Welcome, designed for the middle-primary moment
Year 3 and Year 4 sit in a developmental sweet spot, the children can self-regulate enough to follow longer routines, but the friendship dynamics start to bite and the academic pressure ramps. Grade 3 & 4 is 39 weekly bundles tuned for this exact moment: lessons that build SEL skills explicitly, scaffold friendship repair, and quietly raise the academic stakes through play.
Same five-lesson shape every week, Overview, Play, Written, Exercise, Gratitude, designed to fit your literacy block, HPE rotation or wellbeing time.
Standards mapping, Victorian Curriculum 3–4, RR and CASEL
Every lesson is dual-mapped to the Victorian Curriculum F–10 (Levels 3 and 4) and the ACARA Australian Curriculum. The Respectful Relationships (RR) Topics 1–6 are addressed across the year, with explicit RR specials available outside the weekly bundles.
- Victorian Curriculum, Personal & Social Capability (Levels 3–4), HPE, Critical & Creative Thinking, English: Speaking & Listening.
- ACARA HPE 2.0, Movement and Physical Activity, Personal, Social & Community Health.
- Respectful Relationships, Topics 1 to 6, with Topic 6 (Positive Gender Relations) introduced in age-appropriate language.
- CASEL 5, every lesson maps to one or more of the five SEL competencies.
- AITSL Standards 1.1, 1.3, 3.5, 4.1, 6.4 supported for your annual reflection portfolio.
Your first week, a real Year 3/4 timetable
Year 3 and Year 4 children can hold a rhythm without scaffolding. Run a single bundle in week one:
- Monday first session, Overview video + Play game (20–25 min). Move outside if you can.
- Tuesday literacy, Written game (15–20 min) inside your normal writing slot.
- Wednesday brain break, Exercise game between subjects.
- Thursday HPE or wellbeing slot, re-run the Play game or trial a variation.
- Friday end-of-day, Gratitude ritual. Five to ten minutes.
The friendship-dynamic year
Year 3 and Year 4 are the years where friendship maps redraw fast. The Grade 3 & 4 program has a recurring "Repair" thread that gives children a vocabulary and a script for resolving friendship pain, what we call the "tiny repair" framework. Look for it in the Written and Gratitude lessons in weeks 12, 22 and 31.
For high-achievers and reluctant participants
Every game has a "stretch" prompt for the children who finish first and want more. For reluctant participants, prefer the Written and Gratitude sections as low-arousal anchors and ease them back into Play through partner roles before whole-group ones. The Special Education curriculum shares the same shape with three differentiated PDFs (Levels A–B, C–D, F-3) if you have an inclusive classroom.
Bringing parents along
Year 3 and Year 4 parents tend to ask "are you doing actual learning?" Hand them the Family Guide (print from this page) and the Standards Mapping page in the same email, the dual-mapped codes do the convincing.
When a game does not land
Three near-universal fixes:
- Hand the game to a student to model. Year 3/4 children would rather watch a peer than a teacher.
- Run it again, the second round is where the play emerges.
- Move it outside. Most flat sessions are flat because the floor is too small.
Questions about the curriculum
Email support@theschoolofplay.co or open the chat on the home page. We can help with anything to do with running the program, sequencing, planning, or scaling across year levels.
