Through the home learning we set we aim to:

• Foster strong home-school links
• Inform parents about the work children are doing at school
• Provide pupils opportunities for extended practice
• Improve pupils’ attitude to learning
• Help to foster good habits of organisation, independent learning, and self-discipline
• Raise standards

Our aim is to make home learning less onerous and time consuming for children and families, as this can be very counterproductive. The introduction of more talk/ reading based home learning will allow tasks to be completed on the move, i.e. in the car etc. and this will hopefully free up more time to allow for the many other valuable forms of learning that take place at home. It is expected that all pupils will complete all homework, but we do realise that from time-to-time families are very busy and it may not be possible to complete the set homework in a particular week. In these cases, we encourage children to include information about their other experiences outside of the curriculum which might include days out, sporting events or parties.

Home learning supports children’s ability to recall prior knowledge as well as prepare them for new knowledge that they will learn in the week ahead. The allows parents and carers to play an important role in supporting their children to learn. A range of activities will be set to support this.

Every pupil has a home learning book which they cover and personalise at the start of the year. Home learning is given out every Friday (and due in on the following Wednesday unless specified).

What will be included?

Each week, we will ask children to:

• Talk about…

One piece of home learning will be discussion based and will require no recording, just a brief comment to outline what you talked about. Talk home learning will be provided to prepare children for the coming week’s learning or to consolidate learning from the previous week.

• Read about…

One piece of home learning will be reading or research based. We will endeavour to encourage the children to use a range of reading resources, from the internet to newspapers. Skills of enquiry are essential when nurturing lifelong learners. Again, we will just ask you (or your child) to make a note of what they have read.

• Write about…

One piece of home learning will be recorded and we will continue to encourage the children to experiment with a range of approaches to recording.

Some online platforms will be used to support the children to learn. This includes websites such as Century Tech for Maths in Key Stage 2.

In addition to the home-learning set, we recommend that the children read each night for between 5-15 minutes. In Years 5 and 6, reading should increase to include regular sustained periods so that children develop the habit of ‘getting into a good book’. (Reading a few pages every few days inhibits this). Although fluent readers are likely to be reading independently by this age, parents/carers still need to hear them to read out loud to develop their fluency in harder text types. This can either be a book from school, from home, or AR books.

We also encourage children to practise their times tables using the games on Times Table Rockstars.

 

• By year 2, all children need to learn their 2x, 5x and 10x tables fluently.
• By year 3, all children need to continue to practise their 2x, 5x and 10x tables but to also learn their 3x, 4x and 8x tables.
• By year 4, all children need to consolidate their times tables of all times tables up to 12×12 and improve the speed of their recall and learn what the corresponding division facts are. For example, 7 x 6 = 42. Also 42÷ 6= 7

Each week we will award gold, silver or bronze and this will be based on completion of the ‘read about’ and ‘talk about’ home learning, along with the quality of the one recorded piece of learning. If a child consistently fails to complete home learning, this will be discussed with the child and their parents. At the end of each term there will be a home learning reward. To qualify, children will need to have achieved a majority of gold awards, so please use this treat as an incentive!

Our staff hope that you can support us in getting the balance right. We want to work together with you to do help your child be the best they can possibly be and reach their full potential. If you have any concerns or questions about the home learning set, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher.