What your child learns in Year 3 maths, English and science
While you may feel that you’ve only just got your head round Key Stage 1, Year 3 marks the beginning of a new Key Stage! Key Stage 2 consists of Years 3-6, with KS2 SATs taken at the end of Year 6. So, the good news is that both you and your child have plenty of time to prepare for the next round of SATs.
Here’s a glimpse at what your child will be learning over Year 3:
Year 3 maths
In Year 3 your child will start adding and subtracting with three-digit numbers, using column addition and subtraction. They will learn their 3, 4 and 8 times tables. This will then help them in moving onto multiplying a two-digit number by a one-digit number.
Children will learn how to find fractions of quantities and also about equivalent fractions. They will learn about perimeter and also how to tell the time on a 12-hour and 24-hour clock. They will start to learn about right angles plus horizontal, vertical, perpendicular and parallel lines. Children will need to interpret and present data using bar charts, pictograms and tables.
More details are available in our parents' guide to Year 3 maths.
Use our free Year 3 maths worksheets to reinforce these skills with your child outside the classroom.
Year 3 English
Children will be increasing their familiarity with a wide range of genres of writing. They will be preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and perform. They will be thinking about inference and making predictions about what is going to happen in a story.
This year they will need to build on their handwriting work in Year 2, becoming more confident with joining letters. They will be thinking carefully about the setting, characters and plot in their stories and how to structure a text, remembering to use plenty of good description. They will need to use conjunctions such as when, before, after, while, so and because. This year, they will start to use speech marks when writing dialogue.
Find more details of the Year 3 English curriculum in our guide for parents.
Year 3 science
This year, children will learn about:
Plants, including parts of plants, needs of plants and their life cycle.
Animals including humans, focusing on nutrition, skeletons and muscles.
Rocks, including comparing rocks, looking at fossils and understanding how soil is made.
Light, looking at how light is reflected, how shadows are formed and can change.
Forces and magnets, focusing on magnets: attraction and repulsion, magnetic materials and the two poles of a magnet.
The Year 3 science curriculum is looked at in details in our parents' guide.
Review the processes and terms your child will be learning with free Year 3 science worksheets that you can download and print off.
Read about the curriculum targets for Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 so you know what to expect as your child progresses in primary school. You can also see how far your child has come in their education by reviewing targets for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.