Home learning expectation at St. Peter’s:

The Education Endowment Fund Teaching and Learning Toolkit (2018) tells us that, “Overall, homework in primary schools does not appear to lead to large increases in learning.” When it is done poorly, the children learn nothing, teachers have unnecessary marking and parents have the battle to get it done on their hands. If, however, schools create a system that allows pupils to work on small, targeted chunks of learning at home, it can have an impact. This is especially true when parents are engaged in the process. This research underpins our homework expectations – i.e. focused, manageable and effective. Below is an overview of the home learning expectations at St. Peters. Whilst we appreciate that it will take time to read and implement the instructions below, weekly home learning for the remainder of the year will be accessible and effective.

Reading:

Throughout the first full week of each academic year, all children will be establishing routines and settling in. In the spirit of this this, until the end of the first week, we do not begin our usual home learning schedule.

Following this establishment phase, in the second week, your child will begin to bring home a reading book. If you are in EYFS or KS1 this will be a book from our reading scheme. The national curriculum says that pupils should be taught to read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words. As such, at St Peter’s, early readers are allocated purely decodable books, enabling children to feel successful from the very beginning.  Your child will not encounter words that include phonics they have not been taught within EYFS or KS1.

The school’s main reading scheme is ‘Oxford Reading Tree’. Reading books within EYFS, Yr.1 and Yr.2 are changed once a week on a Friday.  All children will receive a minimum of one book a week which has been carefully selected by their class teacher - we firmly believe that reading must be practised so will ensure the book that we provide reflects what your child can comfortably read. These books must then be returned on Thursdays.

All children will also have the opportunity to take home a school or class library book. This is a reading for pleasure book. You may find that this is a book your child cannot independently read so we would invite you to share this book as a family. Unlike the scheme reading books, we are happy for these books to be kept over several weeks as they tend to be longer.

St Peter’s has high expectations of home reading as set out in the expectations of home learning document on the website. Home reading must be recorded in your child’s Reading Record. We expect children to be reading 4x a week minimum and this can be recorded by simply writing the date and signing. Comments are encouraged but not mandatory, especially for those strong, confident readers who are simply asking you to sign to state they have read independently.

We place huge emphasis on reading. As such, Reading Records must be handed in so that we can track and support both parental engagement and reading progression. Reading records must handed to the class teacher each Thursday and will be returned each Friday signed by their teacher.

Example of how to fill in a reading record:

It is important to note that your child’s school reading book is not the only book that you can enjoy with your child. Please continue to share high quality picture books, audio books, magazines and poetry with them.

Reading books in school

Pupils in KS1 and EYFS should only bring their reading book into school on a Thursday. We have multiple copies of the same book and so we can always easily read with your child from their given text. However, for pupils in KS2, we now ask that all children in KS2 bring their reading book in daily. This could be a book from home or from school and should they wish to leave a book in school, they are welcome to choose to have reading separate books at home and school.

Spelling (Year 1 to 6 only):

Spelling and word knowledge are key components in the process of learning to read and write. Spelling Shed is a website that makes the acquisition of these key skills fun and engaging for pupils. As a school, we use this online spelling platform for the weekly spellings. Each week, on Monday, children will be assigned 10 spellings on Spelling Shed, which they can practise using a variety of Spelling Shed games. On the following Monday the class teacher will test the children on these spellings.

The first spellings will be assigned on Monday 12^th September

Maths

Maths Home Learning – Years 1-4:

Maths home learning can be exclusively accessed via Maths Shed (a separate page on the spelling shed website that uses the same username and login). Simply, click on Maths Shed and then Assignments to access your child’s home learning and games

Year 1:

Each week, your child will have one game (a one-minute quiz of number facts such as number bonds). Your child may attempt the game as many times as possible, and we recommend 3-5 times per week as it is the perfect opportunity to improve their maths fluency.

Years 2-4:

Each week, your child will have one quiz (some questions based on their learning from the classroom) and one game (a one-minute quiz of number facts such as times-tables and number bonds). Your child may attempt the game as many times as possible, and we recommend 3-5 times per week as it is the perfect opportunity to improve their maths fluency.

If your child would like additional home learning in maths, log on to Times Tables Rockstars. Their username and password will be sent out in their reading journals alongside their Spelling/Maths Shed username.

Maths Home Learning – Years 5-6:

In upper key stage 2, we will be using a platform called Atom Prime instead of Maths Shed in order to set additional home learning for maths and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS).

At some point over the next week, you will receive an email with the details of your child’s account and these will also be stuck in their reading record with their other logins. You can also create your free Atom Prime Parent Portal directly from your child’s account. Your Parent Portal will allow you to access your child’s login details at any time and be able to view their progress.

Children will be set two home activities to do based on their class learning - one in maths and one in GPS. Atom Learning is an adaptive platform which means questions will become more or less difficult depending on how your children is performing. Intervention before a question has been attempted will only lead to the next question being overly challenging. The platform also provides a help sheet and an instructional video if children are stuck, as well as explanations after each question of how to work out the answer correctly. If children are really stuck on a question, they can select ‘I’m not sure’ and their teacher will see this when they look at the transcript of their homework on their portal.

Children will find the homework that they have been set on their homepage when they log in, under the heading of ‘To do list’