Dear Parents/Carers
Homework
As part of our ongoing commitment to providing our students with the very best learning experiences, we set high-quality and meaningful homework tasks each week for your child to complete.
All of our approach to teaching at the Academy is shaped by the best possible evidence about how students learn best. Research shows that students benefit academically when they engage in completing homework in a sustained and successful manner: recapping learning from their lessons; increasing the likelihood of embedding knowledge in their long-term memory; applying their learning to extended practice; and affording the opportunity to research and explore topics which complement and build upon their classroom-based learning. In addition, the completion of homework helps students develop their skills as inquisitive, organised and disciplined thinkers- all key aspects of the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile that we seek to develop in all students during their time with us at the Academy.
All of your child’s homework is set digitally on Google Classroom, which includes details of how this piece of work should be completed, and by when. Students’ dashboards on their Chromebooks remind them of which pieces of homework are due, and whether or not they have completed the tasks. Each homework task should take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. The majority of subjects will set one piece of homework for each week. In the following subjects, homework is set every fortnight: Information Technology, Design and Technology, Global Citizenship, and Creative and Performing Arts.
In addition to this, all students are expected to complete a minimum of 60 minutes of independent reading per week, which is assessed and monitored by your child’s English teacher. Research shows that reading, along with attendance, has the greatest impact on determining a students’ success at GCSE. It is for this reason that all students gain free access to both our well-stocked physical Library, as well as MyON, a digital library of over 10,000 fiction and nonfiction books.
To assist with students’ organisation and completion of homework, each class has an individual homework schedule, which has been attached to this email. On this you can see when during the week your child should receive homework in each of their subjects.
You can receive personalised daily or weekly updates on your child’s completion of homework through the Google Guardians programme. Many parents and carers have welcomed this as a really useful tool in supporting their child with their time management and academic progress. Please contact your child’s Small School for more information on how to enrol in Google Guardians, if you have not done so already.
Thank you for your ongoing support in encouraging your child to complete their homework to the best of their ability. Should you have any further questions about your child’s engagement with their homework, please do contact us at home.learning@thehalleyacademy.org.uk.
Yours faithfully
John Dixon | Principal
Ben Russell | Head of School (Franklin)