Year 3 – How does the Jewish Shabbat link to our half-term holiday?

17th October 2025Claire Dutton

In RE today, Year 3 learnt about the Jewish day of rest called Shabbat (or Sabbath) and we talked about how important it was to rest and to take time away from working hard. We listened to the Jewish creation story and made links to the Christian story of creation that most of us already knew. We talked about what days of the week we rest on and how our families do this differently … although it did seem that ‘having a lie in’ at the weekend was a very popular choice!

The Jewish Shabbat begins at sunset on Friday and runs through to nightfall on Saturday, and so it seems a perfect excuse to close our week and to begin our half-term holiday on a Friday!

A huge well done to all of the boys and girls in Year 3, you have been absolutely amazing and we have learnt so much already – you should all be super proud of yourselves, just like we all are! Here’s to a peaceful and relaxing break with your families, and hopefully lots of sweet treats for Halloween … we can’t wait to hear all about your adventures and costumes when we return to school.

Shabbat Shalom (peaceful Sabbath), Mrs Dutton and Miss Cooper xx

Year 3 – Diwali Artwork

17th October 2025Claire Dutton

Today has been a special focus on the Hindu faith and on Diwali – the Hindu celebration of light. In Year 3, we learned about how Diwali is celebrated, as well as the story behind all of the fun and festivities … Rama and Sita. Why not ask us to retell the story of Rama and Sita, and how Rama overcame evil to win back his wife?

We looked at some examples of the beautiful Diwali lamps which might be used to celebrate Diwali 2025 (this coming Monday), and we created some beautiful artwork using oil pastels on black card. Well done everyone, we are so impressed with your gorgeous creations!

Year 3 – Let’s Play Expedition!

17th October 2025Claire Dutton

It may have been our last week before the half-term but Year 3 have still been mega busy with lots of learning so it was really nice to capture some of our Year 3 children ‘playing Romans’ on the playground … Max (a Roman soldier) capturing Nasrin (a Celtic rebel) to make her a slave actually looked way more fun than the textbooks make it sound!

As well as playing, we have been finding out about the Roman army and what life was like as a soldier … why not ask us if we’d rather be a legionary or an auxiliary soldier? And, we’ve been using both primary and secondary sources to learn about slavery in the Roman empire too … you could ask us if all Roman slaves were treated the same, and if they could ever find freedom?

Year 3 – RE: How do Jews celebrate Pesach?

12th October 2025Claire Dutton

Friday’s RE lesson followed on from our previous lesson which taught us all about the story of The Exodus which is the reason for the Jewish celebration of Pesach (Passover). In this lesson we learnt about how Jews celebrate this special occasion together with a special meal called the Seder, where each item of the meal represents a different part of the story.

Why not ask us why they prepare lamb on the bone, a hard boiled egg and eat matzah (flat bread made without yeast)? Or, you could ask us why they dip sweet leaves into salted water and eat a bitter herb?

Year 3 – Active in English: Finding the Features of a Non-Fiction text

12th October 2025Claire Dutton

To help us prepare for our next writing project, Year 3 had a fun and exciting lesson looking at all the features of a non-fiction text and thinking about how we will include these features in our writing over the next few weeks. To warm up we played Splat the Word Class and Sort the Sentences … then we took a look at all of the non-fiction books we have in our classroom before working in teams to annotate the features we could see in our model text. Well done, boys and girls – you all worked so hard and we all got smart, too!

Class 10 Visit to GT Library for Reading Week!

12th October 2025Claire Dutton

To mark the end of reading week, last Friday, Class 10 paid a little trip to our brand new school library. Once again, we were able to enjoy the beautiful surroundings, take a look at the books that interested us and listen to a lovely story. How lucky we are to have such a wonderful space in which to enjoy so many exciting reads!

Class 10 – Reading Week’s BEST bit!

12th October 2025Claire Dutton

Without a doubt, Class 10’s best bit of their reading week was having not just one of our fabulous reading ambassadors pay a visit at story time but also the wonderful, the amazing, the fabulous … Mr G!!! Of course, all of the children were super thrilled to have a special story from their Year 2 teacher, Mr Gerrard and who knows … perhaps he’ll pop in and gift us with his presence once again??? Let’s hope so!