Here at Offham we aim to make home learning fun, challenging, relevant and include an element of pupil (and parental) choice. 

How does home learning work at Offham?

· At the start of each term teachers will publish a list of 10 home learning challenges (stuck in the front of their homework book and published on the school website).

· These home learning challenges will be linked to the current topic being studied in class - for example this term Year 5 and 6 are looking at the Victorians so their home learning challenges will be Victorian themed.

· Some of the home learning challenges will be English based, some Maths based and some will be more creative.

· All the challenges are linked to the Kent objective frameworks for your child’s year group to ensure that they are    completing age appropriate learning at home.

· All the challenges are open-ended, encouraging your child to challenge themselves as much as they feel able.

· Each weekend we are asking the children (and you as parents) to choose one of the challenges to do - you don’t have to do all 10 in a term and you can complete challenges in any order.

· Some challenges will take longer than others, allowing you to tailor the home learning you complete to busy and less busy weekends or to the motivation and energy levels of your child.

· All we ask is that your child completes at least 2 maths based challenges each term, everything else is up to them. Maths based challenges are signposted with a maths symbol on the selection sheet.

A slight variation for Yellow class (Year 6 only)

As we are getting our Y6’s secondary ready there will be a slight variation for them. They will have 10 English and creative   challenges to choose from—one to be completed each week, but also in addition they will have a maths challenge to complete each week. This means that instead of one, they will need to complete two challenges each week, one from the choose it list and one maths challenge.

How do I hand my home learning in?

Each child has been issued with a brand new shiny home learning book in which to complete their homework and keep it all safe. These books have a combination of lined and squared paper to help children make appropriate presentation choices.

If you would like to present your homework in a different way, rather than directly into your homework book then this is also fine—it could be a model, a poster, or even a Powerpoint presentation—we are happy for you to be as creative as you please.

Home learning will be collected in by your teacher each week on a Wednesday. Teachers will then mark your home learning before sending the books home again on a Friday. There will be a chance to win house points for homework each week and also a ‘home learning of the week’ award. This won’t necessarily be awarded for the flashiest piece of home learning but could be for the child who challenges themselves with the content the most fully.

Spellings

Following the latest guidelines for teaching of spellings, we are no longer sending out spelling lists to be learnt for a test weekly. Instead, please feel free to look at the government published high frequency word lists or common exception words. We are currently reviewing our teaching of spelling to ensure coherent use of spelling rules within written work, and transference from learnt spellings to practical use within the classroom.