In order that our pupils can attain the highest standard, we recognise the crucial importance of an active educational partnership between home and school. The setting of home learning activities is just one of the ways in which we seek to foster this partnership.  Please feel able to talk to your child’s class teacher if you have any questions relating to this.

Home learning helps students by:

• complementing and reinforcing classroom learning
• fostering good lifelong learning and study habits
• providing an opportunity for students to become responsible for their own learning
• developing self-regulation processes such as goal-setting, self-efficacy, self-reflection and time management
• supporting partnerships with parents by connecting families with the learning of their children

Home learning should not be a chore but children should see it as an extension of their school work. We see home learning as encompassing a wide range of possibilities including reading with a parent or carer to visiting an area of interest to support topic work.

The nature of home learning

At Keep Hatch, we recognise the importance of building fluency for key skills, such as reading and discussing texts, times tables and key number facts. Additionally, teachers may set a task each week to provide children with the opportunity for extra practice for a new skill or to deepen knowledge. These tasks will either be placed on Teams or sent home on paper with your child. The aim of this format is to allow children to deepen their experience of the planned curriculum in conjunction with their families.  Spellings are now being learnt within school on a regular basis rather than being sent home.

We do expect children to read daily with an adult and a record of this should be kept in the child’s home reading record.  We also encourage parents to read to their child on a very regular basis all the way through primary school.

It is important that when expecting and setting homework there are a number of points to consider:

• The nature and type of homework changes throughout a pupils school career.
• Amount and frequency of homework will increase as a pupil gets older but this may also vary through the school year and be appropriate to the ability of the child.
• Homework should not cause undue stress on the pupil, family or the teacher.
• It will not necessarily come in the form of a written task.

The role of parents and carers

It is vital that parents display a positive attitude towards home learning and support their children in the completion of the tasks set. It is also important for parents/carers to recognise that it is the children’s responsibility to complete the work set.

In Years R, 1 and 2, we expect pupils to complete their home learning tasks, but no formal sanctions will be put in place if not completed. There will be an increasing expectation that home learning is completed in Years 3 to 6.

If parents/carers have any problems or questions about the home learning set, they should in the first instance, contact the child’s teacher.