Year 3
Stepping into big ideas
How we teach in the Primary band — and why
The developing mind (Piaget)
Concrete operational: children reason logically about things they can see and manipulate. New ideas start concrete (materials, drawings, acted-out scenarios) and move to representations before abstract notation — the concrete-pictorial-abstract sequence.
Learning together (Vygotsky)
Scaffolds are structured and withdrawn in that order: worked examples first, then guided problems with on-demand hints, then independent work with none. Lessons script 'thinking aloud' so children internalise expert self-talk.
Our design commitments
- Explicit instruction with worked examples before any independent work
- Concrete–pictorial–abstract progression in mathematics
- Daily review and spaced practice built into the sequence
- Guided exploration tasks where children apply — not discover unaided — new ideas
Units open now
Story Architects: Building Narratives That Grip
Learners discover that gripping stories aren't magic — they're built, like houses, from a blueprint every author knows: orientation, complication, resolution. They learn to paint characters and settings with powerful noun groups, to make characters talk with correct dialogue punctuation, to organise ideas into paragraphs, and to edit like a professional. The unit ends with each learner planning, drafting, editing and publishing their own story.
🧭 Why it matters: Every joke you tell, every 'guess what happened at the beach' — that's you telling a story, and this unit teaches you how the best storytellers make people lean in instead of drift off. When you know how stories work, you can make someone laugh, gasp or feel exactly what you felt, just with words. And clear writing means being truly understood — in messages, cards, speeches, anywhere words matter — for the rest of your life.
Big ideas
- Stories have a structure: an orientation that sets the scene, a complication that creates the problem, and a resolution that sorts it out
- Writers choose words deliberately — a well-built noun group puts a picture in the reader's head
- Punctuation and paragraphs are signals to the reader: who is speaking, and when the idea changes
- First drafts are never finished — real writers edit, and editing is where writing gets good
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9E3LA03 · AC9E3LA04 · AC9E3LE03 · AC9E3LA07 · AC9E3LE05 · AC9E3LY06
Start this unit →Place Value Powers: Numbers to 10,000
Learners build four-digit numbers with materials they can touch, discover how our whole number system is built on grouping by tens, and use that structure to compare, order and calculate. Every lesson moves concrete → pictorial → abstract, because eight-year-olds reason best about what they can see and handle — and every lesson opens by remembering the one before, because a number fact you can pull back out of your own head is one you actually own.
🧭 Why it matters: Big numbers are everywhere in your real life: the price of a bike you're saving for, your step count, the crowd at the footy, the views on a video, the kilometres on the family car. When you can read them, compare them and add them in your head, nobody can trick you — you'll know if $238 plus $347 is enough, whether your high score really beat your friend's, and what those huge numbers in the news actually mean. This unit turns big numbers from mystery squiggles into something you're the boss of.
Big ideas
- Our number system groups in tens: 10 ones make a ten, 10 tens make a hundred, 10 hundreds make a thousand
- The value of a digit depends on its place — and a zero is a place, not nothing
- Numbers can be partitioned flexibly, and flexible partitioning makes calculation easier
- Estimate first, calculate second: a rough answer in your pocket catches a wrong exact answer at the door
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9M3N01 · AC9M3N03 · AC9M3N06
Start this unit →Hot Stuff: The Science of Heat
Learners investigate heat the way scientists do — with their own hands, in their own kitchen and backyard. They discover that heat is a form of energy made by the sun, by friction and by electricity; that heat always moves from warmer things to cooler things; and that some materials let heat race through while others slow it to a crawl. Along the way they learn the single most important skill in all of science: the fair test. The unit ends with a genuine design challenge — engineering a container to keep an ice block frozen as long as possible.
🧭 Why it matters: Heat is part of your day whether you notice it or not — it's why the car door handle burns your hand in summer, why your lunch stays cold in a cooler box, and why an oven mitt saves your fingers. Once you know how heat moves, you can keep an icy pole frozen at the beach, pick the shady spot on a scorcher, and help your family save power (and money) at home. This is knowledge you'll use every single hot day for the rest of your life.
Big ideas
- Heat is a form of energy — it can be produced by the sun, by friction and by electricity
- Heat always moves from warmer objects to cooler objects, never the other way
- Materials matter: conductors let heat move quickly, insulators slow it down
- A fair test changes one thing, measures one thing, and keeps everything else the same
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9S3U03 · AC9S3I01 · AC9S3I02 · AC9S3I03 · AC9S3I06
Start this unit →My Community, Our Stories
Learners investigate the place they know best — their own community — like real historians and geographers. They ask inquiry questions, read old photos and maps as sources, learn whose Country their home is on and why Country matters to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples today, discover who makes the rules and decisions that shape their neighbourhood, and curate a Community Museum Exhibition to share what they've found. Every lesson starts from somewhere the learner can stand, walk or point to, because eight-year-olds reason best about places they can actually see.
