Summer 2

Whole School Topic - 'A Knight to Remember'

Week 1 - Welcome to Hillcross Castle! 

To launch our Whole School Topic, ‘A Knight to Remember,’ we took part in a dress-up day when we came to school dressed as someone from the Middle Ages! We had knights, princesses and even jousters join Team Year 3 for the day! During the day, we role-played our own Mediaeval banquet in the classroom, where we moved the tables and drew what would have been eaten at the feast! As writers, we then wrote persuasive texts to persuade people to come to our banquet! This will then help us to complete our independent writing, persuading people to come to the jousting event! As artists, we create our own still-life drawings inspired by Paul Cezanne, where we drew a banquet plate that would have been eaten in Mediaeval times. We used shape and form to make our drawings look more realistic. What a great week we have had!

Week 2 - ‘Where in the World?’ - Castles, Palaces and Forts Across the World

This week we had a geography focus in Year 3! We have been learning about counties and used our map reading skills to locate different counties in the United Kingdom. Linking to our whole school topic, we then used secondary sources to locate different castles in the UK based on their counties and created a whole class map showing where these castles are. As mathematicians, we have been developing our time-telling skills and looked at how we can convert an analogue clock to a digital clock!  

Week 3 - Brave Knights and Fearful Dragons 

This week, Year 3 focused on Science, where we learnt about the importance of the skeleton and identified its key parts. We had fun creating pasta skeletons, designing our own Medieval character skeletons! We explored both human and animal skeletons, and linked this to our whole-school topic by investigating different types of skeletons to decide which animal would be best suited to survive a jousting competition! As writers, we have begun looking at character descriptions and will soon be writing our own about a Medieval character. We started by writing descriptive sentences about someone in our team to practise using vivid language and detail. As mathematicians, we created our own clocks as part of our home learning and used them in class to support our understanding of telling time. We can now tell the time to the nearest minute and five minutes, and we are also able to calculate durations accurately.

Week 4 - Who is in Charge? 

This week in Year 3, our learning centered around PSHE as we explored how to manage difficult and potentially unsafe situations. We investigated a variety of real-life scenarios, including challenges at home, sun safety, road safety, and internet safety. The children worked interdependently, engaging in thoughtful discussions about the risks we may face and the best strategies to keep ourselves and others safe. A highlight of the week was a fantastic visit from the Wimbledon Fire Brigade. The firefighters brought along their fire truck, and the children had the exciting opportunity to try on the uniform, sit inside the truck, and even operate the fire hose! The crew also delivered an engaging talk on fire safety, sharing top tips on how to stay safe at home. To link with our Whole School Topic, we wrapped up the week with a P4C session. The children tackled the question: “Should the castle gate stay open during the day for visitors and traders, or should it remain closed to keep everyone safe?” This sparked a thoughtful debate, encouraging the children to consider safety and decision-making in a castle and then linked to situations we may face today.

Week 5 - Let Us Entertain You 

We had an incredible day for our Whole School Topic Finale! The Knights of Middle England visited us and we took part in some incredible workshop including archery, jousting and riding horses! All the children said this has been one of their favourite days of school so far! What an incredible Whole School Topic!