05 June 2015
This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. Please make sure it is handed in by Wednesday 10 June; there are a few children forgetting to hand their books in.
I know the days of week, months of the year and seasons in order.
15 May 2015
This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Wednesday 20th May 2015.
‘Who do you think you are?’
This week, we want to know all about you and who you think you are. We’re going to be asking this question all week (beginning 22.05.15), thinking about our individuality, how we are different to those around us and how we belong to different communities.
Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing…
- life journey
- family tree
- self image
- art work/poetry/report
- quiz
08 May 2015
This week’s homework is talk time.
Why do we need instructions?
Please make sure your child is ready to talk about this on Wednesday 13 May.
01 May 2015
This week’s homework is creative homework. Please make sure it is handed in by Wednesday 06 May.
Design a home for “Nothing”. How are you going to keep him safe?
When you are thinking about your design, remember:
- what does he need to keep him safe?
- what is important to him?
- gadgets and toys are not things that he needs
- think about all the things that you have learnt in the past two weeks
24 April 2015
This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. Please make sure homework is handed in by Wednesday 29 April.
In maths this week, we have been learning about fractions. The homework is all about halving – remember that using objects can always help if your child is struggling. It is also useful to make sure that they know that they are dividing by two or sharing into two groups.
20 March 2015
This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. Please make sure it is handed in by Wednesday 25 March.
It is maths practice this week looking at grouping and sharing.
There are practical activities you could do to help your child understand this process:
- sharing sweets amongst the family
- grouping objects into groups of 2, 5 or 10
- playing cards where a number of cards have to be dealt to each person – How many were there altogether? How many does each person have?
- serving food eg potatoes – How many potatoes do we have? How many people? How many potatoes will they get each?
13 March 2015
This week’s homework is talk time. Please make sure your child is ready to talk about this on Wednesday 18 March.
- Is it right that some people are homeless?
- Why might they be homeless?
- How would it feel to be homeless?
27 February 2015
This week’s homework is creative. Please make sure it is handed in by Wednesday 04 March.
What would be your perfect house?
What would it look like? Where would it be? What would be inside?
Don’t forget there is a drop in session on Wednesday 04 March at 2.45 pm. This is an opportunity for you to see how we review homework and give feedback.
Supporting your child’s maths at home
This article is a thought-provoking read, and might inspire you to support your child in different ways; in it, Professor Jo Boaler sets out this list of top tips for parents who want to support their child in Maths:
- Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games at home. Anything with a dice will help them enjoy maths and develop numeracy and logic skills.
- Never tell children they are wrong when they are working on maths problems. There is always some logic to what they are doing. So if your child multiplies three by four and gets seven, try: “Oh I see what you are thinking, you are using what you know about addition to add three and four. When we multiply we have four groups of three…”
- Maths is not about speed. In younger years, forcing kids to work fast on maths is the best way to start maths anxiety, especially among girls.
- Don’t tell your children you were bad at maths at school. Or that you disliked it. This is especially important if you are a mother.
- Encourage number sense*. What separates high and low achievers in primary school is number sense.
- Encourage a “growth mindset” – the idea that ability changes as you work more and learn more.
- For younger children, the ‘five-ness’ of five and then the ‘ten-ness’ of ten is really important: five fingers, five toes, five displayed on a dice, five split into 4 and one more, five split into three and two…
- For older children, if they are asked to add up 27 and 16, when they have number sense they can break the numbers apart and use them flexibly – take three from the 16 and add it to 27 to make 30, then add on the remaining 13 to make 43.
Number sense is not something you can get from simply being given an extra worksheet for homework – it develops from play, discussion and observation of number in the world around them.
More homework? No – more encouragement
We had a record number of parents / carers who attended parents’ evenings this week – thank you to all who showed up.
A small number of parents asked for more homework. Please bear in mind we asked your views about homework in the Annual Survey last year, and the findings were quite mixed: some thought there was too much whilst about the same proportion thought there was not enough. The majority agreed with us: the amount of homework we set is about right.
Taken from our Homework Policy, this is our rationale for giving homework:
Educational experience that a school by itself provides is limited; children benefit from wider, complementary experiences out of school. However, some prompts and guidance from school can direct these experiences and develop greater learning. We see homework as an important example of cooperation between teachers and parents / carers. An aim of our teaching is to promote independent learners; homework is one of the ways in which children can acquire the skill of independent learning.
We recognise the importance of quality family time; this policy should help to promote opportunities to be creative rather than labour over frequent worksheets or carry out activities that pupils and / or parents / carers may not understand.
Whilst homework develops children’s learning and independence, quality family time, play and free time are also important. Homework should not prevent children from taking part in wider activities such as those offered by out-of-school clubs and other organisations. Children develop their interests and skills to the full only when parents/carers encourage them to make maximum use of the opportunities available outside school.
Also in our Homework Policy is this statement:
We believe the frequency of homework set out here provides the right balance for pupils and meets the expectations of most parents (whose opinions we sought in the Annual Survey, 2014). Staff may occasionally provide additional homework; this will amount to two or three extra pieces across the year. As an alternative, staff will be happy to suggest to parents other ways they can support their child’s learning at home.
Please do not expect extra homework for you child to be set as a matter of routine. Governors want to protect teachers work / life balance, but – importantly – we believe extra homework would not be helpful for most pupils.