Home learning

school timetable and represents an extension of the learning activities provided and organised through the school curriculum.

We appreciate that home learning can put an additional burden on home life so we have carefully considered the key skills children need to be secure in at each age and stage and have built our homework system around these. At St Thomas, we believe that home learning is an important way of more closely involving parents in their child’s education and gives pupils the opportunity to practise at home the tasks done in class. It also helps children to become confident and independent in their learning, which will help throughout their time at school, and in adult life.

Teachers recognise that home learning has greater success when pupils and parents value it. We believe that it is important that children bring “work” home from a fairly young age so that links between home and school can be developed and enhanced.

Home Learning can:-

  • Directly involve parents in children’s learning
  • Foster a productive home-school partnership
  • Develop a positive attitude to learning as a life skill rather than just a school-based skill
  • Allow children additional time to complete tasks or practice skills learned at school
  • Utilise materials not available in the classroom
  • Allow older children the opportunity for independent study and research

Daily Reading

By reading together every day, you stimulate and strengthen your child’s language and literacy skills. It also provides opportunities to bond and model the love of reading, which will benefit them in school and throughout life. This does not need to be a lengthy session and should reflect the age and stage of the child. Regular short sessions can be more beneficial than one long reading session.

‘There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun.’ – National Literacy Trust

Once children are reading for themselves, there are still benefits of sharing books together.

Having your child read to you and then discussing together that has been read is great for developing the skills of comprehension and inference.

Phonics Practice

To develop Phonics skills, children follow the ‘Read Write Inc.’ scheme. Each week your child will bring home a reading wallet which includes a book that the children should be familiar with (to develop fluency) and a challenge book.

We encourage you to read these books more than once with your child to develop their fluency, intonation and understanding of what they are reading.

Spelling Shed Practice

Once Phonics are secure, children move on to learning to spell words from the statutory spelling lists. Each week a new set of words will be set on your child’s ‘Spelling Shed’ account.

These should be practiced, with certificates being awarded for high Shed Scores and great improvement.

Times Table Practice

Children are expected to know all their times tables up to 12 x 12 by the end of Year 4. One of our favourite ways to practice key skills at home without it becoming too onerous is by using educational games.

All children from year 2-6 have access to Times Tables RockStars which helps children to develop their quick recall of times tables facts which in turn helps them with their wider arithmetic.

Top tips for taking the work out of homework

  • Limit Distractions: If possible, try and create a homework space for your children that is away from distractions. We appreciate that this is not always easy!
  • Help Manage Time: Establish a set time for doing homework. Ideally don’t wait until just before bedtime to do homework when children are tired and easily distracted.
  • Support Don’t Tell: It’s important that you try to support your child with their homework without telling them the answers.
  • Foster Independence: Some homework is really intended for children to do alone.
  • Talk to Us: If your child is finding homework difficult then please do contact the class teacher to talk this through.
  • Set Break Time: Let your child take a short break if they are having trouble keeping their mind on the assignment. We want to build perseverance but it helps to set time limits to avoid burnout and frustration.