Autumn 2
Developing our understanding of sharing and grouping
Class Assembly – The Proudest Blue
During our recent class assembly, the children listened to the beautiful story The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad. The story follows two sisters and explores themes of pride, identity, kindness, and bravery.
After hearing the story, the children took part in a thoughtful discussion. They answered questions, shared their ideas, and reflected on the important messages in the book. Together, we talked about celebrating our differences, standing up for others, showing kindness, and being proud of who we are.
We linked the story to our current theme, Data, Diversity and Division, thinking about how every person brings something unique to our class community. Just like in the story, we explored how diversity makes us stronger and how fairness and respect help us work well together.
To finish our assembly, we shared this prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you for making each one of us special.
Help us to be proud of who we are, just like Asiya.
Give us kind hearts, so we speak gentle and caring words.
Help us to be brave when others are unkind,
and to stand up for what is right.
May our classroom be a place of respect, friendship, and peace.
Amen.
Our Year 3 class took part in a Philosophy for Children (P4C) session focused on the theme “being different.” We began by sharing the story Giraffes Can’t Dance and then worked in small groups to read and sort information cards about different people’s skills, appearances, hobbies, and personalities. The children discussed what makes each of us unique and why our differences should be celebrated. This session helped develop their reading, reasoning, and teamwork skills while encouraging kindness and respect for others.
Higher order reading skills
In the Story Jigsaw activity, children are given key events from a story on separate cards and work together to arrange them in the correct order. After sequencing, they discuss and justify their choices using clues from the text.
This activity helps develop higher-order reading skills by:
Encouraging comprehension and recall – children must remember details from the story to sequence events accurately.
Promoting inference and reasoning – they explain why events happen in a certain order, using textual evidence.
Building summarising skills – sequencing supports children in condensing the story into key points.
Enhancing discussion and critical thinking – children justify their ideas and compare interpretations with peers.
Supporting engagement and collaboration – working in groups allows children to share ideas and consider multiple perspectives.
Overall, it transforms reading from simply decoding words into thinking deeply about characters, plot, and cause-and-effect relationships.
We’ve been collecting data and creating block graphs today
Learning about arrays to help develop our understanding of multiplication
We have been exploring the story Dogs Don’t Do Ballet by Anna Kemp, a heart-warming tale that teaches important lessons about believing in yourself, celebrating diversity, and treating others kindly. The story follows Biff, a dog who dreams of becoming a ballerina, despite being told repeatedly that “dogs don’t do ballet.” Through Biff’s determination and courage, the children learned that they should never give up on their dreams, even when others doubt them. The book also opened up valuable discussions about kindness, acceptance, and the importance of embracing differences. Pupils talked about how it feels when someone tells you that you can’t do something, and why it’s important to encourage others rather than put them down. Dogs Don’t Do Ballet helped the children understand that everyone has unique talents, and that celebrating diversity and showing kindness can help others shine. It was a joyful and inspiring story that encouraged confidence, resilience, empathy, and acceptance across the class.
Playing ‘Build it, Break it’ to help develop our understanding of inverse operations
Developing our understanding of character descriptions
Catching up on some great Welsh diary entries 👍🏻
“Odd socks today to show that being unique is something to be proud of. Together we stand against bullying.”
P4C session for Antibullying Week, followed by a Diamond Ranking activity on ‘For The Birds
We were delighted to welcome David Smith OBE to our class today. It was fascinating to hear him speak about his early childhood and his incredible performances at the World Boccia Championships, including winning a gold medal in Tokyo in 2019. His story of overcoming challenges, showing resilience and perseverance, and working tirelessly toward his dreams truly inspired us. He reminded us that being different doesn’t mean you can’t achieve great things.
Try subtracting these, using the method below: 245-8 = 372 - 6 =
Lots of fun on our Blooket reading challenge
So proud of the class for raising awareness for Remembrance Day and supporting the sale of poppy items. Their efforts have helped to raise a significant amount for the British Legion
Our current theme, Data, Diversity, and Division, focuses on technology, empathy, and belonging. In technology, we will be using J2Data to input information into prepared databases and spreadsheets, and we’ll create graphs, tables, and charts to represent the data we collect. Alongside this, we will explore empathy and understanding, learning to value people who are different and to help everyone feel a sense of belonging. The novel We’re All Wonders by R.J. Palacio will guide our discussions and activities about kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.
In Maths, we will begin with addition and subtraction before moving on to multiplication and division. In Literacy, we will focus on writing character descriptions, bringing characters to life through rich detail and imaginative language.
