Year 3 is quietly one of the best teaching years in primary HASS. The content turns toward things students can touch — their suburb, their school, the war memorial near the shops — and the curriculum hands you a genuine inquiry: whose community is this, and how did it get this way?
It’s also the year the learning area gets structurally bigger. In the WA Curriculum, civics and citizenship begins in Year 3, joining history and geography (economics and business arrives later, in Year 5). That makes Year 3 the first year you’re juggling three sub-strands — which is exactly why it pays to understand the codes and plan the year as a deliberate sequence.
The codes, decoded
Year 3 HASS codes follow the standard WA anatomy — prefix, year, learning area, strand, number (if that anatomy is new to you, the code-decoding section of our complete WA Curriculum guide covers it from scratch). Two families matter most:
| Code | What it covers |
|---|---|
WA3HAKUH1 |
Knowledge and Understanding — History: how the local community changed, and the role of different cultural groups (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) in shaping it |
WA3HAKUH2 |
History: days and weeks of significance, and Australia’s symbols and emblems — ANZAC Day, NAIDOC Week, the flags, the coat of arms |
WA3HAKUH3 |
History: the community-focus description that anchors the local inquiry |
WA3HAKUG1–4 |
Knowledge and Understanding — Geography: Australia’s natural features, neighbouring countries, similarities and differences between places, and change in the local area |
Alongside knowledge sit the skills codes, which carry the inquiry: WA3HASKQ1–Q5 (questioning and researching — posing questions, locating sources, recording information, using ethical protocols), WA3HASKA1–A3 (analysing — sequencing events, spotting points of view, drawing conclusions) and WA3HASKE1-style codes (evaluating and communicating findings). A good Year 3 program touches the skills codes every term, while rotating the knowledge focus.
A year-shaped plan
A structure that works — one sub-strand emphasis per term, skills threaded throughout:
| Term | Unit focus | Lead codes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Our community’s story — past and present (cultural groups, symbols, celebrations) | WA3HAKUH1–3, WA3HASKQ1–3 |
| 2 | Community history inquiry (sources, reliability, timelines) | WA3HAKUH1–3, WA3HASKQ4–5, WA3HASKA1 |
| 3 | Australia and our neighbours (natural features, neighbouring countries, local change) | WA3HAKUG1–4, WA3HASKA2–3 |
| 4 | Active citizens in our community (community groups, local government, taking action) | WA3HAKUC series, WA3HASKE codes |
Notice the history content codes repeat across Terms 1 and 2 — that’s deliberate and legitimate. The content descriptions are year-level statements, not single-use items; Term 1 builds the knowledge, Term 2 deepens it through formal inquiry skills.
A term’s worth of lesson ideas: “Our Community’s Story”
Here’s a Term 1 sequence of eight lessons you can lift and adapt — each maps to the codes above.
- What do we already know? KWL brainstorm on the local community’s history. Students pose inquiry questions for the term (
WA3HASKQ1). Frame each lesson in the sequence with a clear WALT and WILF — our learning intentions guide has Year 3-ready examples. - First peoples of our local area. Who are the Traditional Owners of the Country your school stands on? Use your sector’s Aboriginal education resources and local sources; invite a community speaker if protocols allow (
WA3HAKUH1). - Who built our suburb? Investigate the cultural groups visible in the community — street names, churches and temples, restaurants, clubs. A walking excursion or photo hunt works brilliantly here (
WA3HAKUH1). - Compare two communities. Pair your suburb with a contrasting Australian community (a mining town, a coastal town over east) and compare how cultural groups shaped each (
WA3HAKUH1). - Australia’s symbols and emblems. Flags, floral emblems, the coat of arms — what they mean and who they represent (
WA3HAKUH2). - Days that matter. ANZAC Day, Australia Day, NAIDOC Week, Harmony Week — how and why communities commemorate them, including the different perspectives people hold (
WA3HAKUH2). - Becoming researchers. Students gather information about one local place or group from photos, books, websites and a family interview (
WA3HASKQ2,WA3HASKQ3). - Our community’s story, told by us. Students record findings in graphic organisers and assemble a class “mini-museum” or story map — which doubles as your assessment artefact (
WA3HASKQ3,WA3HAKUH3).
Assess the mini-museum pieces against the Year 3 HASS achievement standard, calibrated with SCSA’s Judging Standards samples — the inquiry work is the assessment, no separate test required.
Three traps to avoid
- Teaching “celebrations” without perspectives. The symbols-and-days content (
WA3HAKUH2) lands properly when students hear that days like Australia Day mean different things to different Australians — that’s age-appropriate in Year 3 and it’s where the real thinking happens. - Generic Aboriginal content. Name the local language group and Country. “Aboriginal people lived here” is not local history; whose Country your school is on, is.
- Skills as an afterthought. The
WA3HASK…codes are the assessable spine of HASS. If your term plan can’t say where students posed questions, evaluated a source and communicated findings, it’s a content tour rather than an inquiry.
Planning a full term of this — lessons, slides, differentiated worksheets, all coded correctly — is exactly the grunt work Bindi automates for WA teachers, with Year 3 HASS units like these built in. But code-mapped or hand-written, the unit itself is a gift: every street your students walk down is primary-source material.