Homework: The Birchwood Way

Overview

Our vision is to cultivate a learning environment in which students are given frequent and purposeful home learning opportunities to consolidate their knowledge and enrich their broader understanding of the topics covered in class.

At Birchwood Community High School, we recognise that regular, well-planned homework can:

• Elevate learning and ensure that students make maximum progress in their academic and social development.
• Help students to develop strategies for transferring key information to their long-term memory.
• Develop good work habits and self-regulation for the future.
• Help parents/carers gain insight into their child’s schoolwork and promote a partnership between home and school.

All subjects have a homework schedule. This schedule includes retrieval tasks that will aim to consolidate the knowledge covered within lessons. The schedule also includes intermittent tasks on knowledge acquired earlier in the year.

The schedule is based around the information on the knowledge organiser, vocabulary list and accompanying documents.

This knowledge is then tested in class and peer-marked by students (where possible, this will take place at the same time each week to help students to organise their retrieval practice). Where applicable, students write the correct answers in a different coloured pen to help them to easily identify gaps in their knowledge. This also helps teachers to easily identify and plan for any topics that might need to be revisited.

For KS4, retrieval is the minimum requirement for homework- teachers will use their judgement about any additional tasks their students would benefit from receiving. Any further tasks that are set are acknowledged in some way either through self, peer or teacher assessment.

Students who engage with this process and seek out further opportunities for their learning will be rewarded with homework points via ClassCharts.

Frequency

At KS3, the expectation is that students complete 30 minutes of homework per day. Maths, English and science will be set one homework per week, whilst EPR, history, geography, computing and MFL will be set one homework every two weeks. Students are also expected to complete 30 minutes of reading for pleasure, per day.

At KS4, the expectation is that students complete at least 1 hour of homework/ revision per day. With the exception of core PE, all subjects will set weekly homework. EPR homework will be issued once every two weeks.

From January 2023, KS3 homework will be issued around a subject timetable to ensure that deadlines are as equally spread, as possible.

Support

We want all students to be given the opportunity to complete the work set outside of school, to support their learning. For this reason, if students are not able to complete their homework, we will refer them to a Friday lunchtime or a Monday after school homework support session. These sessions purposely take place in computer rooms so that they have the chance to use the school’s facilities to catch up on any missed work. There is also always a member of teaching staff supervising these sessions to ensure that students can receive help and guidance, should they need it.

If a student is struggling to complete a piece of homework, they should let their teacher know prior to the submission date so that support can be put in place.

Students will be directed to the lunchtime support session if:

They do not complete a SPARX homework.

They miss one homework between Monday – Thursday.

Students will be directed to the afterschool support session if:

They do not attend the lunchtime support session.

They miss 2 or 3 homework tasks in a week.

Students who miss more than 3 homework tasks in one week will be directed to after school support session on a Monday and an extra after school on the Tuesday, to give them the time to catch up. A missed after school support session will result in students attending the SLT detention after school on a Friday.

To further support students, we follow a homework timetable:

KS3 Homework Timetable

We know how important it is for students to revise and revisit key knowledge throughout the year and how crucial this is for supporting students’ long- term learning. For this reason, students in year 7, 8 and 9 are expected to spend 30 minutes a day on homework. This will be largely based on retrieval tasks and will be centred on the key resources within their subjects:

• Knowledge organiser
• Vocabulary list

To support students with their learning, teachers will set homework for the same day of each week and will give students at least a week’s notice for any work that is due in.

Students are also expected to complete 30 minutes of reading for pleasure, every day.

KS4 Homework Timetable

We know how important it is for students to revise and revisit key knowledge throughout KS4 and how crucial this is for supporting students’ long-term learning. For this reason, students in year 10 and 11 are expected to spend at least 1 hour a day on homework and revision. Much of this will be centred on the key resources within their subjects:

• Knowledge organiser
• Vocabulary list

However, some homework at KS4 may be more task-based, depending on the nature of the course.

To support students with their learning, teachers of core subjects will set homework for the same day of each week and will give students at least three days’ notice for any work that is due in. Options subjects will be set either be every Tuesday or Friday. When time- sensitive tasks are due, such as controlled assessments, subjects may veer from the timetable to ensure that work is completed in the allocated time given.

Every subject will set weekly homework with the exception of core PE. This also excludes EPR which will set homework once every two weeks.