Year 3 - Jay

Cheddar Caves and Museum of Prehistory

What an incredible day we had in Cheddar! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the first hand experiences of being inside the caves, learning about the rock formations and then being immersed in the life of stone-age times during our workshop. We were able to see how flint was used to make tools and even learnt how to make a fire using limited resources. During our time in Cox's Cave we found out more about the journey of water and were relieved to be able to visit Gough's Cave and see the replica skeleton of Cheddar Man as this cave was flooded only 2 days ago. 

Take a look at the pictures to see what we got up to during this fantastic trip. 

Science - Light and Shadows October 2025

Jay Class have been busy exploring how light and shadows work. The children carried out an investigation to find out how the distance of the light source affects the size of a shadow. 

They discovered that when the light is closer, the shadow looks bigger, and when it's further away, the shadow becomes smaller. Everyone made great predictions, worked carefully and shared their results like real scientists! 

 Sharing Stories with Goldfinch 

This week, Jay class were excited to share their amazing stories inspired by the short film 'Dream Giver' with Goldfinch class. Everyone listened carefully as the children read their imaginative pieces filled with magic, adventure and dreams coming to life!

Goldfinch class were a fantastic audience and gave some lovely feedback. 

Local Area Walk

This morning we enjoyed a great walk in the local area to support our geography work. We were looking at local land use and transport links within our community. It was surprising for some that we were able to walk under the motorway-this was rather noisy. Although we saw the train line, there weren't any trains travelling through Bridgwater at the time. Whilst out, we saw an industrial estate with lots of workers, Dunwear Ponds, Bridgwater and Taunton Canal and we even managed a stop at a local play park before we came back to school. 

#Play-pod Session

As a year group we went out to enjoy some 'play-based' learning using the play-pod equipment. The children really enjoyed working collaboratively and using their imagination to create work spaces, bases and dens. It coincided perfectly with the hottest day of the year, therefore we stayed in the shade. There was lots of creativity, bargaining and sharing and everyone developed their personal and social skills.  

Year 3 Playpod

Sports Week 2025

What a fun, sunny and sporty week we have had! It all started with a visit from a professional basket ball player who showed us his skills and taught us how to spin a basketball on our finger or a pencil. Next came a range of fun activities including orienteering, a sports festival and team games. The week ended with Sports Day when we saw great participation and perseverance from all of Jay Class in races, team games and events. Well done to everyone. 

Jay Sports Week

Forest School Morning  17.6.25

Everyone had a great morning in the sun today with Mrs Nurcombe our Forest School Leader. We spent our time whitling sticks to make wands, creating shelters for minibeasts and designing Mandela art patterns in natural objects. We then went into the sensory garden and did some pond dipping where we discovered tadpoles, water beetles and water snails. 

Bristol Museum Visit 4.6.25

Jay Class had a great introduction to our work on Ancient Egypt today with a workshop all about Amelia Edwards who travelled from Bristol across Egypt exploring many different places and daily life. We were lucky to handle artefacts and ask enquiry questions. Take a look at the pictures in our photos to see if you can work out what the objects were used for. Whilst we were at the museum we also visited the Egyptian Exhibition and discovered more about life and death 5000 years ago. There were other exhibits that we enjoyed visiting too as they supported our prior Year 3 learning such as the rocks and minerals, fossils, stone age and animals.

Easter Parade 2025

It was a lovely sunny afternoon to celebrate the end of the Spring Term in style with an Easter Parade. Well done to every one for creating amazing hats and flags, a special well done to Ella who won the overall prize in Jay Class. Have a great Easter Break everyone.

Puxton Park-Science Visit March 2025

We all enjoyed a fantastic day at Puxton Park near Weston, finding out about animals diets, habitats and which animal group they belonged to. We were able to make enrichment boxes for the marmoset monkeys and then watched them hunt through the boxes to find vegetables and mealworms. We had an animal show where we met a couple of reptiles, a furry mammal and a creature with 250 legs. After lunch, we enjoyed a tractor ride into the cow barn to learn more about the newly born calves, a dinosaur ride and a play in the outdoor play park just for fun!

World Book Day-March 2025

For world book day this year, the children were set with the task of writing a character description of any fairytale character they could think of. The only rule they had was that they could not name who they were writing about. The children included fantastic adjectives and descriptive language to create their paragraphs and then headed up to Year 4 to share their writing to see if they could guess which character they had chosen. The children spoke confidently and shared their ideas well. It was a lovely way to celebrate world book day! Thank you to everyone for their amazing costumes- you really blew us away with the effort made. 

Wessex Water Workshop- February 2025 

During Science Week, Jay class were lucky enough to have a visit from Sue who works at Wessex Water. She spent time explaining her job, what happens with our water system and showed us lots of pictures of our local area. The children then had the opportunity to see how different materials dissolve (or do not dissolve) in water and compare this to what would happen if we flushed these at home. 

Cheddar Caves Visit : December 2024

What a fantastic day! We learnt so much about life in Stone Age Times and also about rock formations within the Cheddar Caves. The museum of prehistory taught us all about Cheddar Man, who's remains were found in Gough's Cave and the visit to Coxes Cave helped us to understand the story of water and how the Cheddar Caves and Gorge were formed. We saw stalactites and stalagmites and even columns formed where the calcite met in the middle. Lots of pupils thought the cave formations were beautiful and they could see all sorts of strange formations within Gough's cave as pointed out by our guide Sophie, including ice-cream scoops, melted cheese and a dragon's head. There was even a cinema where we watched a film called 'Beyond the View' all about life within the Gorge.

Jay Class Cheddar Caves

Rocks and Fossils workshop

Today, Natasha from Somerset Heritage and Learning came to share her knowledge on rocks and fossils. We started our session by watching a video about how fossils are made and then moved on to three different activities. The first activity was working with Natasha to identify different rocks and using magnifying glasses to see what small particles the rocks were made up of. The second activity was a game of rock bingo, and the third activity was rubbing fossils to make our very own prints. We then had to identify what type of fossil we had been given. There were lots of opportunities to walk around the room and read the information that Natasha had brought out as well. What an exciting morning we had learning more about rocks and fossils.

Y3 November 2024

STONE AGE DAY

Today we spent the day as Stone Age people dressed in costume and experiencing life like they would have done 3 million years ago. In the morning, we used natural materials to create paintings, made sparks for a fire using flint stones and crafted clay pots. Because it was so cold outside, we had to have hot chocolate and marshmallows to warm us up when we came back inside! During the afternoon, we pretended we were inside a cave by going under the tables and drawing on the 'cave roof', we also made a fruit stew-it tasted delicious. Next week, we will be writing the instructions for how to make fruit stew in our English lessons. 

SASP Sports Festival 13th November 2024

We were really lucky to be invited to Bridgwater College Academy on Wednesday to participate in a range of skill development games alongside two other Somerset schools. The sun shone and the pupils enjoyed the activities, they represented our school so well. It was great to see several Year 9 and 10 ex-pupils and siblings running the activities, they enjoyed reminiscing about their time at St John and St Francis.