03 February 2012
Your homework this week is a mixture of creative and talk time combined and is due in on Wednesday 08 February.
I can talk about an animal from either the Arctic or Antarctic.
Next week, we are having a session called ‘Just A Minute’ in class. Children have been asked to prepare a talk that they will give to the rest of the class about an animal who lives in the Arctic or Antarctic. This talk is to last one minute and has been set to develop the children’s skills as confident and creative speakers. The children will need to research facts about their chosen animal and rehearse their speeches at home to build up their confidence.
Any materials they prepare to help them – maybe a bullet point list as a memory aid – must stick to the homework rules of not going over one page of A4.
Our homework policy
Our Homework Policy was written to support and engage as many learners as we can, and to provide opportunities for others – family, friends – to support in a positive, constructive way. It’s great to see more and more children are putting more and more effort into their homework. Recently, a few parents have asked about expectations. I hope the following will clarify what we can expect and what you can expect:
Talk Time
Teachers have noticed that, in some instances, a lot of time has been taken on the presentation of the Talk Time homework. Children are welcome to do this although it is not necessary. The purpose of Talk Time homework is to encourage a conversation around their current learning. Any notes made in their homework book should simply be there to aid them as a prompt when it is discussed in class the following week. For this reason, teachers tend to give verbal feedback during their talk time session in class. We want our children to be expert talkers, using a variety of sentences and expressions, and able to back up their points or disagree with others in a polite way – this is more important than written notes for Talk Time. Simply: it’s hard to be a good writer if you’re not a good speaker, so Talk Times using ambitious words, useful phrases, interesting sentences is the best way to support your child.
Creative
This is where your child’s creative juices can flow! Creative homework is an opportunity for your child to choose whatever they want to demonstrate some learning. For example, the Y3 and Y4 homework this week is Creative: I can show what I know about food chains. Your child could present all their learning in so many different ways, from a diagram with notes to a story or comic strip. Parents’ and carers’ role is to support, encourage, help but (obviously) never to take over and do the homework! Teachers always look forward to seeing how creative children can be. If you notice the work has not been marked, please don’t worry. Teachers will have looked at and celebrated the homework in another way – the work might have been viewed by the whole class using a visualiser which allows the work to be projected to the whole class and a discussion of ‘stars and steps’ will happen. Peer assessment is also effective – children are very able to share what’s good and what needs improving! These sorts of verbal feedback strategies are often more effective than a written comment because it’s more instant and it makes sure the child understands (and their work is praised publicly!).
Practice makes Perfect
This is similar to what you might consider traditional homework: it may be a worksheet or a writing task (such as Y5’s current homework: I can write instructions). Practice Makes Perfect is useful homework when something has been taught in school but needs consolidation. The work should be fairly straightforward for the child as there should be no need for new learning, so just some encouragement from you is needed. However, it would be a great time to get your child to teach you – they should be able to explain the key points or processes! We use this type of homework less often because usually the best practice is where a teacher can keep feeding back and presenting new challenges when they see it as appropriate. Teachers mark these activities in line with our marking policy.
As always, please ask if you’ve any questions or concerns.
27 January 2012
Your homework this week is Creative and is due in on Wednesday 01 February.
I can design a brand new animal that would suit living in the Arctic.
Think of all the work we have done in class about how animals have adapted to living in the polar regions.
Think of the following:
- habitat map
- position in food chain
- shelter/safety
- food the creature eats and how it gets it
- predator or prey?
- camouflage and colour
- teeth
- feet and eyes
- any other special features
You can include writing and labelled drawings to show your learning.
20 January 2012
Your homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 25 January 2012.
I can invent and make a page of a study book to show people how to write a great scripts.
Think of the following:
- How the page should look so it looks like a study book or important bits book.
- How you are going to make it creative and interesting to read.
- What information will you include to help your reader learn about scripts?
- What tips will you give to your reader?
- If you’re producing information about scripts, include stage directions, character lists, how many acts to include and how your actors speak and move.
13 January 2012
For all children in Year 1 to Year 6, the homework this week is Talk Time:
Which two charities should we support at school and why?
It’s time for children to think about our school charities. Currently, we support the NSPCC and the WWF. A previous School Council selected these because they wanted to help animals and people, and wanted to help nationally and internationally. We’ve helped these charities for two years now, so it’s time for a change. We need you to have a discussion at home about which charities would be best for us to support. Each class will then discuss this and then the councillors will bring the views and ideas together to decide on the charities.
You might want to discuss whether we support a local charity like St Gemma’s, or a children’s charity like Unicef, or a charity that have helped our learning, like the Dogs’ Trust, or even whether we should support charities in school at all.
06 January 2012
Your homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 11 January 2012.
I can produce a piece of work for our Snowbound display.
Create a piece of work about snow, ice or being snowbound. Your work could be:
- Art work about snow or ice
- Collage or a collection of snow vocabulary – in other languages, too, perhaps
- Poetry
- Recounts or reports of snowy days
- Weather forecasts
- Your own idea
For this homework activity, your efforts should not go in your homework book. It should be bright, colourful, attractive and ready to be put up on display.
25 November 2011
Homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday 30 November.
I can show all I know about Mount Olympus and the Ancient Greek Gods.
Remember to be as creative as you can.
You could produce some writing, art work, a story, a newspaper report or your own creative idea. Have fun!
11 November 2011
This week homework is Practice Makes Perfect.
I can work out range, mean, mode and median.
We’ve been learning how to work out averages and ranges in class in maths. We need a little more work on it to make the learning secure.
Children have been learning how to find the mode, mean, median and range of a set of numbers and have been given some work to complete at home to supplement their learning in school.
All information needed to complete the work is on the sheet that has been given to the children.
Homework is due in on Wednesday 16 Novemebr.
04 November 2011
Your homework this week is creative and is due in on Wednesday November 09.
I can show what I learnt at the Leeds City Museum.
Homework is to produce a piece of work showing what they learnt on their trip to the museum. Encourage your child to focus on the learning that took place in the Ancient Greek Workshops and the Ancient Worlds Gallery.
This piece of work could be:
- A recount
- A report
- Annotated drawings
- A fact file
- A leaflet
- Another idea, even more creative!
Remember, homework should stick to one page of the Homework Book, but the page can be extended with flaps, pull out sections etc.
It’s the holiday…
…so there are no homework or spellings.
However, there are lots of ways you can support you child’s learning, first and foremost by visiting our Help Your Child section.
There are lots of things to do in or near Leeds, from geo-caching on Monday to a spooky Halloween walk on Sunday. Here are a few other ideas to fill the October half-term holiday with activities…
- take your child for an autumnal walk in Roundhay Park to collect chestnuts for a game of conkers or autumn leaves for an autumn collage;
- on a cold, autumn day, stay indoors and spend time baking (What unit of measurement will we use to weigh? If we want to make twice as much, how much will we need? When will the food be ready?);
- take a trip to Leeds Art Gallery – the Damien Hirst exhibition should prove a great opportunity for lots of discussion, description and possibly disagreement!
- and, as always, enjoy some relaxing reading (why not read some Tintin stories from a local library in preparation for the forthcoming film?)
School re-opens on Tuesday 01 November 2011 (following a training day on Monday 31 October 2011).
