Home Learning

Homework:

Homework across the school will feature two different elements each week. One of these will be retrieval element, where children will have the chance to practice some of the skills that they have learnt in class that week. These will be things that they have been taught, and will hopefully be able to complete independently. The other will be a preview element, where they will look ahead at something they will learn the next week. This may be a section of text to read, a mathematical method to look at, some research to complete or another type of activity. There may also be spellings sent home to learn or other learning relevant to your child.

This will be sent on a Friday and expected to be handed in by Wednesday. Homework will be set on Seesaw and should be handed in on Seesaw, where I will look at and acknowledge it. On Friday lunchtimes, children will have the chance to attend a homework club to enable them to complete their homework in school with some support from a school adult. This is voluntary for all children, but if you feel they would benefit from attending, please encourage them to do so.

If children do not complete their homework or it is of a poor standard, this will be completed during a Thursday lunchtime. If children do not complete home reading or forget to bring in their reading diary, they will spend Friday breaktime reading in a classroom. This is a good chance for the children to develop organisation skills and self-motivation before the increased homework expectations at secondary school. Please support them to do this by enabling them to have greater independence at home with managing homework and reading diaries.

Reading:

In Tawny Owls, we hope that all children will develop a love of reading. We have a wide variety of books in the library for children to read, and welcome books which are brought in from home. We ask that children read at least three times a week at home, for fifteen minutes or more, but hope to see more time spent reading. This needs to be recorded in the reading diary, which should be signed to confirm that the reading has taken place. Reading diaries will be checked every Monday, so must be brought to school each week. A reward system is in place across Y5/6 in which children are entered into a half-termly raffle draw for reading at home (this must be recorded and signed by an adult in their reading diary to get a raffle ticket). They have the chance to select from a range of different books if they win the raffle.  Please encourage your child to read regularly at home. Reading is critical for their learning in all areas of the curriculum. 

In year six, it is not necessarily expected that all children will read aloud to an adult at home, although this can still be beneficial to continue to develop fluency and performative skills such as expression. Most children will be reading independently the majority of the time, but parents can still support this by discussing what has been read. The below document gives a number of questions linked to our in-school VIPERS approach which focus on the key skills of reading (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising). In addition, please continue to share books with and read to your children to encourage a love of reading. If they can see how much you value reading, they are bound to be keen readers themselves!