Dear parents and carers,

Welcome to Year 3 at Mab’s Cross Community Primary School and a year full of excitement, imagination and exploration. My name is Mr Walsh and I will be your child’s teacher for the upcoming year. I am thrilled to work with you and your child over the next twelve months to help foster their learning journey across the whole curriculum.

I have been teaching at Mab’s Cross for nine years and, as well as having taught across the whole of KS2, for eight of those years I have led the Arts and Culture team in school, providing guidance and support across all year groups in Art & Design, Design Technology and Music.

Within Year 3, we have fantastic support from Mrs Lockett (also our school librarian) and Mrs Bevan (our PE ambassador). We work as a team to ensure your child enjoys and prospers every day. In our lessons, we wish to promote the skills which will help your child to succeed in subsequent years at school and beyond. No one day is the same. Our classroom is a place where your child can go from being a detective to solving mathematical problems to an artist working with a range of different media to an archaeologist discovering how past civilisations lived.

In Year 3, we have a fantastic range of topics. Our year begins thousands of years in the past, exploring prehistoric Britain. During this topic we will look to see how life changed from the early Stone Age, through the Bronze Age and finally to the Iron Age. Your child will be able to handle artefacts from the past, recreate works of invention and explore life by visiting a forest school.  Then, we step into a world of rocks, relics and rumbles, exploring how our Earth functions, the processes which have happened for rocks and fossils to form and the impact tectonic events such as volcanoes and earthquakes can have on the lives of many. Finally, our year ends by stepping back in time to visit the home of Zeus, the Olympics and the minotaur. Ancient Greece. Through cross-curricular activities, your children will understand the impact this ancient group of people has had on the way we live today.

Throughout Mab’s Cross we set high behaviour expectations for all our children and demonstrate this through modelled behaviour and our reward system, in which each child earns dojos. Class Dojos are collected throughout the year for excellence in learning, contributions to lessons and good behaviour, leading to certificates when target totals are reached. For truly exceptional work and behaviour, your child may be selected to go to the golden star, which gives them the opportunity to have their name placed in a draw for a wonder prize at the end of each term.

It is integral that the partnership between school and home is strong to ensure each child can bring out the best in themselves. Updates in class are shared through Class Dojo and in fortnightly newsletters from our headteacher, Mrs Poole. At regular intervals of the year, you will be updated on your child’s progress through Parents’ Evening meetings or report cards. Should it be necessary for you to contact me, Edulink is the easiest and most efficient way to get in touch or by simply speaking to me at the end of the school day.

At home, there are many ways you can support your child’s learning beyond the weekly English and Maths homework set. We have a range of online software which your child can access from home to support the work covered in lessons such as Spelling Shed, TT Rockstars, Purple Mash and Reading+. As a school, we aim to promote a love of reading and have a weekly reading challenge whereby we invite each child to read three times a week at home with a household member. A successful week of reading will lead to your child’s name being placed in a draw to take home the reading satchel of goodies.

I am truly looking forward to working with you and your child over the next year to help them take a further step in reaching all their highest ambitions in life. Thank you for your support in engaging and promoting the ethos we share in our school of ‘Bringing Out the Best in Everyone.’

Best Wishes,

Mr Walsh