HOMEWORK POLICY
At Streatham Wells we aim to:
- Foster relationships between home and school and encourage parental involvement and responsibility in their children’s learning
- Promote the idea of education as a partnership between home and school, in order that our children see the two as working together in a mutually supportive way.
- Allow children the opportunity to pursue and/or consolidate school initiated activities at home in a purposeful and productive way.
- Enable each child to pursue and/or consolidate learning beyond the school day with the support and individual attention available from their parents/carers.
- See homework as one way of ensuring that we encourage the highest expectations of our children in developing their intellectual and/or practical skills and abilities in partnership with the home.
- Ensure the right to homework is available to all children without favour, in an equally accessible way.
- Encourage our children as they get older to develop the confidence and self-discipline needed to study on their own, and to prepare them for the requirements of secondary school.
The role of Parents/Carers:
Parents/Carers should be encouraged to:
- Provide a reasonably peaceful, suitable place in which their children can do their homework.
- Help their children to organise homework routines and time management.
- Make it clear to their children that they value homework and support the school in explaining how it can help their learning.
- Encourage their children and praise them during their homework.
- Offer advice and guidance but not complete work that children should be doing unaided.
Agreed Approaches
Foundation Stage:
Although there are no formal kinds of homework provided by our Foundation Stage team, there are plenty of ways that you can support your child’s learning at home. Advice on ways to support your child at home is provided at the beginning of each half term in the class newsletters.
In the Foundation Stage, ‘homework’ means involving children in everyday activities such as shopping, cooking, sharing a story, discussing the school day and following children’s own interests.
Sound books with letter sounds and sound sheets as used in Jolly Phonics will be sent home for parents to practise with their children.
Your children will be able to choose books to read at home. Each of our children is provided with a Streatham Wells book bag free of charge. In Reception, children will also have a reading record book, which parents/carers and teachers can use. Books are changed regularly.
Key Stage 1:
- Homework will be related to Literacy, Numeracy or Topic work.
- All homework is linked to work that has already been covered in class.
- For all children, reading will be the most important aspect of their homework and books will regularly be sent home in book bags. Parents will be asked to comment on their child’s reading in the reading record book.
- As well as reading, our Year 1 children will be given additional homework every half term.
- As well as reading, our Year 2 children will be given additional homework once a week.
- Children from Years 1 and 2 will occasionally be set projects linked to particular times of the year e.g. designing an Spring hat.
- Enjoyment is vital to learning and no child should be asked to work for too long or to struggle over any set work that is too difficult.
- It is very important that young children have a structure for their homework, a regular time and place. This should also mean that parents will take an interest, encourage and, more often than not, work alongside their children.
Key Stage 2:
All of our children in Key Stage 2 are provided with a Learning Log.
- As children get older, the frequency and duration of homework increases but homework activities should still, as far as possible, be enjoyable.
- Parents/Carers are still expected to hear their children read and then comment in their reading records. Children will be given more literacy tasks as they become more fluent in their reading.
- Work will often be related to learning objectives covered during each week.
- Children will be asked to learn spelling rules and not just a list of words.
- Homework Clubs are run every day during lunchtimes from 12.40 – 1.10pm in the Rainbow Room.
- It is important that our children have a set time and place to work at home, and we would recommend that the practice of good work habits is necessary and a good preparation for the transfer to secondary education.
Research based projects will occasionally be set for each year group in Key Stages 1 and 2 during the academic year.
Recommended Time Allocations for Homework
These recommended times are taken from the DfEE (Department for Education and Employment) publication entitled: ‘Homework Guidelines for Primary and Secondary Schools’.
Years 1 and 2 1 hour per week
Years 3 and 4 1.5 hours per week
Year 5 and 6 2.5 hours per week
Please note that these are only guidelines. It’s also important to remember that, as our children work so hard at school, they also need time to have fun and pursue other activities that are not part of our school curriculum.
Inclusion
Targeted homework support is available, by arrangement, for children with specific needs e.g. children with English as an additional language or as part of our Learning Mentor support.
Homework tasks will be set by class teachers from mid-week to mid-week e.g. Tuesday – Monday. Please check with your child’s class teacher for specific arrangements. This then gives our children the opportunity to have ‘homework free’ weekends in order to join in family activities or to pursue other interests.
Reviewed March 2010
Next Review March 2012