Home Learning
At Kimpton Primary School, home learning is seen as an essential part of children’s learning. It is a chance to practise skills, consolidate understanding of work covered in school and develop good work habits. However, more important than any of these, it is an opportunity for children to widen their own interests, direct their own areas of learning and develop their thirst for knowledge and love for learning.
To continue to encourage their growth mindset, we are adopting a new approach to home learning. The new approach should give children more opportunities to show their creativity and to take greater control of their own learning. Home learning will continue to be linked to topic work covered in school but instead of collecting it weekly, children will receive the half terms home learning the first week back then they and can then choose which activity they do on a weekly basis.
Some key areas of home learning will continue to run outside of the new home learning framework, to allow the pupils to continue to build the foundations of all their learning. These include reading, spelling and times tables. It is vitally important that every child reads at home every day, as the ability to read underpins all that we do at school and throughout life. Basic number skills, including times tables and number facts, are also essential and need to be practised regularly. The class teachers will let you know which ones are appropriate for each age group.
Pupil led home learning
At the start of a new topic of work, the teachers in each year group will create a ‘menu’ of home learning tasks. The range of tasks will vary and will be determined primarily by the age and ability of the children. The tasks will be differentiated: some will be fairly straightforward to understand and complete and others will be more difficult, require more creativity or involve more higher-order thinking skills.
Over the course of the following six weeks, whilst the topic is being covered, the children will be free to pick and choose which home learning tasks they attempt (with the guidance of the teacher).
The home learning tasks will be presented as a ‘menu’ and will be linked to the theme of the current topic work. The home learning menus for each year group will be clearly displayed on the school website and copies will be sent home with information about the topic. Basic resources (e.g. paper, card etc.) will be available for the children to take home for their home learning and they will have access to a wider range of resources (including computers and art materials) and some adult support at after school ‘home learning clubs’ which will run each week. As the children become more independent and capable of directing their own learning, they may even like to invent their own home learning tasks to substitute for ones on the menu, but they must agree this with their teachers first!
During the course of the topic, the teachers in each class will expect pupils to hand in work, have it reviewed and receive feedback.
At the end of the topic work or term, each class will hold a presentation session where the children can display their completed take-away home learning tasks. This will give children in the class the opportunity to look at the work of their peers and have their own work and effort recognised. Sometimes parents will be invited in to see what the children have achieved. Rewards may also be given out to children who have clearly worked hard on their tasks or succeeded in a particular area.
This new approach will be reviewed after the first two or three topics have been completed. Please let us know what you think.
Please note that in Year 6, for some parts of the year, additional home learning will be set to ensure that they are prepared for secondary school and are gaining the organisational skills required for the next step in their learning journey.
To support parents with any English home learning, you may find the following documents useful in understanding the terminology being used:
What Grammar and Punctuation Skills are Taught in Each Year Group?
