Thomas Arnold Primary School

Home Learning

We aim to create a positive attitude toward home learning and help set good habits for secondary school. We are concerned that the activities set are of interest to the children and matched to their ability. We ask that parents support their child with any home learning given.

Home learning routines begin in Reception with the expectation that children read each night and are, in turn, read to. In addition, there are simple tasks to complete at home from learning key words to topic related research.

From Year 1 there is more. A list of home learning activities is given to each child at the start of each half-term. This list includes maths and English tasks as well as those relating to the classes context for learning. Daily reading and times table practice are expected also. At the start of the year during the meet-the-teacher session, parents are told about the specific routines for the new class. Expectations build up until Year 6 where children are expected to be managing tasks independently and extending their learning through self-directed research.

As far as possible, home learning relates to the classes contexts for learning. This is important as it helps parents to know more about what is going on in class and to enable them to support in enthusing the children. Parents might, for example, find themselves helping to make a model habitat for an imaginary beast, finding out about grandparents’ experience of school or measuring objects around the home.

We realise that circumstances will arise when children are unable to do the home learning set; we re-assure parents not to worry about this, as we do understand. Home learning should be a positive experience and we ask that any problems relating to home learning are discussed with the class teacher as soon as possible.