Home Learning
Intent
The aim of home learning at St Finian’s is to equip parents and carers with the ideas and resources to support their children with the fundamental building blocks of learning: fluency in reading, maths and spelling. Secure fluency is crucial for children to be able to progress in line with expectations in the core subjects, as it frees up their working memory to learn new and progressively trickier concepts and ideas. Evidence based theory tells us that regular, bite size opportunities to consolidate learning is the most effective way to secure knowledge and understanding, enabling meaningful progress to be made. We also know that active participation by parents and families in their child’s learning has the greatest impact on a child’s progress.
Reading fluency begins with decoding and moves to fluent word recognition and reading. Writing fluency relates to children being competent spellers. Maths fluency relates to secure knowledge of number facts and times tables. These skills underpin all learning within these subjects and the wider curriculum.
Implementation
In Year R, a weekly phonics hand out will inform parents of what children have been learning about in class and includes suggestions for reading and writing practise at home. Children also have a weekly reading book which they should read to an adult as often as possible.
Home learning is set on a half termly basis for Year 1 and consists of the following:
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Reading Decoding: strategies for supporting your child with decoding - blending and segmenting (this is the same all year)
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Reading Fluency: strategies to support your child with fluency in reading (this is the same all year and progresses year on year)
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Reading For Pleasure: ideas to support your child develop a love of reading
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Maths Fluency: number facts that your child should know by the end of each half term, which reflects the learning that is going on in the classroom (this changes half termly).
Home learning is set on a half termly basis for Years 2 – 6 and consists of the following:
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Weekly spelling lists for each week of the half term, alongside resources to support the learning of spellings and the understanding of spelling rules and patterns.
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Suggested spellings to focus on during school holidays
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Reading Fluency: strategies to support your child with fluency in reading (this is the same all year and progresses year on year)
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Reading For Pleasure: ideas to support your child develop a love of reading (this changes half termly)
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Maths Fluency: number facts that your child should know by the end of each half term, which reflects the learning that is going on in the classroom (this changes half termly)..
Additional resources and support include strategies to help children learn their spellings and timetables; curriculum word lists for Years 3 – 6 and, where appropriate, the poems that children are learning by heart in a given half term.
Impact
Our approach to home learning enables parents to support their children in the most effective and beneficial way for their learning in the classroom. In Years 3 - 6, there will be a weekly informal assessment of the spelling words from that week / weeks on a Friday. Whilst there is no formal feedback to parents from home learning undertaken, the impact and subsequent progress of children’s fluency in reading, maths and spelling will be seen in the classroom on a daily basis and will be used to inform teacher planning on a continual basis.