DPS PRIMARY SCHOOL HOME-LEARNING POLICY

A good, well-managed home-learning programme helps children to develop the skills and attitudes they will need for successful lifelong learning. Providing learning activities at home can support the development of independent learning skills and gives parents/carers another opportunity to take part in their children’s education. Every parent/carer can help their child learn even more by taking the time to talk to them about the different learning activities they do. To this end, we aim to:

• develop an effective learning partnership between home and school.

• ensure that children learn to approach a task confidently and independently.

• encourage children to practice their reading, writing and number skills.

• encourage children to share what they have learned at home with others.

The children at DPS will be expected to do the home learning tasks set by their teacher unless they are undertaking another learning activity organised by their parents/carers. Children in Reception and Key Stages One and Two will be given a Home-Learning book. Teachers will use this book to set tasks for children to complete at home, keep a record of books children have been given to practice their reading and to find out about the child’s broader interests. Children will use this book to write in their task, respond to the homework set and/or record other activities they have done to develop their skills in a range of areas – eg. a report about visiting a place of interest/a diagram and explanation about how a model they have made works. Parents/carers will use this book to record and comment on any after-school learning activity undertaken by their child – including comments related to their child’s reading and extra learning activities not set by the school (eg. music tuition, dance, swimming, Sunday School, Mosque class, visits to places of interest, etc).

The Parent/carer of the child should write a comment in the book to let the class teacher know when another activity has been undertaken by the child in place of the home learning activity set by the teacher.

A record of reading books sent home by the school and comments from parents, teachers and support staff about their child’s reading will be kept in the back of the Home-Learning book. This means that the book must come back and forth between home and school each day. Teachers at DPS will set activities for the children to do at home following the guidelines set below. The times indicated follow current Government guidelines given to schools in regard to how long children should be expected to undertake home-learning during any given day/week.