Homework
At Emersons we focus our home-work on the key skills which have the most impact on learning: regular reading with an adult, learning spelling & phonics and learning number facts. Whilst other pieces of homework may be set from time to time, practising these areas at home are essential to your child’s learning.
This guide will help you get the most out of home learning.
Reading
Reading at home regularly has more impact than any other home learning with recent re-search showing that children who read at home in primary school leave school with GCSE’s which are a grade higher than those who don’t.
We ask that all parents read with their child for 20 minutes 5 times per week and record this in the reading diary. The best way to do this is to have a regular session during the day where you read with your child .
Some of the school reading scheme books have prompt questions at the back which you can use to check your child’s understanding.
Older children still need to read with an adult because the focus for them is comprehending what they are reading. Older children read the words but may not understand it so having a parent on hand to talk to them about their book is essential.
Spelling and Phonics
Each term your child will either bring home a phonics or spellings list to learn. This list will be broken into weeks.
Phonics:
Support with phonics at home is important in helping children to become confident and fluent readers and writers. Some of things you can do at home to support include:
- Hearing your child read their ‘phonics’ book as often as possible, supporting them to sound out, blend and re-read words to build fluency and prosody
- Using sound mats/sound cards for some quick-fire recognition
- Spotting letters/words in the environment
Spelling Lists:
Each year group has specific spelling rules to cover and a list of common exception words. These are taken from the ‘Years 3&4 and Years 5&6 spelling and common exception words lists as outlined in the National Curriculum.
Children in KS2 will be asked to learn a selection of these words.
Handwriting
Children are taught cursive handwriting at Emersons Green Primary from the beginning of Year 2 with Year 1 and Reception focusing on correct letter formation and entry and exit points of letter.
Emersons Green Handwriting Rules:
- We don’t join capital letters.
- We start all lower case letters on the line.
- We don’t take our pen off the paper until the word is finished (then we go back and dot the I’s and cross the T’s).
Your child may get handwriting homework from time to time so please follow these rules and use the school style when teaching writing at home.
Math Fluency
Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 are expected to practice their known number facts weekly using the online platform Numbots. EYFS – 6mins, KS1- 10mins
Children in Key Stage 2 are expected to practice their times tables weekly using the online platform ‘TTRS (Times Tables Rock Stars).
All children are expected to complete 10-20mins at home across the week depending on age.
Weekly Minutes
Each child is asked to complete 20 minutes in ‘Garage’ each week. These sessions run between 9am each Saturday and close 9pm each Thursday. Any visits to TTRS on a Friday do not count towards their minutes, just extra valuable practice.
Garage – the questions will only come from the times tables the teacher has set for the week. It will include multiplication and division questions. As pupils start to answer questions, TT Rock Stars works out which facts they take longer on and will give them more of these questions to answer. The Garage is best for getting quicker at a few facts. Players get 10 coins per question.
If your child has been ill they are obviously not expected to have completed their minutes and your child’s teacher will know this. Any other child not completing their minutes will be given the opportunity to complete them on a Friday.
Game Modes
Once your child has completed their minutes, the other games modes will open up.
For Year 4 children in particular, Soundcheck is a good mode to guide your child towards as it is similar to the Multiplication Check they have to take towards the end of the year.
Soundcheck – When you play Soundcheck, you get 20 questions each with a 5-second time limit. The questions are multiplication only and evenly weighted in terms of difficulty each time you play. Players earn 5 coins per correct answer.
Studio is also where your child’s speed is calculated. It takes the average of their last 10 games. Any child below 1 sec joins the ‘One Second Club’. As it is an average, these speeds may vary.
Studio – the questions in the Studio can be anything from 1×1 up to 12×12.
TT Rock Stars calculates the mean response time from their last 10 games in the Studio and translates that time into a Rock Status.
≤ 1 sec/qu = Rock Hero
≤ 2 secs/qu = Rock Legend
≤ 3 secs/qu = Rock Star
≤ 4 secs = Headliner
≤ 5 secs/qu = Support Act
≤ 6 secs/qu = Breakthrough Artist
≤ 7 secs/qu = Unsigned Act
≤ 8 secs/qu = Gigger
≤ 9 secs/qu = Busker
≤ 10 secs/qu = Garage Rocker
> 10 secs/qu = Wannabe
If you don’t play in the Studio you don’t get a Rock Status.
Players earn 1 coin per question and the Studio is the place for them to set their best time across all the tables.
How you can help
Little and often is key – set aside several minutes per day to complete the minutes.
Sit alongside your child to give them the positive encouragement and prompts when needed.
You could read the questions and type the answer given, if your child finds the typing hinders them.
Play several warm up games before you go onto TTRS to get them thinking about their tables.