William Brookes School & Sixth Form Parental Guide to Home learning
Why do we set home learning?
Home learning (homework) is an integral part of effective teaching and learning at school. The Education Endowment Foundation, who are an educational charity focussing on meta-research to judge the effectiveness of different teaching and learning strategies, drew the conclusion that: ‘On average, the impact of homework on learning is consistently positive (leading to on average five months’ additional progress)’ (annual).
Know your subject Improve Memory
Techniques
Revision
What does home learning look like?
- Spaced learning – repetition of factual knowledge.
- Multiple choice questioning – electronic systems to check understanding.
- Vocabulary – tasks designed to embed pupil understanding of tier three words.
- Reading – reading comprehension, inference, and analysis.
- Writing – description, explanation, analysis and evaluation.
KS4 & KS5 pupils should expect exam questions and other extended reading and writing tasks to be part of the home learning tasks set.
Home Learning Frequency
Year 7, 8, 9
| Subject | Teaching time per fortnight | Home learning frequency |
|---|---|---|
|
English |
6 |
1 per week (30 minutes) |
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Maths |
6 |
1 per week (30 minutes) |
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Science |
6 |
6 per half term |
|
French / Spanish |
4 |
1 per week (15 minutes) |
|
History, Geography |
4 |
3 per half term |
|
Art, RS, ICT, Music |
2 |
2/3 per half term |
|
Performing Arts rotation |
2 (half a year rotation) |
1 per half term |
|
DT rotation (Product design, creative enterprise, DT Food) |
2 (3 subject rotation) |
2 per half term |
Additional home learning:
Recommended two 20-minute reading sessions per week of accelerated reading books.
Recommended two 20-minute Knowledge Organiser and Golden Questions revision tasks per week.
KS4
| Subject | Teaching time per fortnight | Home learning frequency |
|---|---|---|
|
English |
8 – year 11. 10 – year 10 |
1 per week (30 minutes) |
|
Maths |
8 |
1 per week |
|
Science |
6 |
Averaged at 1 per week |
|
French / Spanish |
4 |
1 per week (30 minutes) |
|
Product Design, DT Food, Business studies |
4 |
1 per week (30 minutes) |
|
Option subjects |
4 |
1 per fortnight – 30 minutes in length. |
Additional Home learning:
- Recommended two 20-minute reading sessions per week.
- Recommended 3 20-minute Knowledge Organiser and Golden Questions revision task per week.
KS5
All subjects have 9 teaching hours per week. Each subject should set up to 5 hours of home learning weekly. The average pupil will have 15 hours of home learning.
There are 5 hours of directed study periods on a typical Sixth Form pupil timetable. They should use this time to complete home learning tasks as well as complete additional revision activities and produce lesson summary notes (10 hours). The recommended outside lesson ‘learning’ is 20-25 hours.
Sixth Form pupils there should make use of the following resources to aid revision such as:
- Knowledge organisers.
- Golden questions.
- Directed study revision strategy booklet.
- Write up subject notes and create topic flash cards.
- Use model answers and implement the blurting technique to practise exam papers.
- Knowledge Organisers are available on our school website.
- Knowledge Organisers categorise, clarify, and condense the Golden Knowledge of a particular topic and arranging the information into a user-friendly format.
- Pupils should use them as revision aids.
These questions are designed to retrieve Golden Knowledge. These questions have derived from the knowledge organisers. They can be set as home learning tasks, used to shape a do it now task as well as support a pupil’s revision. For additional home learning, a pupil could download both the knowledge organiser and the golden questions for a topic and have a go at answering them. Teachers may set golden questions as part of their home learning assignments.
All home learning tasks will be set through Microsoft teams.
Pupils will receive a notification that an assignment has been set.
How pupils use team’s assignment:
- Pupils should download the teams app and log in using school email/password.
- Pupils should check teams daily. On the ‘general page’ teachers will place the lessons on there to allow for pupils to access lesson PowerPoints & resources. These lessons will be accessible for pupils in reintegration or pupils who are ill and as a consequence absence from school.
- If a home learning assignment is set, pupils will see a red number on the ‘bell’ icon. Pupils should click on this and follow the instructions from there.
How parents view pupils home learning?
Parents can access pupils home learning assignments via Haldor Homework. You will need to download the app.
For the first time logging on you have to create a password for your Haldor-account.
- Click on Forgot your password?
- Enter your email and click Submit.
- You will receive an email with a link where you can create a personal password. If you haven’t received the email, please check the junk mail folder!
- When you have chosen a password, go to parent.haldoredu.com or download the mobile app Haldor Parent and log in using your email and new password.
What other platforms do teachers at William Brookes School use?
As teachers we use various different platforms to support the setting of home learning tasks. When a teacher uses one of the platforms below the expectation is to set the link and any explanation necessary via Microsoft teams.
Pupils can access the tasks set on these platforms via a link in their Teams Assignment.
| Platform | Subjects that use the platform | How to video, A parent guide |
|---|---|---|
|
Microsoft forms This is a quiz platform used to check knowledge. |
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Maths watch Pupil login is the first part of their email address: looks like 20achadwick@wbs The password for all is ‘multiply’. |
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Seneca https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/ Pupil log in: If your pupil is unable to log in to Seneca, please can they check that they are using their school email address, it will look something like this: 22jbloggs@wbs.318education.co.uk Their password can be reset from the main log in screen. This will send an email to the inputted email address so you will need to log in to SharePoint / Outlook to access this email – it may go into the junk folder; however, the email link may expire. I recommend that using the ‘log in with google / log in with Microsoft’ links – to not use these, as it will apply the log in information on the computer they are logged in to. Pupils should then be able to access their classes from the main homepage. |
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Sainaptic |
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Memrise Free website – Pupils need to create their own username and password to access this. |
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Blooket Free website. Pupils need to create their own username and password to access this. |
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Please be aware the above table is not exhaustive.
Dependent on the task set, the teacher will incorporate some form of checking for understanding of the home learning in a future lesson. This will come through the ‘Do it now’ task or through questioning.
Some home learning tasks will formulate part of the formal assessment process and will involve the teacher taking the work in (if written) and giving formal written feedback.
The teacher will also check and reward pupils for completion of home learning through Arbor where a subject house point will be issued.
Pupil does not submit HW 1:
- Teacher should issue a warning to the pupil(s) and give an extension at their discretion. Log onto Arbor as ‘Failure to complete HW1’. This will have a 0-demerit weighting.
- If a pupil fails to meet the extension deadline at HW 1 – a subject detention will be set whereby the assignment will be completed.
Pupil does not submit HW 2:
- Teacher should issue a subject detention whereby the assignment will be completed. Record on Arbor.
Pupil does not submit HW 3:
- Teacher should make contact via email to parent/carer and issue a further subject detention. Referral to also to be made to Head of Year.
