Homework
Each term, we share a Home Learning Grid filled with creative and engaging activities for children to explore at home. This approach gives families the flexibility to choose what works best for them, while encouraging independent learning and curiosity.
Children are asked to complete at least three activities from the grid over the course of the term. They can choose any combination, complete them in any order, and take their time, there’s no pressure, just plenty of opportunity to learn and enjoy!
Please ensure your child continues to bring their reading books to school every day. We also ask that children read at home each morning or evening. This regular practice helps build confidence, fluency, and a lifelong love of reading.
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Home Learning
In addition to set homework tasks the following home learning activities are recommended as they strongly support children’s development, learning and academic success:
The value of reading and shared story times – we encourage all our pupils to read and share books daily and are happy to send home books on a regular basis to promote shared reading experiences. All readers are encouraged to read for short periods daily, with the support of an engaged adult, to promote their phonics application, decoding skills, inference and comprehension. Levelled reading books, targeted to the child’s reading ability, will therefore be sent home weekly for all our ‘readers’ and we encourage all parents and carers to set aside time to support this independent reading e.g. by asking key Qs regarding plot or character, by defining new words, by prompting the use of reading skills to manage unknown words e.g. reminding children to use their phonics knowledge to sound out unknown words, and by supporting one to one correspondence in younger children as they follow each letter/word with their finger, sounding out as they go.
In addition to children’s own reading development it is imperative that children receive plenty of opportunities to enjoy reading for pleasure through the sharing of books and stories with adults or older siblings. There is often no greater pleasure than creating an intimate time daily, often before bed, to snuggle down and share a book together, allowing young children to handle the book, turn pages, explore illustrations etc, and to hear stories being told allowed, discuss characters and events and relate to own experiences. We therefore advocate, that in addition to daily independent reading, all children share stories at home daily, and are happy to help by loaning books for shared reading to families. Staff are happy to advise parents regarding reading development and how best to support young children’s reading throughout the school year.
The value of play - Children learn through play. Play provides them invaluable opportunities to explore and practice their developing skills, knowledge and understanding of the world in a safe and protected way. Opportunities for rich play experiences that allow for creativity, imagination, interaction, talk and exploration of the wider world are therefore crucial to child development and are strongly encouraged at school and home. Staff are happy to advise parents and carers on ideas for quality play at home, through the school year.
The value of talk – Studies show direct correlations between children’s vocabulary and their educational ability. Children therefore need rich and varied opportunities to talk to engaged adults, and peers whenever possible through the school day and at home. Opportunities for talk support children’s receptive understanding, their ability to express themselves, their ability to interact and explain. Family meal times are a fantastic way to promote daily opportunities for quality talk and throughout evenings, weekends and school holidays try to ask your child lots of engaging open questions that stimulate thinking – give them opportunities to detail, describe and explain their ideas, engage in two-way conversation to promote social understanding, debate and challenge through the exploration of new ideas and the modelling and use of new words and interesting vocabulary.