Homework

Our Intent

Educational research shows that homework can have a positive impact on pupil outcomes when carried out effectively (+3 months in primary and +5 months in secondary), and is most effective when linked to classroom learning and involving digital technology (+6 months).

Source: Education Endowment Fund

At Kings Priory School, our approach to homework has been designed with this research in mind. We believe that, in order to be effective, homework should:

be set only when it is meaningful to do so as part of our curriculum sequencing;
be clearly linked to in-class learning in order to review or consolidate pupils’ knowledge and skills (our ‘Consolidation Curriculum’ );
provide optional opportunities for pupils to extend their learning by exploring their own interests within a subject area (our ‘Extended Curriculum’ ) and by doing so, foster a love of learning;
be accessible to all pupils, with clear equality of opportunity;
be commensurate with pupils’ ages and help pupils to develop their own study habits and become more independent learners over time;
contribute to a culture of praise within the school, through our rewards system and ClassCharts.

Diagram showing the breadth of the curriculum

Sharing Homework

One of the biggest challenges in managing homework effectively is how homework is communicated between school and home. We understand that from an organisational perspective, many parents would find it convenient to have a homework timetable to build routine and so that you know what tasks you should be expecting your child to work on. However, in practice, this does not meet the intent behind homework setting, namely that homework should be a part of the overall curriculum sequencing and occur at the right time for its usefulness in learning, not because ‘history happens to fall on Tuesday period 2’.

In order to bridge this gap, we have mapped homework expectations across subjects, and also year groups, so that you can see in a given half-term what your child is likely to be working on. In some cases, these tasks will be weekly, for example, KS2 pupils will have Reading Plus tasks and Year 7 pupils will have Sparx Maths & Sparx Reader homework set and weekly vocabulary in modern foreign languages. In other subjects, tasks will be at the appropriate time within the curriculum and we use SeeSaw (Primary) and ClassCharts (Secondary) to share the dates of specific homework tasks with parents and pupils.

Each subject page on this website begins with a homework mapping diagram, which sometimes link to Learning Journeys or other resources. So please do download those files if you want to explore those links. This is how you can see what Extended opportunities are available for pupils to choose from, alongside our curriculum sequencing.

Support

We support pupils in completing their homework by:

sharing homework on Seesaw so that pupils and parents know what is expected, including tasks and details;
providing access to IT facilities within school for those pupils who may not have such access at home, in order to ensure no pupil is disadvantaged by access;
providing access to homework clubs where pupils can complete homework.

If you have any queries relating to homework or SeeSaw, please email the office and staff will direct your correspondence to the right person: first@kps.woodard.co.uk

Rewards

We celebrate pupils’ achievements in the following ways:

by awarding achievement points on ClassCharts;
by showcasing work with the class;
through public acknowledgement in year group and whole school reward assemblies.

Feedback

Pupils will receive feedback on homework through a number of different mechanisms. For example:

some platforms, like Reading Plus, provide immediate on-screen feedback;
through review and retrieval activities during lessons;
through assessment activities;
by reviewing vocabulary;
through whole-class feedback and showcasing;
by teacher assessment.

Consequences

Pupils are encouraged to complete homework within the given time. We want to encourage pupils to do this as we believe it is important to encourage independence and good habits for future years. If pupils from Year 6 and below fail to complete a mandatory homework task, the class teacher will talk to the pupil about why this has happened. They will provide a time for this work to be completed, during the school day. If this continues, class teachers will communicate with parents and work collaboratively to review why homework is not being done.

Support

We support pupils in completing their homework by:

using Pupil Learning Journeys to share the curriculum structure so that pupils know what to expect and when;
using ClassCharts to share tasks details and deadlines;
providing access to IT facilities within school for those pupils who may not have such access at home, in order to ensure no pupil is disadvantaged by access.

If you have any queries relating to homework or ClassCharts, please email the office and staff will direct your correspondence to the right person: middle@kps.woodard.co.uk or senior@kps.woodard.co.uk

Rewards

We celebrate pupils’ achievements in the following ways:

by awarding achievement points on ClassCharts;
by showcasing work with the class;
through public acknowledgement in year group and whole school reward assemblies.

Feedback

Pupils will receive feedback on homework through a number of different mechanisms. For example:

some platforms, like Sparx, provide immediate on-screen feedback;
through review and retrieval activities during lessons;
through assessment activities;
by reviewing vocabulary;
through whole-class feedback and showcasing;
by teacher assessment.

Consequences

If pupils from Year 7 and above fail to complete a mandatory homework task, a behaviour point will be added to ClassCharts so that parents are aware and pupils will be set a lunchtime detention by that department, during which the pupil will complete the missing work. If a pupil fails to attend the department detention, they will be escalated to a Senior Staff detention at lunchtime.