Information on this page will help parents and carers support their children with learning at home. To meet the requirements of the new National Curriculum, we have revised expectations in key areas to ensure that children are able to progress at the required rate.

Reading

We would really like every child to read at least three times a week with an adult. This is the most important area for parents to support children’s learning and our experience shows us that children that have this help at home make the most progress. Please record home reading in either the reading records or homework diaries.

Homework

The children will be set a weekly homework task which will be given out on a Wednesday and will be handed in the following Monday. The homework will be alternated each week and will usually be a maths, reading comprehension or grammar task. Homework will be accompanied by a guidance sheet outlining expectations and optional comments box.  Each half-term there will also be a learning log task linked to the current topic. For this there will be a selection of different activities for children to choose from. The Learning Log activity will start after the October half-term.

Spellings

Children in Years 1- 6 will have weekly spellings to practise at home, ready for a test in school. These spellings will be based on words that each year group are required to spell as part of the new curriculum. Children will be assessed in class to find out their ‘gaps’ which will determine the appropriate spelling phase. This assessment will be repeated each half-term and moved on accordingly.

Spelling phase lists will be sent home each week on a Monday and will be tested on a Friday. In addition to this, each year group will have a weekly spelling focus in class, which will look at specific spelling patterns and rules. We are aiming to have all spelling lists on the year group pages of the new website as soon as possible.

Times Tables

We have reviewed our approach to teaching times tables, in line with the requirements of the new curriculum.  Each week children will carry out an activity in school to help them learn the times table off by heart; we would also like them to practise at home as this will really help them in their general maths lessons.

These are the expectations for each year group:

• Year 1 – know number bonds to 20, including adding and subtracting; counting in groups of 2s, 5s and 10s.
• Year 2 – know number facts up to 100. Recall multiplication and division facts for 2s, 5s and 10s.
• Year 3 – recall multiplication and division facts for 3s, 4s and 8s.
• Year 4 – recall multiplication and division facts up to 12×12.
• Year 5 – use known multiplication facts up to 12×12 to mentally calculate larger numbers (i.e 6 x 60 = 360); to identify multiples and factors of numbers; to know prime numbers.
• Year 6 – use known multiplication and division facts to calculate written methods for long multiplication and division; to be able to multiply fractions and decimals.

Early Years Foundation Stage

Reading and spelling homework will be related to the phonics being covered and the needs of the child. The children will start with learning their initial sounds; they will then apply this knowledge to reading and writing, CVC, high frequency and tricky words. At some stage over the year your child will progress onto reading books. The children will be sent home with a weekly task relating to the above. For more information see Year R under the Classes tab.