One of the ways we make sure Moortown Primary has the highest standards is by carrying out lots of regular monitoring and evaluating. This includes:
- observing lessons – a chance to see teaching and learning in action across a whole lesson, or at least most of it
- learning walks – a tour around school to spend about 5 – 10 minutes in each classroom
- book scrutinies – checking pupils’ books, so that we can monitor things like children’s progress across the year and teacher’s marking
- surveys – these include parent surveys in Summer and pupil Feedback Forms twice each year
A lot of the monitoring and evaluating we carry out is by our own staff, but we also like to welcome people from other schools so we know we have an objective opinion. Recently, for example, the headteacher from a local school conducted a learning walk around our school, and then I visited her school to do the same (visiting other schools can be really helpful, too). On Friday, a local authority advisor is visiting to carry out book scrutinies in Maths and English with Mr Wilks and Mr Owen.
Recently, we conducted a review of homework in school. To this this, we gathered together three Homework Books from all the classes and placed them all in a row so we could evaluate progression across the classes. We then looked more closely at progress within each book.
Because homework is something that you have a direct connection with, we thought you might like to hear our conclusions.
What is progress like across all year groups, from Y1 to Y6?
To do this, we looked at whole-school creative homework (on a health theme), November 2015.
Teachers felt there was progress across the year groups. Whilst it didn’t always appear very obvious, closer look at content showed more knowledge and/or skills (eg presentation, grammar, more accurate scientific facts) being demonstrated as children got older, and that this knowledge and/or skills was from a wider range of subjects, so children are making links across subjects more readily.
Teachers noted that older children tend to do more digital homework – it appears that for older children there is a wider range of creative approaches.
Teachers noted that parents were more involved with younger children’s homework, whilst older children carried out their homework more independently.
Some teachers felt there wasn’t a significant difference in terms of progression, but this might stem from the greater independence.
What is progress like within year groups, from September to January?
Teachers looked at the same child(ren)’s homework book, comparing from September to January.
Because of the range of homework activities and the open-ended nature of creative homework tasks, it was often hard to identify in-year progress. There were some good examples of books where handwriting and presentation improved, and some other examples where the length of the homework was increasing over time.
Other aspects which improved over the first half of the year include spelling, grammar, content, creativity.
What is the content of the homework like?
The quality of work produced varied depending on the motivation of the child. Teachers noticed some children whose homework doesn’t reflect their attainment in school – where homework is impressive, there is often evidence of parents’ support without them actually doing the task. (There were some instances when homework was actually of a better standard.)
Teachers felt there was a good balance of tasks and subjects. One teacher noted that English might not feature as often as some subjects, so teachers agreed to be even more aware of this. Another spotted a series of Creative tasks, and so again, teachers agreed to be aware of getting a balance over time.One teacher noted that the importance of quality homework should be emphasised. Our current homework reviews on Wednesdays in class are the best opportunity, but teachers agreed to explore ways to reinforce homework even more.
It is not our policy to provide written feedback (the homework review sessions have been observed by the headteacher and by parents this year, and they provide a good time to review and reflect). However, some teachers do mark homework, and do so very well.
How do we meet the needs of individual pupils?
All teachers were able to describe times when they vary homework tasks to meet the needs of pupils. Sometimes, this might be around a similar learning theme and other times the task might be completely different.
Differentiated tasks appear to be more likely when the homework is Practice Makes Perfect. Teachers agreed to continue to differentiate to meet needs and interests – even for open-ended tasks. Also, they were instructed to be aware of the range of contexts at home and consider alternatives when some tasks might prove difficult / impossible eg research tasks.