What an amazing start to the school year! It has been a pleasure to welcome our new cohort of Year 3 pupils to Loughton School. The children have settled in enthusiastically and have shown a real eagerness to learn from day one. They have listened carefully to our expectations, embraced new challenges and demonstrated impressive maturity as they have adapted to their new environment. 

We understand that moving to a new school is a significant step in a child's educational journey, and we are incredibly proud of the positive and resilient attitude the children have shown. It has been wonderful to hear compliments from staff across the school about Year 3's excellent behaviour, positive attitude and willingness to learn. 

Our first week back focused on building relationships and helping the children get to know their new classes and teachers. Each class explored a different book as the inspiration for this theme. HB1 enjoyed "The Boy on the Beach", HB2 read "Can I Build Another Me?" while HB3 liked "I’m sticking with you." These engaging texts helped spark discussions, creativity and a sense of belonging within each class. 

In science, the children have begun their exciting topic, Amazing Animals (which includes humans too!). They have already learned to identify herbivores, omnivores and carnivores and can confidently classify animals into these groups. Over the coming weeks, they will explore the different types of teeth found in each group and investigate the fascinating role of our skeleton and muscles. The children will also carry out a range of hands-on experiments, including activities designed to help them understand how the brain is protected. 

Our English lessons are closely linked to this animal theme as we work towards writing an independent piece inspired by Peter Rabbit. In guided reading, we are enjoying Fantastic Mr Fox and developing our comprehension skills using our much-loved Loughton School reading characters: Violet Vocabulary, Rocket Retrieval, Immi Inference, Emily Explanation, Pax Prediction and Sam Summary. These characters help the children build a deeper understanding of what they read while making reading lessons engaging and memorable. 

We have a busy and exciting year ahead and are looking forward to watching the children grow in confidence, develop new skills and truly flourish throughout Year 3. We are already so proud of everything they have achieved and cannot wait to see what the rest of the year brings.