Homework: A Guide for Parents & Carers Birdwell Primary School

Home Learning Overview

At Birdwell, we want pupils, families and carers to be excited to share their home learning, furthering their knowledge at home. More importantly, being enthused to share that with their teacher and their peers. This is where we believe this new approach will truly thrive!

All home learning will focus on the three key areas of: Reading, Spelling and Times Tables. These three areas are essential for all children to engage with their learning and provide the framework for learning in school to be enhanced.

We have decided to use seesaw for home work based on the success and feedback from teachers, parents and pupils during the time of home learning.

What will my child's work look like on Seesaw?

Below are examples of what home work

Children will be assigned spellings, reading and TT Rockstars homework each week. In addition to this, you will see regular updates about your child's class to discuss with them at home.

This is what homework tasks will look like for the class teacher when the task is first set. Every pupil has a blank above their name showing that they have not responded.

Here is an example that has been responded to. Some children have chosen to write their answers on paper and upload a photo, others have responded directly on an electronic device. Using Seesaw gives pupils and parents flexibility to choose what suits them best.

Home Reading

At Birdwell, we believe that reading for pleasure can be a huge step to unlocking a pupil's potential. We want to encourage pupils to discover a wide range of texts and fall in love with reading and share their passion. Ultimately allowing them to access all areas of the curriculum at their appropriate level.

We believe that using reading records is still the best way for families and pupils to do this, however similarly to home work we believe that using seesaw can help pupils share their reading journey but offer them a variety of ways to do so.

Families have the flexibility to respond by writing in the reading record as normal but then can use all the fantastic features through seesaw such as recording a video or recording their own voice. Video evidence of reading is useful for us as can provide evidence of fluency and the use of expression.

Pupils now have a number of folders on seesaw where they can save their home reading, saving it into either homework or LIRA would help us.

Reading Menu

Our new reading menu will help to provide a variety of activities for you and your child to engage with their reading at home.

These will provide allow you to share reading in different ways with your child in fun and interesting ways.

Complete these on Seesaw electronically or upload images of your child completing these on paper.

What can I do with my child for spelling?

This is an example of what will be sent home. Keep this somewhere safe at home! Pupils can enter their log in details or just use the QR code to log straight in.

Pupils can select words from different stages. The stage should match up the year group that they are in, but pupils can choose to spell words from earlier stages to build their confidence and review words that they are still struggling with.

Pupils can decide for themselves their own difficulty level ensuring that their spelling homework is never too difficult for them.

If pupils select the easiest setting they will be shown the correct spelling and a definition

They will then be given the correct letters jumbled up that they have to spell out in the correct order.

As the difficulty increases more and more letters are added. On the extreme level the pupils will get no visual prompts and will only hear the word being read and will then have to spell the word out from a full keyboard of letters.

Here is an example of a pupil who has played the game and spelled some words correctly and some incorrectly. Teachers, parents and carers can see how words have been misspelled so they can help address the issue and give extra practice to those words.

How can I support my child to improve their times tables?

To encourage parents and carers to support learning times tables at home we have a paid subscription for Times Tables Rockstars (Year 1-6) and Numbots (EYFS and Year 1). Pupils will access the software in school, but they will also be given log ins so that they can practice at home.

To encourage parents and carers to support learning times tables at home we have a paid subscription for Times Tables Rockstars.

Pupils will have accessed the software in school, but they will also be given log ins so that they can practise at home.

Using TTRS, we select specific tables that we want the pupils to work on. We also use the ‘HCAT maths on a page’ and each pupil’s ‘personalised heatmap’ for guidance on what times tables the children in our classes need to be focusing on.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if my child has forgotten their login for Seesaw or Times Table Rockstars?

All class teachers have access to their logins for both digital platforms. If you child requires a new login, these can be easily given to your child.

Will my child get into trouble for not doing homework?

No, children will not be in trouble if they have not completed a task. Of course we would like to encourage families to engage in extending their learning and reading at home. We do offer lunchtime homework clubs for anyone unable to complete their homework to offer support and time for them to complete it.

Do I only have one week to complete homework or reading record entry?

Home learning is expected to be completed within a week of the deadline. However, the tasks will remain on Seesaw throughout the term. This allows flexibility for families to go back and complete sections when they have the time.

I don't have access to digital resources, can I still do home learning?

Yes! Reading records can still be brought in to school and shared with class teachers. Work done on paper can still be posted onto Seesaw.

What are the benefits of using digital resources?

Staff can 'like' and 'comment' on uploads to show that have seen it and provide feedback on activities as well as praising the pupil's hard work.
All activities are instantly shared on devices. There is no paper trail or book for children to remember in order to complete home learning.
We want to maintain the fantastic teacher, child and parent interactions we built up over school closure - Seesaw will allow us to do that and more.
It will keep a digital record of all you child's home learning. Rather than keeping it in a book which can easily become lost or damaged there will be a digital log of what they have achieved at home.

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with images by Drobot Dean - "Mom and son using tablet computer while sitting in cozy kitchen" • _Alicja_ - "numbers counting numbers education" • takasu - "よくある質問のロゴ"