Uncategorised

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 2011

This week’s homework is Creative and is due in on Wednesday 01 February.

I can show what I know about food chains.

The children this week have been learning about food chains. This is their chance to explain  the food chain process. They can do this any way they want, but here are a few ideas if you’re struggling:

• a comic strip
• a diagram
• a recorded interview with a food chain expert
• a diary entry written by an animal at the top of the food chain

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, so feel free to add your own ideas into the mix. A really good resource (which we’ve used this week) to help with your child’s understanding of the food chain, can be found on the BBC Bitesize website.

27 January 2012

Spellings this week are to tie in with our Arctic Habitat learning, which is part of the Snowbound Big Topic. Choose ten words from the list to learn and be tested on next week.  Spellings will be tested Friday 03 February.

• omnivore
• herbivore
• carnivore
• predator
• consumer
• producer
• organism
• mammal
• amphibian
• reptile
• environment
• habitat
• Arctic
• Antarctic

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.

27 January 2012

This week, the spellings are words where the e has to be dropped when adding ing.

Children will be tested on the words in the ing column. They will be tested on eight out of the ten words on Friday 3 February.

27 January 2011

This week’s spellings are all verbs in the past tense that end with ‘ed’.

The suffix ‘ed’ features in a lot of past tense verbs which will help your child with their narrative writing at the moment.

27 January 2012

Like last week, we’re practising words which have split diagraphs.  The last ‘e’ in the words isn’t a sound that we say, but it works with another letter to change, for example, slim (with a short ‘i’ sound) to slime (with a longer ‘i’ sound).

These will be tested on Friday 03 February.

27 January 2012

This week’s homework is creative. It’s due in on Wednesday 01 February.

I know what a hero is.

It links to our new topic, Heroes. Your child could produce a:

• poster
• draw a picture
• write some sentences
• do some research

Remember, homework should stick to one page of the Homework Book, but the page can be extended with flaps, pull out sections or some other creative way.

27 January 2012

This week’s spellings are words with the ‘igh’ letter pattern which creates a long ‘i’ sound. Your child will be tested on Friday 04 February 2012.

• high
• night
• height
• light
• right
• fight
• tight
• light
• might
• sight

Great effort from everyone!

This is just one of the comments that was made about the Year 1 assembly on Thursday 19.01.12.

Well done to all of the children for making a great effort in the assembly; the confidence and pride was very evident throughout the assembly.

“Really well done, a confident, happy and relaxed class and it showed!”

Another parent commented: “Excellent confident voices. Well done! I’m scared of the wolf.”

We would like to say a special well done to…

• Manya for learning a lot of words: she was so confident and took the responsibility of learning her words.
• Haider showed that he can stand up in front of people and speak confidently and he has asked for more words next time!
• Luke and Owen for their very clear speaking voices.

“Another great example of all the children participating with great confidence and such positive peer review.”

Well done to Year 1 and thank you to all the friends and family who came along to share our assembly.