At Wheatlands Primary School we recognise and value the contribution that learning in the home environment can make to children’s education.
It is known that parents are the most important influence in a child’s life. Any educational initiative can only be fully effective if there is partnership between parents, children and providers. This policy sets out the purpose and benefits of home learning and the guidelines we follow when setting home learning activities for our children.
Definition
We view ‘home learning’ as tasks and activities that are undertaken outside of school curriculum time.
Aims:
At Wheatlands we believe that home learning should:
- Involve parents and carers in their child’s education
- Allow children to practise the basic skills of reading, writing and maths which are key for success in life as well as developing knowledge and skills across the wider curriculum
- Complement and extend the learning completed at school
- Encourage children to develop the responsibility, confidence and self-discipline needed to study independently
The Role of Parents and Carers:
The support of parents and carers is essential for children to make the most of their home learning opportunities. Parents and carers can help by:
- Encouraging children to complete the tasks that are set for them, explaining how it can help their learning.
- Providing a suitable place, away from distractions, where children can work.
- Becoming actively involved and supporting their child with the different activities.
- Giving due importance to non-written tasks such as listening to children read on a regular basis and the school’s promotion of reading.
- Assisting with the learning of spellings and times tables.
- Keeping school informed of any changes in the child’s circumstances which may affect learning.
Tasks
It is important to remember that home learning activities can be set in many different forms with different expectations and outcomes, the nature and type of homework changes throughout a child’s school life.
At the start of each term a Homework Grid will be emailed to parents and sent home with the child. This grid includes tasks the child can choose to complete each week linked to learning across the term. Tasks can be presented in many different forms depending on the nature of the activity chosen. ‘Wild Card’ tasks are offered where the child can choose to present anything at all as long as it is linked to an area of learning across the curriculum.
An example of a Homework Grid can be seen here.
Making it Manageable
Homework should not be a stressful experience between parent and child. This leads to poor learning and defeats the whole purpose. Please contact your child’s teacher if this is happening.
Depending on the age/task set homework may be marked together in class.
Children will be encouraged to complete homework tasks through the school’s reward system (rather than being punished for non-completion). No child will be kept in at playtimes to complete homework, if they request to an opportunity can be provided.
Feedback
As a school we recognise the importance of providing prompt and accurate feedback to children, parents and carers on how well home learning tasks have been tackled and the knowledge, skills and understanding that are being developed. A variety of methods will be used to provide feedback, including:
- Immediate feedback by parents during completion of the task/activity.
- Discussion in class where the home learning tasks form part of the class work.
- Through tests such as spellings or times tables.
- Presentation of the home learning activities and projects to the class.
- Displays of home learning activities and projects.
- Written comments from the class teacher.
We are committed to the highest possible level of partnership and are always open to new suggestions on how we can improve.