As a parent or carer you can play a vital role in your child’s education, including homework.

Weekly homework tasks can be Open-ended Creative Homework, Talk Time Homework and occasionallyPractice Makes Perfect Homework. Find out what the most recent homework task is by choosing from the list below You can help by encouraging, discussing ideas and by ensuring your child has a good working space at home. Please contact your child’s class teacher or the Operational manager with any questions or concerns.

As well as the weekly homework task, your child is expected to learn spellings from a weekly list (again, you can find the current list here). Learning the spellings for just a short time each day is more effective than leaving it all to the last minute.

Reading on a daily basis is also expected.  Reading aloud with an adult is important throughout the primary years. Even if your child is a fluent reader, having a discussion about the story (for example, the characters’ personalities and actions, the ‘wow words’ used by the author) is a valuable way to develop reading skills.

For children in Year 3 to Year 6, practising times tables is also extremely important: by the end of Year 4, children should have a rapid recall of times tables facts and also be able to say the division facts too eg 7Ч8=56 and therefore also 56ч7=8. ‘Rapid recall’ should be within around five seconds – they should not have to count through the tables facts to get there!

Parents / carers are invited in to school occasionally to view homework by pupils in the class – this is an opportunity for children to develop their speaking skills and to feel proud of their achievements.

Spellings

Practice learning spellings in preparation for a Friday spelling test is important.
Y1 – Y2: 6 – 10 words
Y3 – Y6: 8 – 12 words
Spellings might relate to tricky words, high-frequency words, or important spelling rules / patterns. Daily practice for a short while is more effective than last-minute ‘cramming’ on Thursday night.

Top Tips:
Parents / carers could also work with the child by using the words in written sentences or stories (to also practice handwriting and punctuation) or even in conversations (speaking and listening for the words).

Times Tables (Y2 – Y6)
Times tables facts should be known by the end of Y4 – this means being able to say the answer to a multiplication or division question (up to 10Ч10) within five seconds. Practice learning tables in preparation for a Friday tables test is important – don’t forget that division facts should also be known.

Daily practice for a short while is more effective than last-minute ‘cramming’ on Thursday night.

Top Tips:
Parents / carers should work with the child by working out different strategies and ‘top tips’. Practice in the car, walking to school etc all helps. Chanting forwards, backwards and alternating as you count through can all help InshaaAllah.

Reading

We stress the importance of reading. This could be fiction, non- fiction, magazines, websites, instructions. Reading to your child (or sometimes a story tape) is really valuable for all children, so even a bedtime story counts!
A variety of different reading activities and texts is important for your child to broaden his / her skills. A minimum of 10-15 minutes daily reading is expected.

Top Tips:

Reading aloud to an adult is encouraged, even for older children. Also very important is discussing the texts with the child eg asking questions about the characters in a book, the layout of a factual book and the views of a website or magazine.

Creative homework
This involves a creative piece of open-ended work based around an ‘I can…’ statement eg
’I can use research skills to find out about a country.’
’I know how instructions are used’ Only one rule: don’t use more than one page of A4. Content will be a balanced mix of subjects.

Top Tips:
Be as creative as you like!
Talk with your child to generate ideas:
Could the homework be in the form of a poster, a letter, a comic strip, some writing, a PowerPoint…? Could it use photos, drawings, fold- out ‘extras’ on the page…?

Talk Time homework
 This involves a discussion topic eg ‘Should animals be kept in zoos?’ Children should make notes (even pictures, diagrams etc) ready to participate in a class / group discussion on the topic.

Top Tips:
Turn the telly off!
Sit around the dining table!
Have a chat and share opinions and ideas! Children should talk with family, friends and each other. (Your child might want to make some notes in their Homework Books.)

Practice makes Perfect homework

This might be less frequent than the other two pieces, but sometimes a worksheet or series of questions might be useful to develop skills and speed eg
practising column addition.

Top Tips:
Take care not to confuse your child! This homework will be given out when the teacher knows your child can do the work using a particular method taught.

You can help by asking your child to explain the method and encouraging him / her to check answers

Weekly Expectations
Children will be required to complete some work handed out on Friday, to be returned on Wednesday.
The homework should take a minimum of around 30 – 40 minutes and could be carried out over a few days.