreign Languages - French

We are learning... Greetings! 

Bonjour! Bonsoir! Ça va ? Salut!

https://www.languagenut.com/en-gb/

Languagenut is a wonderful online tool where children can access resources to support the development of their new language. Each child will have their own log in details where they can gain points for activities completed. Languagenut will also give you the correct pronunciation of words and phrases.​​​​​​

Internet safety

At St David's we promote the use of 'SMART' rules daily, as we know how important it is to stay safe online.

Please encourage your children to use these 'SMART' rules at home too. 

For more information about supporting your child with using the internet safely, please click on the following link:

https://hwb.gov.wales/zones/online-safety/key-information/primary-learners

Jigsaw and PSHE

What is Jigsaw, the mindful approach to Health and Well-being, and how does it work?

Jigsaw is a whole-school approach and embodies a positive philosophy and creative teaching and learning activities to nurture children’s development as compassionate and well-rounded human beings as well as building their capacity to learn. Jigsaw is a comprehensive and completely original PSE programme for the whole primary school from ages 3–11.  The Jigsaw Programme also delivers Relationships and Sexuality Education. Ensuring it meets the requirements set out in the RSE Code for Phases 1 and 2. Life cycles and human reproduction will be taught in a sensitive manner, age related in all schools in Wales. This means that all learners must receive this education. There is no right to withdraw from RSE in the new curriculum.

Jigsaw has two main aims for all children:

• To build their capacity for learning
• To equip them for life

Jigsaw brings together PSE, Relationships and Sexuality Education, emotional literacy, mindfulness, social skills and spiritual development. It is designed to support a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (Puzzle) at the same time at their own stage of learning. There are six Puzzles (half-term units of work) and each year group is taught one lesson per week. All lessons are delivered in an age- and stage-appropriate way so that they meet children’s needs.

Healthy Snack

Healthy snacks are provided at £2 per week, which can be paid for half-term via parent pay, or please provide one piece of fresh fruit or vegetable for your child's snack every day. We are a healthy eating school, so only provide a healthy snack, such as an apple, banana, carrot sticks, oranges etc. Please note that grapes need to be sliced longways. Children may bring a bottle of water with their name clearly labelled to school to drink. We are happy to refill their bottles for them during the day. 

We also have a weekly competition run by our Healthy Schools pupil voice group, where the children gain points for having a healthy snack and lunchbox. The class that gets the highest amount wins some extra play, so every snack counts!

101 experiences

As a school we have created a list of 101 experiences we believe all children should have the opportunity to explore. These are linked to the 4 purposes of the Curriculum for Wales. Once you have completed an experience, send a photo to Miss Richards-Cooper, who will upload the experience to Seesaw.  Happy exploring!

Each time a child achieves 5 experiences from the same category, they will get a sticker which shows the religious character which symbolises the associated purpose from the Four Purposes of the new curriculum.

Active travel
 

As a school, we are working hard to reduce our carbon footprint as part of our Eco schools awards. We record how we travel to school each day and gain badges and awards every month if we have met our target. Help us to travel safer and greener by walking, cycling or scooting to school or by using our Park and Stride arrangements at Pentwyn Leisure Centre. This will help keep our bodies healthy and help reduce our carbon footprint.

Rights Respecting School

St David's C.I.W Primary School is proud to be a Rights Respecting School, which means we are a community where children's rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted.

This term we will be focusing on Articles 3, 4, 5,7 & 8 from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

 

 

Picture news

During our worship time on Mondays, we have been learning about current news, topics and events. When discussing the Picture News, we have been challenging ourselves to use new, ambitious vocabulary to describe our feelings and opinions.

  

After School Clubs

 

There are a variety of mixed year group clubs available this academic year.

If your child would like to take part in our after-school club or be added to the waiting list, please send an e-mail to clubs@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk

Useful links!

By clicking below, you can access a range of resources to continue learning at home 

https://hwb.gov.wales - Hwb Collection of online tools provided to all schools in Wales by the Welsh Government

https://www.purplemash.com - award winning cross curricular website for  primary school children. It enables children to explore and enhance their knowledge in a fun and creative way.

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk Use this link to help with Online Reading

Username- year3stdavids

Password - read

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ - Great online games for curriculum areas

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/levels/zbr9wmn - BBC Bitesize

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html - Lots of online games linked to different areas of the curriculum

https://www.learn-welsh.net/welshgames - Online Welsh games

https://corbettmathsprimary.com/5-a-day/ - Corbett Maths - 5-a-day Challenges

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/ - White Rose Maths - Reasoning Challenge