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Homework

At St Mary Cray Primary Academy we feel it is important for children to be set engaging homework that gives pupils the opportunity to practice and consolidate the learning that has taken place at school (across a range of subjects).

Enjoy sharing your children’s learning with them - every little helps.

Homework is given on Friday and should be completed and returned by the following Wednesday.

Homework through the School

  • In Reception, children read and practise sounds and words for homework.
  • For children higher up the school the main purpose of homework is to develop a partnership with parents and actively involve you in your child’s learning.  We endeavour to make homework as fun as possible, so a range of open ended practical and written activities are provided rather than worksheets.

Parents are encouraged to:

  • Provide a peaceful place for doing homework
  • Make it clear that homework helps children to make progress
  • Expect deadlines to be met
  • Give praise for completion of homework
  • Ensure homework is done over several weeks rather than in one go.  This ultimately improves enjoyment and ensures children sustain levels of engagement across the term.

Maths

All children from Year 1 upwards will be given a maths activity each week. This will take the form of either work from their mental maths activity book, times tables or work related to the unit of work they are working on in class.

Times Tables

In Year 2, pupils are required to learn the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Pupils are encouraged to practise these number facts as part of their weekly homework.

Reading

Throughout the day children will read for a variety of purposes. They will be taught specific reading skills with the teacher and the teacher will also read a variety of quality stories to the children. To support this, we recommend that all children read for at least 15 minutes a day before or after school. School or home books are suitable. Please sign your child’s Reading Record book each time they read.

Reading records are checked daily and Dojos are given as awards and incentives.

Please ensure that you discuss what has been read with your child by asking a range of comprehension questions.  See the link to 'Reading Vipers', attached at the bottom of this page.  This document will give you invaluable information about the kind of comprehension questions that you should be asking your child whilst reading.

Spelling

In Year 2, children will receive up to 10 spellings each week that they must learn to spell for the following week.  Spellings will focus on common exception words and those from the statutory spelling curriculum.

English/Science/Foundation

A learning menu will be sent home at the beginning of each term that provides a range of activities based on our English objectives and wider topic learning. Children are asked to choose on activity to complete each week. Activities are not necessary book based and include art activities, design technology, creating music and leading research. Please see our most recent Learning Menu below.