What is Home Learning?
Home Learning refers to any work or activity that pupils are asked to do outside lesson time, either on their own or with parents/carers.
Early Years Foundation Stage
At Peninsula East Primary Academy all Foundation Stage and Year 1 pupils have a login for Tapestry. Tapestry allows parents to be able to see activities that the children completed in class and for parents to upload pictures and comments about activities the children have done at home. Resources to support parents’ understanding in key areas such as phonics will also be available here as well.
Key Stage 1 & 2
Home Learning is not set every night. Each week, weekly homework will be set and then completed work should be uploaded onto Google classroom or handed back to the classroom teacher (depending on how homework was set that week).
Years 1 & 2
- Phonics – reinforcing the sounds learnt in class this week.
- Maths – securing recall of core facts and fluency with core methods through the use of Numbots.
- Reading with an adult – 3 x per week
Years 3 & 4
- Spelling – Spelling shed games weekly, linked to the spelling pattern being learnt in class this week.
- Maths – Times Table Rockstars to secure times tables facts.
- Reading with an adult – 3 x per week and a short reading comprehension to complete independently
Years 5 & 6
- Spelling – Spelling shed games weekly, linked to the spelling pattern being learnt in class this week.
- Maths – Arithmetic practice linked to class learning. This will usually be a sheet of Maths questions similar to the work children have completed that week in school.
- SPaG – A Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar sheet will be sent home for children to revise key grammatical concepts taught in that year group.
- Reading – Comprehension activities linked to a text and 20 minutes 3 x per week of reading either independently or to an adult.
Reading
Children should read daily. We encourage parents to hear their children read frequently (at least five days per week) and record any comments or observations in reading records or digitally in KS2. It is the expectation that class teachers will monitor the use of these records and support children in selecting appropriate home reading materials. Time should be made to discuss all aspects of the school curriculum. We encourage parents to ask children what they have ‘learned’ rather than what they ‘did’ during the school day and to support their child in developing a routine of completing and returning homework within the expected timeframe given. The minimum expectation of reading time is 10-15 minutes per day for Key Stage 1 and then 20 minutes per day for Key Stage 2.
Google Apps
We teach the children to use a range of Google tools as part of their computing lessons. Often the home learning tasks children are set via the Google Classroom will require them to use the following Google tools.
If you are accessing your child’s Google Classroom via a tablet device, we recommend you download these apps to support your child completing their home learning successfully.
Access
Google Classroom can be accessed as the following;
- downloaded as an app on the App Store on a mobile device
- accessed in a web browser at the address – classroom.google.com
- Visiting google.com and signing in (with your children’s log in details that you will receive). Then select the icon in the blue circle and Google Classroom is in the red circle.
Once you have located Google Classroom, your child will be asked to sign in.
Login
- Sign in using your child’s Google login details (which will be sent home today).
- Click ‘I am a student’ button if your child has not used Google Classroom before.
- Click on the “+” symbol in the top right hand corner.
- Select “Join Class”.
- Enter the class code that will be shared with you on Class Charts.
Please note that once your child has joined a Google Classroom once, they do not need to keep rejoining it.
Using Google Classroom
There are three areas for Google Classroom; stream, classwork and people.
- Stream – this is like a feed you would find on social media platforms. Members of the classroom can write comments here. Other updates are included in the feed like when a new piece of work has been set.
- Classwork – this is where you will find information about work being set and any other attachments.
- People – this is where you can see who else has joined the classroom
Classroom Drive
If your child is asked to complete a piece of work on a Google app such as Google docs, the work that your child will be set by their teacher will automatically be saved into their personal Google Drive. This can be accessed by clicking on the green, yellow and blue triangle icon which is shown below.
In your child’s Google Drive, there will be a folder named Classroom-Class name which will have all of their work in. It is important that any online work completed is saved into this folder as it allows your child’s teacher to access learning that is being completed at home.
Google Classroom Expectations
- When commenting or taking part in discussions on the stream, please make sure you are being courteous to others. Children have had discussions in their classroom with regards to being kind towards each other whilst using Google Classroom there it would be great if you as their parent/carer could also reiterate that expectation with them.
- The stream is only to be used for education purposes only. There may be times where your child’s teacher will want feedback from their students or will post certain educational material that would be useful to use at home. If you do, however, have a specific question that needs to be addressed separately, please use the right channels to receive your answer.
- Children are asked to engage in their learning- whether that being with their peers or their teacher. Additionally, children are aware that they are able to post questions related to their learning if they would like help or advice from others.
- Please can you and/or your child check their Google Classroom for stream updates and work submissions daily as work will be assigned to each student on a regular basis.