Parental Involvement

At Haughton St Giles Academy we feel that involving parents in their child’s learning is crucial in ensuring that children make the best possible progress. We try to get parents involved in a number of ways:

​

• Parents’ Evenings/Open Afternoons – Opportunities for parents to come into school and share their children’s work.

• Home/School books – We have introduced a Home/School Link book to improve communication between school and parents/carers. This book comes to school every day and pupils use it to record their homework for the week, spellings and any other reminders.
  Parents can record when their child has read at home and to send any brief notes/messages to the class teacher, where an appointment or phone call is not necessary.
  Staff will use this book to send home any class notes/reminders or direct messages to a parent, again where a phone call or meeting is not necessary.

• Fortnightly Newsletters – Keeping parents informed about what is going on in school.

• Parent Information Evenings – To provide parents with the knowledge and information they need to support their child’s learning at home, e.g. Year 6 SATs evening, EYFS Parent Workshops, Reading Workshops, Outdoor Education and e-safety.

​

Homework Procedure

Aims

• Ensure consistency of approach throughout the school.

• To use homework as a tool to help continue to raise standards of attainment.

• Improve the quality of the learning experience offered to pupils and to extend it beyond the classroom environment.

• Provide opportunities for parents and children to work together in partnership in relation to children’s learning.

• Encourage pupils and their parents to share learning experiences.

• Reinforce work covered in class by providing further opportunities for individual learning.

• To practise or consolidate basic skills and knowledge, especially in Maths and Literacy.

• Encourage children to develop the responsibility, confidence and self-discipline needed to study independently.

• To prepare Year 6 pupils for the transfer to secondary school.

​

The Nature of Homework

It should be noted that homework can be set in many different forms with many different expectations and outcomes. It is important to remember that when expecting and setting homework there are a number of points to consider:

​

• The nature and type of homework changes throughout a pupils school career.

• Amount and frequency of homework should increase as a pupil gets older but this may also vary through the school year and be appropriate to the ability of the child.

• It will not necessarily come in the form of a written task.

• Homework should be set regularly from the Foundation Stage to Year 6.

​

Homework Tasks

Listed below, for each Key Stage are the possible tasks sent for homework. This is by no means an exhaustive list and is open to constant change, although many of these tasks and activities will be used on a regular basis. Homework activities will change to meet the needs of the pupils involved and activities that might be occurring in class. All homework tasks and activities will have a clear purpose and assist pupils in the process of their academic development.

​

EYFS

• Creative tasks and activities

• Home challenges

• Daily reading

• Phonic sounds and high frequency word recognition

​

KS1

• Spellings

• Daily reading

• Times Table practice

• Possible Literacy or Maths tasks

​

KS2

• Reading 3-5 times per week

• Times Table practice – TT Rockstars

• Spellings

• Possible Literacy and Maths tasks

• Research

​

Homework is set on Fridays and returned by Wednesday of the following week. During this time, pupils are encouraged to seek additional help and support from the teacher when required to ensure that they can complete their homework in the given time.

​

General

•  Marking homework is a way of keeping track of who has completed their homework, and giving them feedback. However, marking may be done in a variety of forms, some of which will not be written. Feedback may be given to individual pupils, or to groups of pupils.

• If children are absent due to illness we will not send homework home*. We would assume the child was too ill to work. *Access to virtual lessons will be provided in the event of Covid-19 isolation, where the child is well enough to learn.

• It is not possible to give homework when parents take holidays in term time.

• Parents/Carers who have queries about homework should not hesitate in speaking to their child’s class teacher.

​

​