Year Three | RCPA NEW

Otters and Seals News

W/B 16th March 2026

This week we have started a new book in English called 'The Happy Prince'. The Happy Prince is all about a statue who looks out at a city and sees people suffering, with the help of a swallow they help lots of people in the village. We have been exploring the theme of helping people at the expense of ourselves and how sometimes, doing the right thing is hard for us. Both classes have enjoyed learning about the different characters and have had some lovely discussions about the sacrifices both characters made and how they were both very brave in different ways.

W/B 9th March 2026

This week the Seals and Otters have enjoyed being curious about critters! Having explored 'The Street Beneath My Feet' in English, we took our learning one step further researching insects we find in the world around us. Did you know there are more insects in a field that is a mile long and a mile wide than there are people in the world?! All of these animals and we have only just scratched the surface. We each chose an insect and created a fact file, ready to start exploring the micro habitats we find in school next week. Science is all about being curious and asking questions - we are bursting with curiosity!

W/B 2nd March 2026

In Seals and Otters we have started our learning on the Ancient Egyptians. We will be drawing on our learning on Pre-Historic Britain to observe the differences and similarities between the two civilisations. We have started by looking at the geography of Ancient Egypt - where in the world it is and the landmarks which were most important to its survival. We will continue to look at different aspects of life in Ancient Egypt such as their religion and beliefs, their technology and the artefacts that have been found from the time period.

W/B 23rd February 2026

This week in Otters and Seals, we have started our new English unit based around the non-fiction text The Street Beneath my Feet. The children have been working hard creating interesting sentences that include prepositions to inform their audience of when, where and why.

In maths we have been looking at mass and capacity, with a focus on mass this week. We have learnt the prefix 'kilo' means 1000 and applying this knowledge to find equivalent weights EG: 500g+500g+500g+500g=2kg.

In DT we have begun looking at shell structures and what these might look like opened up as nets. We have learnt lots of new vocabulary to as well, I wonder if the children can tell you what a shell structure is? And any of the new vocabulary they have learnt?

W/B 9th February 2026

We have been exploring so much in Music this half term. Not only have been introduced to the musical genre of Regge, but we have also begun to learn how to play the recorder. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning about Bob Marley and the Wailers, learning his song 'Three Little Birds' and also listening to some of the music his son performed too. When singing the song we explored different children having different roles (e.g singing the verse or the chorus). This has helped us learn it on the recorder where we have learnt two note patterns and started learning how to play them alongside each other. We have loved becoming musicians and learning about different music from around the world!

W/B 2nd February 2026

This week Otters and Seals have continued looking at magnets and forces in our science lessons. They have learnt that magnets have two different poles and depending on which poles are facing they will either attract or repel. The children have also carried out an experiment to find out which everyday objects are magnetic and which are not. There was some fabulous discussion around the 1p, as depending on the year it was made changed whether it was magnetic or not.

Seals and Otters have also been enjoying our work around volcanoes, exploring and researching different volcanoes and how they are formed. They have also been busy designing and creating their volcano art.

W/B 19th January 2026

This week the Seals and Otters have been learning all about perimeter in Maths. After spending the last couple of weeks understanding length (how to measure it, how to add them together, how to subtract one length from another), we have built on that this week to explore what perimeter is and how we calculate it. The Otters and Seals have absolutely smashed it and have all been able to tell us that the perimeter of a shape it the outside and that to work out the perimeter we add the length of the sides together. We have even had a go at calculating the perimeter of unusual shapes!

Can you find the perimeter of these shapes?

W/B 12th January 2026

The Seals and Otters have been very busy this week thinking about different ways we can move our bodies. In PE, one of the units is Dance. We are looking at how we can create movements with our body to represent objects. We have looked at different things you find in factories such as pistons, cogs and levers. It has been so much fun creating sequences to show the different movements using counts of 8 to keep us in time.

dancing-isolated-cartoon-vector-illustration-physical-exercise-for-children-dancing-class-

W/B 5th January 2026

We have loved welcoming the Seals and Otters back to school after their Christmas break! We have all jumped straight back into our learning with a new English unit called 'Stone Age Boy'. The Seals and Otters have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as we have been able to draw upon our learning in History last term. This week we have looked at sequencing the story and the features of a diary. They have all impressed us so much with their eagerness to learn and we can't wait to see their own diaries in the coming weeks!

W/B 10th November 2025
This week we have looked at the days of the week in French and thought about what activities we do on each day. We even read our first story in French! We are really enjoying our French lessons and are learning loads. We can't believe we have only been learning it for a few weeks and are already reading AND writing in French! We can't wait to learn more. A couple of us have even been practicing at home using Duolingo - it is so much fun and is helping us learn even more!

W/B 3rd November 2025

This week the Seals and the Otters have been exploring Pre-Historic Britain! Did you know that 'pre-history' means 'before writing'? That means we have had to learn about life in Pre-Historic Britain from artefacts, ecofacts and features - I wonder if the Seals and Otters can tell you what these are. We have really enjoyed our History so far, we even made a giant timeline that shows when some of the big Earth events happened. Did you know humans were not alive when the dinosaurs were alive? And that Britain used to be joined to Europe by a long strip of land? And that humans were alive during the Ice Age?! We have already learnt so much and can't wait to share it with you!

W/B 13th October 2025

The Seals and Otters this week have been learning all about healthy eating. After learning about our body throughout the half term, we used the Eatwell Healthy Eating Plate to help us plan a healthy dinner. Foods are split into five groups: carbohydrates, protein, fruit and vegetables, dairy and fat/sugar. We learnt that we need all of the food groups to be healthy but in moderation - no, we can't have a whole chocolate cake for dinner! We really enjoyed planning our meals and have been thinking about our school dinners!

W/B 6th October 2025

This week the Seals and the Otters have been working hard in all of our subjects, but they have really impressed us with their Maths! Having completed our unit on Place Value, we are now looking at addition and subtraction - the numbers have been getting so big we've even had to cross our 10s and 100s boundaries! We are so proud of how much they have persevered. Exchanging isn't very easy but they have been absolute superstars and tried 110% in each lesson. Well done Year 3!

W/B 29th September 2025

We are so proud of the Seals and Otters this week, all of them gave 110% at their cross-country event. They were all superstars and were such an amazing example of the sportsmanship we nurture at Roundswell. Not only did they cheer each other on, but even those that were worried about running smashed it! We could not have asked for them to try any harder and we can not wait to take them to their next event!

W/B 22nd September 2025

This week Seals and Otters have been writing up our first bit of independent writing in Year 3! Since coming back we have been looking at George's Marvellous Medicine and the way the characters are described. We have created our own characters and have started writing up our own character descriptions ready to publish for our displays next week!