Mrs Suzanne McCulloch & Mrs Derrett 

Welcome to Grebes Class Page

Grebes Class Parent Newsletter - Spring(1) 2026

Dear Parents,

Welcome back and Happy New Year! I hope you all have had a lovely Christmas with your families. For the first couple of weeks back we are focusing on Science and History in order to complete WW2 and Forces. The following week is when we will begin our new topics. I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have been hearing your child read regularly and ensuring they are reading every day. I noticed a big improvement in their overall reading ages in our assessment before the end of term and more children have been taking quizzes.
Mrs Derrett will continue to teach Year 3 for Maths and the whole class on a Friday. Music will still be on a Wednesday — please can you ensure that your child brings in their violin into school.
Please feel free to catch up with me after school or by email if you have any concerns about
your child.
Mrs McCulloch

                                                                     Our Learning
English
We will continue to read the novel Letters From The Lighthouse for our Guided Reading les-
sons, which the children have been enjoying. These lessons will focus on our reading fluency,
technique and comprehension. For grammar we will continue to study word classes and then
past tense of verbs, direct and reported speech, subordinating conjunctions and clauses. We
will use these in writing newspaper reports based on our History and Geography topics.

Maths
This half term will focus on multiplication and division written methods and then multiplying and dividing fractions. We will continue to have a daily focus on times tables to improve our recall of those number facts. We all follow the same times table every week and the focus is to recall them and related division facts at speed. Despite our efforts, the children are still struggling to remember their times tables. Please can you ensure your child does 10 minutes TT Rockstars a day please.

Science
Our new topic is Earth and Space and we will be learning about the solar system and how the Earth moves in space.

Geography
Our topic is Extreme Earth. We will be studying the Earth’s climate, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Art
We have been painting Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night this week, to link with our school vision. Over the following weeks we will be creating artwork in various media to link to our school values of forgiveness, trust, responsibility, perseverance and respect to Christianity and stories from the Bible.

RE
Hinduism: How do questions about Brahman and atman influence the way a Hindu lives?

PSHE
Our topic is Think Positive, which links to good mental health.

Computing
We are continuing to study Computing Systems & Networks: Bletchley Park, which relates to World War 2.

 

                                                     Useful Ways to Share Learning at Home
                                                   
Please read with your child on a regular basis. Encourage them to read independently every day and remind them to take quizzes at school as this will help improve their comprehension skills.

Please encourage your child to practise their times tables every day for 10 minutes. They can use TT
Rockstars and write out the times tables repeatedly. Quick fir questions are also good but remember to
ask the questions out of chronological order. Quick recall of times tables will help your child access the
Maths curriculum more easily. We will be practising every day in class and having a weekly test.

Remind your child to use Spelling Shed. Log ins are stuck in their reading records.

Practice your child’s spellings with them each day for their weekly test on Friday.

Turn off all electronic devices at least one hour before bedtime for a good night’s sleep.

 

                                                      Key dates and routines to remember:

Wednesday: County Music lesson (bring your instrument in if it has been loaned to you) & PE (PE kit)

Friday: PE (PE kit)

Spellings will be tested and new spellings given out then also. New spellings are stuck into their reading records. Please can children bring in their reading book and reading diary every day so we can listen to them read.