🧭 Why it matters: You live somewhere real — a street with stories under it, on Country that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have cared for over tens of thousands of years. Knowing whose Country your home is on, and why your town looks the way it does, turns an ordinary walk down your street into something much more interesting. And when something matters to you — a broken swing, a tree worth saving, a skate park your suburb needs — you'll know exactly who decides and how to have your say.
Big ideas
- Every place has layers of stories, and sources — photos, maps, objects, people's memories — let us uncover them
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have been connected to Country for tens of thousands of years, and those cultures and connections are living and continuing today
- Communities work because people make, follow and change rules and decisions together
- Good inquiry starts with a good question, and every claim needs a source
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9HS3K01 · AC9HS3K04 · AC9HS3K07 · AC9HS3K06 · AC9HS3S01 · AC9HS3S02 · AC9HS3S03 · AC9HS3S05
Start this unit →Backyard Champions: Practise, Play Fair, Feel Great
Learners train the way real athletes do — not by being 'naturally talented', but by running deliberate practice loops: pick one cue, try ten goes, check, tweak, go again. They master the overarm throw, catching under pressure and striking, using self-checking cues so they can coach themselves without a teacher in the room. Then they zoom out to what makes games worth playing: fair play, honest calls, and umpiring your own games — including the big discovery that fair doesn't mean identical. A wellbeing lesson reframes sleep, movement and screen balance as a champion's secret weapons and introduces the feelings weather report. It all builds to the unit finale: a family sports day the learner designs, umpires and runs from whistle to medal ceremony.
🧭 Why it matters: Every game you'll ever play — backyard cricket at Christmas, handball at the park, netball or footy on Saturday — gets better when you can throw, catch and strike with confidence, and when everyone trusts the game is fair. This unit hands you two superpowers you'll use for life: the practice loop, which can improve ANY skill you ever want (sport, music, drawing, anything), and the umpire's eye, which lets kids run brilliant games with no adult needed. And because your body and brain are your only equipment, you'll learn how sleep, moving every day and a feelings check-in keep them running like a champion's.
Big ideas
- Skill comes from practice, not from 'natural talent' — the practice loop (pick a cue, try, check, tweak, repeat) improves any skill
- Cues let you coach yourself: a good practice has one focus, honest counting and a just-right level of challenge
- Fair play means honest calls, agreed rules and a fair go for everyone — and a fair go is not the same as identical treatment
- Sleep, movement, screen balance and noticing your feelings are how champions look after the one body and brain they get
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9HP4M01 · AC9HP4M02 · AC9HP4M04 · AC9HP4M07 · AC9HP4M08 · AC9HP4P01 · AC9HP4P06 · AC9HP4P10
Start this unit →My Place, Five Ways
Every artist starts with an idea. In this unit the idea is one every learner already owns: MY PLACE — a backyard, a beach, a balcony, a creek, a kitchen. Learners take that single idea on a journey through all five art forms: they compose a picture of it (visual arts), compose the sound of it (music), devise a scene and a movement piece that bring it to life (drama and dance), and photograph it as a five-frame story (media arts). Along the way they meet Australian artists who did exactly the same thing with their places — painters, composers, dancers and photographers — and the unit ends with a Five Ways Exhibition where family become the opening-night audience. Making first, every lesson, with materials already at home.
🧭 Why it matters: You already have the one thing every artist needs: something to say. This unit hands you five different ways to say it. By the end, when you feel something about a place — or a person, or a day, or anything — you won't just feel it. You'll know how to compose it, sound it, act it, move it and frame it. That's not a school trick; it's how humans have shared what matters for tens of thousands of years, and it's yours for life.
