Welcome to Class 3

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the Spring term of 2026! We have had a fabulous Autumn term, what with the tremendous Christmas performance ‘It’s Chriiistmaaas’, a trip down a ‘Top of the Pops’ memory lane, a Harvest festival, wheelchair basketball, a MacMillan coffee morning, swimming, a ’3 show’ class assembly, ‘Rota kids’ disco, a Christmas fair, a visit to see The Wizard of Oz at the Theatre by the lake, our memory box exhibition, book bus, a netball and football competition (both won!), a super successful Talkin Tarn cross country and to finish with; the excitement of the party, making it a busy last few weeks!

We are looking forward to more sporting events this term, a parents evening, a class assembly, as well as forest school, and our traditional coffee morning and egg hunt!

All routines and arrangements remain as follows:

• Homework (either maths or English) will be given out on a Monday and needs to be completed and handed in by Wednesday morning; and another given out on Wednesday and completed/handed in Friday (leaving your weekends usually free of school work)
• PE will usually be Tuesday (Multi skills with Rowan), but children need their kit in school all the time, as we may have other activities;
• Spellings will be given out on a Monday for a test on a Friday – it is much easier for the children if they do a little bit every night rather than cram on a Thursday night;
• Times tables will be tested on a Friday. This skill is also vitally important, especially for year 4’s as they will be sitting a SAT’s type test later on in the year;
• Rowan’s after-school football is continuing on a Tuesday.

The curriculum: This term’s topic is called Settling Saxons. We will also be studying Beowulf in Literacy, and we have already managed to kick off our topic to visit Jarrow Hall, a working Saxon farm, where we also learned about clothing and armour, gods, food and drink, why they settled and place names.

• RE: Learning from the Carlisle Diocese scheme of work: What does it mean to be a Muslim in British society today? How is the resurrection portrayed as central to Christian belief?
• Science: Electricity;
• PE: football plus the outdoor activities;
• Geography and History: life and times of the Settling Saxons and where in the UK?;
• Music: Charanga; You’ve got a friend and a new year carol
• Art and DT: Saxon weaving, watercolour and sketching;
• Literacy: a study of Beowulf, retelling, recount, instructional writing, comprehension skills;
• Maths: place value, numbers, addition and subtraction strategies, multiplication and division, problem solving, measures;
• PSHE: valuing difference and being my best
• French: General use of the French language avec Mdme Sweetman

Assessments: We conducted our usual end-of-term assessments before the holidays. There will be opportunities to discuss the outcomes at a parents evening scheduled for Monday 26th January from 1pm.

PE Kit: The children need a pair of PE trainers (in a separate plastic bag) that will be expected to get dirty and very muddy after use on the field, so please don’t send in expensive shoes. The footwear for Rowan’s will be used on the field and therefore cannot be used for PE in the hall or on the new rubberised surface. They would also benefit from a couple of pairs of socks so they don’t need to wear the same wet ones.

Residential: We are very excited to be going on a full residential to Berwick YHA, including lots of visits and activities around the area. You have all had the initial letter reserving places, and we will have further information with regards to the finer details later on this year. Please feel free to email any questions to me at the address below.

Reading: I would like the children to read every night (including weekends). However, I appreciate this can be difficult, so a minimum of twice a week recorded in the reading records would be beneficial. We are hoping that the ‘Spellbinding’ Cumbria library services reading programme continues this year too.

Equipment: All stationary children require for their daily tasks is provided by school. We are a large class with storage space at a premium, so please can children only bring into school items they are required to, including reading books and records daily, spelling records and yellow spelling activity books, and Friday test books for spelling and times-table tests on Fridays. Please check book bags as letters often remain in there for several weeks!

Spares, wellies and bottles: Thank you to all parents for providing children with the above items at the start of term, we have now 100% of children fully equipped. Water bottles can stay in school from Monday to Friday, then go home for a wash, and return refreshed the next week. Please do make sure that spares are waterproof trousers, and not just a set of joggers or tracksuit trousers going over the top of school uniform, and where possible their coats are waterproof, and not just jackets that are not. If it rains in the morning and they get wet, they will still have to put them on later, which isn’t very pleasant!

Year 6 SAT’s tests: 
SAT’s tests will occur this year for the Year 6 children.
We will be holding an information evening for the parents of these children later on this term, to outline expectations for those of you who haven’t experienced the testing before.
We can show you examples of CGP texts that can provide additional support for those wishing to purchase such materials to help prepare, they are very cost effective and closely matched to the SAT’s themselves. Please let me know if you would be interested in ordering some of these books through school at a reduced rate.

Snack Money: Children can buy snack at morning break, consisting of either plain crackers, digestive or rich tea biscuits. They cost 4p each or 7p for 2, it would be handy if children could have loose change in a named purse or wallet to purchase this.

Class 3 Assembly:
Parents are invited to our Class 3 Assembly on Thursday 26th February at 3.00pm to see some of the things we have done so far, and what is to come.

Finally, my email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If there is anything you wish to let me know about please stay in touch. I check my emails daily and is the best form of communication for anything.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Harrison