“Believe. Achieve. Succeed. In our hands we hold the future”

Home-school Partnership Agreement Policy

Rationale

By completing homework, children will reinforce their knowledge and understanding of concepts and skills in a relaxed and informal way. They will be able to share their knowledge with their parents. Regular homework gives parents the chance to play a part in helping their children’s learning and to raise standards.

Aims

  • To extend and support the learning opportunities for all children.
  • To provide opportunities for parents and pupils to work in partnership to enjoy the learning experience.
  • To ensure parents/carers have a clear understanding about expectations from themselves and the pupils.
  • To encourage children to develop long-term strategies of independence and individual responsibility.
  • To prepare Year 6 pupils for the transfer to secondary education.

Guidelines

Role of parents/carers in supporting pupils.

At Hutton CE Primary School we recognise the importance of the partnership between teachers, parents and children. Therefore we would appreciate parents supporting the school in the development of the children’s learning. One of the main ways of doing this is by supporting homework. There are several ways which parents can enhance their children’s learning experiences:

 Provide a reasonably peaceful, suitable place in which children can do their homework – alone or more often for younger children, together with an adult.

 Make it clear to their children that they value homework and support the school in explaining how it can help their learning.

 Encourage the children and praise them when they have completed their homework.

 Parents should become actively involved in their children’s homework so that it becomes a learning partnership at home.

 Parents should not provide the answers for the child but should try to guide the children’s learning with helpful questions.

 If a parent decides to stop a child completing their homework, because a child is too tired/ill, an accompanying note of explanation would be appreciated by the school.

Home – School link Books

The home-school link books are an invaluable aid in creating an informal, regular communication system between parents, children and teachers. This is particularly so if parents don’t deliver/pick up their children. The teacher will initial the book each week to show parents they have checked for comments and questions and will comment fortnightly.At the early stages of school the comments will be about how the child is settling into class, the social, behavioural and learning aspects of school. As the children move through the school the home- school link books become a three-way dialogue with parents and children. The homework book becomes more frequently used, thus enabling the parents to have a clear idea of how the work is progressing. The home-school link books are then recorded in less frequently by the teacher, however they remain as a communication channel both ways, and the children are taught to hand it to the teacher if there is a comment to be read.

Homework Focus

 Homework should arise naturally from the day-to-day work in the classroom, it should not be seen in isolation to the rest of the children’s learning.

Learning Logs enable differentiation through the task and offer challenges at all levels. This is the preferred style of homework set as this encourages thinking skills and enjoyment of learning.

 All activities that are sent home to share e.g. reading, spelling etc. should be part of the homework policy.

 Each piece of work set will:

-have a clear focus and time guidance

-Give plenty of opportunities for the child to succeed

-Help develop organisational skills

-Be varied not just written tasks usually through a learning log

-Be manageable for children, teachers and parents

-Require equipment which will be easily available at home.

 Children will have good work displayed and examples of good work will go on the website.

Homework Expectations

Year Groups / Expectations
Reception /
  • Read daily including daily phonics practice
  • Counting daily
  • Read log 1 per week

Year 1 /
  • Read daily including phonics
  • Number bonds daily
  • Read log 1 per week
  • 1 piece topic or maths per term

Year 2 /
  • Read daily including phonics
  • Spelling daily
  • Times tables daily
  • Read log 1 per week
  • 1 piece topic or maths per term

Years 3 and 4 /
  • Read daily
  • Spelling daily
  • Times Tables daily
  • 1 piece topic 3 x per term (ie 1 per fortnight)

Years 5 and 6 /
  • Read daily
  • Spelling daily
  • Times tables daily
  • Specific piece maths per week
  • Specific topic (research, write up) per week

Organisation

Year 1 to Year 6 will send homework books home on a Friday and will expect them to be returned the following Wednesday. This allows time for the child to complete the work, taking into account the fact that some children have after school clubs some evenings, others are busy at weekends. It also allows for the teacher to look at homework, and mark as necessary, and return before the next homework is set.

Marking

The work will be marked appropriately depending on the task set. For example: reinforcing spelling patterns will be marked differently to a piece of research or a drawing. The class teacher will initial all homework, so that children and parents are aware that the teacher has seen the work.

