HOMEWORK POLICY GUIDELINES
The Department of Education has now given schools the flexibility to set their own policy for homework our staff team believe that homework is one bridge that connects parents, children, and their teachers.
The overarching goal of homework is to enhance school-based education experiences and promote the attainment of our pupils. Homework is assigned in accordance with the needs and abilities of individual students and in support of specific curricular areas. Homework reinforces and strengthens the home/school connection while reinforcing the skills and concepts learned at school. Through homework, parents learn about the curriculum and can talk to their children in a meaningful way about what they are learning. Homework also teaches children responsibility and good work habits. Homework is designed to be an age-appropriate, successful experience.
Reading at Home
Our school strongly promotes the love of books and reading at home. Parental support is key to the success of our reading program. To continue to build a community of learners, it is critical that children spend time reading. Independent reading provides children an opportunity to apply reading strategies independently and sustain reading behavior. It challenges our children to solve words on their own while reading age appropriate texts. Independent reading promotes fluency and builds confidence. It also strengthens children’s vocabulary and writing skills. To support this we have an extensive library of books across our school which is enhanced by My On, a virtual library linked to our reading system, Accelerated Reader where children can choose books to read within their level.
Our teachers assign homework on a regular basis and expect all students to complete assigned work in a timely manner.
We continue to follow previous department for education guidelines ( pre 2012) as we believe that this level of homework enables pupils to maintain good study skills and habits at an age appropriate level whilst being manageable for families and staff. Wherever possible, a week is given for tasks to be completed. We use a range of online, practical and paper based activities so that a range of learning styles can be supported.
Government guidelines on homework give a broad indication of the type of activities and how much time pupils of different ages might reasonably be expected to spend on homework. For children at primary schools the guidelines are: Years 1 and 2 1 hour per week Years 3 and 4 1.5 hours per week Years 5 and 6 30 minutes per day. In addition to this, a school we are extremely committed to reading and allocate time within the school day for the children and we expect children to read daily at home.
Cross-curricular Homework
Cross-curricular Homework
Dear parents / caregivers,
At Whittingham C of E Primary School we strive to provide the children with the best teaching and learning opportunities and events. We are also reflective and responsive to how we best achieve this for all. As such, we recently held a Homework Consultation meeting on the 3rd September to explain how we approach homework and the importance of it, as well as provide an opportunity to gain your views.
From this - matching our own views - it was felt that having homework opportunities that reflected the whole breadth of subjects would be good.
Therefore, we have created a Cross-Curricular Homework plan that covers the entire academic year. Within this, you will see that every subject has a time to be the focus as well as it providing lots of opportunities for creativity, explanation and exploration to take the children's learning further. The homework activities that are set are to do over each of the half-terms. Children are expected to bring in their work on the last day of each half-term where we have allocated time on these days to show-case our work in school and reflect on our learning. They will then take their projects home again at the end of that school day.
As ever, if you have any questions or need anything clarifying further then please feel free to get in touch with us.
On behalf of all the staff at Whittingham, many thanks,
Mr Charlton