Children’s learning doesn’t just happen at school. Children are learning all the time.
Research shows that children who consolidate their school learning at home, make better progress at school overall.
The school is continually developing ways in which parents can support their children’s learning outside of school. All class teachers set some form of homework on a weekly basis. The amount and type of homework tasks depend on the year group your child is in.
We appreciate that family life can be very busy and it can sometimes be difficult to fit in precious 1:1 time with your children to help them with their learning. However it is important that some form of support from home is given to your child to support them, no matter what age they are.
Below are a range of different ways in which your child and you can get more out of home learning.
Reading is one of the most important ways in which you can support your child’s learning. Research shows that children who read regularly at home become more confident in all areas of their learning and also secure vital skills to be able to tackle tests and exams later in life.
It is suggested that the average time children should spend on daily reading at home is between 15/20 mins. This may be through sharing a book together or your child reading aloud to someone. This time will increase as your child gets older. By year 6 we would suggest a minimum of 30 mins a day.
Whilst our school timetable allows for regular reading activities daily, this extra reading time at home can make a real difference.
This year the school has introduced a new reading scheme called Accelerated Reader. This scheme focuses on children’s comprehension of what they read and not just the decoding of words. To find out more, visit the Reading section of our website.
There is also a useful leaflet on the importance of reading available to download here, that will give you more detailed advice about reading at home with your child.
Maths can be challenging for children (and adults!) and it is important that support is given continually at school and at home. For more information about how the schools maths curriculum is delivered, please see the maths section of our website.
However, there are a range of ways in which you can support your child at home in addition to supporting their homework activities.
Bring maths into everyday tasks:
Cooking – weighing ingredients, cutting up portions and relating it to fraction vocabulary
Maths is all around – play simple games with the numbers you see everywhere such a car number plates and street signs.
Shopping – Many of us pay for goods with cards now. We are using less cash and children have less experience of handling money. Try to create opportunities where children can collect coins, play with them, use them to pay for goods, talk about change that is given, simple adding of goods that you are buying. All these day to day activities can really help your child’s learning.
Telling the time – There are a variety of ways in which you can help your children gain the concept of time. Using digital clocks and relating them to analogue ones. Looking at time tables and talking about how long it is before the next train or bus arrives etc.
Have you ever thought ‘That’s not the way I was taught how to do that when I was at school’? The way in which maths is taught at school may have changed. We are keen to share some of the methods we use to teach various calculations. Please refer to the maths section of our website to see a range of short videos produced by Over Primary School, to explain some of the methods taught today. There is also further information on online games and apps that might be useful for you to use with your child at home.