Special Educational Needs

Some of the children with special educational needs will have individual homework in line with their individual education plan. A balance needs to be maintained so that they do what they can in line with the rest of the class, whilst being aware not to overload them with work. Both teacher and parent will maintain this. In some cases the outcomes are differentiated rather than the tasks, which will enable the children with SEN to carry out the same task as their classmates.

Homework Club

For those pupils experiencing difficulties with completing homework, either as a result of other time commitments, or as a result of not understanding the task set, there is opportunity for those pupils to attend Homework Club which is supervised by staff who are able to help with homework problems.

Monitoring and Evaluation Arrangements

Every other term, examples of homework books and/or home link books will be brought to the staff meeting to be discussed and shared. The meeting will examine how closely the policy is being followed, the presentation of the work and the marking of the homework. The results of these meetings will be fed into the leadership team for review. Thisinformation will be disseminated to the governing body on a regular basis as part of the head’s monitoring arrangements via the headteacher’s report.

As part of the ongoing review of the policy, Parents will be consulted about its effectiveness on an annual basis, via a questionnaire. The staff will review it annually and these consultations will be fed back to the governors through the Curriculum and Standards Committee.

Policy reviewed by staff: September 2013

Ratified by Curriculum and StandardsCommittee on behalf of the Governors

Mary Potter25/9/13

(signed: Chair of Curriculum and StandardsCommittee)

Appendix 1

Home-school Partnership Agreement

Introduction

The children at Hutton CE Primary School will receive a broad and balanced curriculum enabling all children to develop their own skills and talents. The children’s needs will be met in a variety of ways, some children will require additional support, others will need additional challenge. In most instances, this is met in the classroom through differentiated activities and children grouped by ability across adjacent year groups for maths work in key stage 2.

On occasions, they will work with their learning buddies from another year group (Year R and Year 3, Y1 and Y4, Y2 and Y5).

Our vision statement

Believe, Achieve, Succeed

In our hands we hold the future.

Our Ethos

Recognising its historic foundation Hutton CE Primary School will preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the church at parish and diocesan level.

Hutton CE Primary School aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith, and promotes Christian values through the experience it offers to all its pupils.

Our Vision

Our vision is for a school team who:

  1. Develop their individual talents and abilities, enabling them to attain highly both academically and personally.

2. Are happy, successful, confident lifelong learners.

3. Are self motivated, self disciplined individuals.

4. Have high self esteem and show initiative.

5. Learn in a safe, secure, vibrant and creative Christian environment.

Our Values

The school will:

Provide a happy, caring, secure, well ordered and stimulating environment.

Support the child’s learning to help them achieve their best.

Encourage the children to keep the school’s Rules.

Encourage children to take care of their surroundings and be sensitive to the needs of others around them.

Address any special or specific needs.

Work in partnership with parents informing them of their child’s progress at regular meetings, provide information curriculum meetings, and liaise regularly through ‘home -school link books.’

Inform parents about the children’s learning objectives each term.

Headteacher’s signature:

Our family will:

Make sure our child arrives at school on time between 8:45 and 8:55 am, alert and ready for the day ahead.

Make sure our child attends regularly and provide a phone message/note of explanation if the child is absent.

Not book holidays in term time/or book appointments during the school day.

Ensure that the child has the correct equipment and clothing which is all clearly named.

Support the school’s behaviour policy; its rewards (tribe points and green cards for good manners and politeness, Dabaso award for consideration to others, merit marks leading to certificates for good work and certificates for good attendance) and its sanctions (yellow warning cards, red cards and loss of break times, loss of golden time.)

Attend Parents’ Consultation Evenings to discuss our child’s progress, and information meetings to find out how to help our child.

Support our child with school activities including homework, making appropriate use of the home-school link book, reading log and learning logs. Homework is set every Friday and returned every Wednesday. Tasks will include regular reading and mental maths and sometimes spelling or creative tasks.

Parent/carer’s signature:

The Child’s agreement

I will:

Always try to achieve my best.

Be a kind, helpful, friendly and responsible member of the school.

Care for the equipment and the building at school

Do as I’ve been asked and set a good example to others.

Ensure I show respect to everyone and the environment.

Follow the safety code - walk around school.

Child’s signature:

1

Home-School Partnership Policy – September 2013