Big ideas
- Artists plan: an artwork is an idea that has been shaped on purpose, using the tools of its art form
- The same idea can live in a picture, a piece of music, a scene, a dance and a photo story — each form tells it differently
- Australian artists across all forms have always made art about their own places — and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists have been doing it here longest of all, and still are today
- Responding to art means looking and listening closely, then saying what you notice and what it makes you feel — with reasons
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9AVA4E01 · AC9AVA4E02 · AC9AVA4D01 · AC9AVA4C01 · AC9AVA4P01 · AC9AMU4E01 · AC9AMU4C01 · AC9AMU4P01 · AC9ADR4C01 · AC9ADR4P01 · AC9ADA4E01 · AC9ADA4C01 · AC9ADA4P01 · AC9AMA4E01 · AC9AMA4C01 · AC9AMA4P01
Start this unit →If, Then, Build: Branching Algorithms and Designed Solutions
Learners move from instructions that simply run in order to instructions that DECIDE — the branching if / then / else that sits underneath every game, every app and every self-checkout. They write a choose-your-own-adventure and test it on their family, draw flowcharts by hand, then learn debugging as a proper method: predict, run, compare, isolate. From there they collect real data at home, represent it, and discover what every representation quietly hides, including how a picture becomes nothing but numbers. The unit ends with a designed solution for a real user — define, design, make, test, iterate — with a design journal that records the failures as carefully as the wins. Every lesson works with paper, cards and bodies: no device required, ever.
🧭 Why it matters: Every time a game asks 'do you want to save?', a self-checkout says 'unexpected item', or a lift decides which floor to visit first, someone wrote a decision into an algorithm. This unit lets you in on that secret — and it turns out you can write decisions on paper, with a pencil, today. You'll also learn the thing that separates people who fix problems from people who give up: when something breaks, you don't guess and you don't panic. You narrow it down. And by the end you'll have designed something for an actual person in your house, tested it on them, and made it better because of what they told you. That is exactly what engineers, game makers and inventors do — you'll just be doing it at the kitchen table.
Big ideas
- An algorithm can make a decision: a condition is checked, and exactly ONE branch runs
- Bugs are normal and findable — debugging is a method (predict, run, compare, isolate), not guessing
- Data is collected and represented by people, so every representation shows some things and hides others
- Designing means solving a real problem for a real user, and only the user can tell you whether it worked
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9TDI4P02 · AC9TDI4P04 · AC9TDI4K03 · AC9TDI4P01 · AC9TDE4P01 · AC9TDE4P02 · AC9TDE4P04 · AC9TDE4P05
Start this unit →Konnichiwa! First Steps in Japanese
Learners take their first real steps in Japanese: the five vowel sounds that unlock the whole sound system, the even beat that makes Japanese sound like Japanese, greetings for every time of day, a three-part self-introduction they can actually perform, numbers one to ten, and their first ten hiragana characters written with correct stroke order. Alongside the language sits documented, respectful cultural learning — how greeting and bowing work, what an ordinary school and home day looks like in Japan — always compared honestly with the learner's own day. Because ParkSyde cannot play sound, pronunciation is taught in a written code that stays the same all unit, and every lesson sends the learner to say it out loud with their helper.
🧭 Why it matters: Australia and Japan are close neighbours and long-standing friends — Japan is one of our biggest trading partners, hundreds of Australian schools have sister schools there, and Japanese is one of the most-taught languages in the country. So yes, this is useful. But here is the better reason. Learning a second language quietly rewires how you see your first one: you start noticing that English has bizarre rules you never once questioned. And somewhere around Lesson 4 there is a moment — a curly little character like あ sitting on the page — when you stop decoding it and simply read it. Not translate. Read. That moment is why people learn languages, and it is much closer than you think.
Big ideas
- Every language is a system with patterns underneath it — once you find the pattern, the learning speeds up dramatically
- Japanese is built from five steady vowel sounds and even, equal beats, which makes it one of the most predictable languages in the world to pronounce
- Meaning does not move word-for-word between languages; some ideas need a whole new expression rather than a swap
- Writing is a code somebody invented — Japanese uses three codes at once, and hiragana is the one that opens the door
- How a community greets, counts, eats and writes tells you what that community values
Curriculum alignment (AC v9)
AC9LJ4C01 · AC9LJ4C02 · AC9LJ4C03 · AC9LJ4C04 · AC9LJ4C05 · AC9LJ4U01 · AC9LJ4U02 · AC9LJ4U03 · AC9LJ4U04
Start this unit →Full year scope
English
Narrative craft, persuasion, and reading to learn
Mathematics
Place value to 10,000, multiplicative thinking, measurement
Science
Heat, living things and life cycles, Earth's place in space
Humanities and Social Sciences
Community, citizenship and Australia's First Nations histories
Health and Physical Education
Skill mastery, fair play and personal wellbeing
The Arts
Ideas into artworks across five art forms
Technologies
Branching algorithms and designed solutions
Languages
First steps in an additional language