Home Learning
“Evidence shows that home learning tasks have, on average, a positive impact of five months’ of additional progress per year” – The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) – a leading UK education research group.
Home learning is an integral part of learning and is beneficial for several reasons. It reinforces learning by providing students with an opportunity to practice and consolidate the concepts they have learnt in class. This helps to cement understanding and to identify areas where they may need additional support. It also helps students to develop and embed positive learning habits such as initiative, resilience, time management, organisation and independence. Our approach to home learning is designed to encourage students to want to learn at home and we look to reward students for their positive engagement.
Years 7 and 8 – ‘Reading for Pleasure’
Reading for pleasure is important for both educational purposes and improved health and wellbeing, as well as developing compassion and empathy for others. Year 7 and Year 8 students are expected to complete 20 minutes of meaningful ‘Reading for Pleasure’ every day. This is checked by their form tutor every Tuesday morning.
Our goal is to develop each student’s potential to the point where they are reading at, or above, their chronological age. Our library has a vast number of books, covering a wide range of genres, which students can loan. It is also a quiet space that many students use to complete home learning tasks.
Years 7 and 8 – Knowledge Organisers
Research around memory suggests that the more factual knowledge you know, the easier it is to learn more in future. However, if knowledge is studied once, and not revisited or revised, it is not stored in long-term memory. To help this knowledge ‘stick’, all students in Years 7 and 8 are issued with a Knowledge Organiser booklet every term. This contains all the core knowledge for all of their subjects. Students need to bring this to school every day, as it will be used and referred to in lessons. Students will also be tested on the knowledge contained in the booklet through quizzes. A mastery of the core knowledge will ensure that students can progress comfortably to new units of learning.
The autumn term Knowledge Organiser for Year 7 is linked here
The autumn term Knowledge Organiser for Year 8 is linked here
In addition to the 20 minutes of ‘reading for pleasure’, students are expected to complete a 20-30 minute home learning task. The schedule for Years 7 and 8 is outlined below:
| Week 1 | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri |
| English | Science | Geography | Maths | MFL (French, Spanish or Mandarin) | |
| Week 2 | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri |
| English | RE | History | Maths | Rotation*
Art, Technology, Music or Computing |
Home learning tasks are made available at the start of each term for Years 7 and 8, on the website and on the Year ‘Team’.
All weekly home learning tasks set for Year 7 in autumn term are linked here
All weekly home learning tasks set for Year 8 in autumn term are linked here
This overview of tasks supports students to take ownership of their own learning and allows parents/carers to support as required.
In Years 9, 10 and 11, students are generally set 30-45 minutes of home learning per subject per week. All subjects will set valuable and bespoke homework tasks that support the student’s development of their curriculum knowledge. Every homework is carefully planned to promote and consolidate learning and to retain knowledge learnt it lessons. When tasks set are used to review and embed learning, this is usually assessed in the lesson that immediately follows. Students can choose to do their home learning tasks in the school library which is open at lunchtime and after school.
