Our vision for learning and practice at home:
‘Every student spends 5-15 hours a week on effective learning and practice at home so that all students feel confident of their knowledge and skills and exceed expected progress to achieve their full potential.’
Expectations
At St Andrew the Apostle, this means that KS3 students will receive between an hour and an hour and a half of learning and practice tasks to complete each night, including at least an hour each week for Maths, Science and English. In subjects which are taught only once a week, they may receive tasks weekly or fortnightly, and they may be set longer project work, over several weeks with frequent reminders. In subjects which are taught twice a week, students will receive tasks which take about an hour to complete each week. Most subjects will give a week to complete these tasks, although in Maths, Science and English, the window may sometimes be shorter to reflect the more frequent lessons.
At KS4 and KS5, students will receive approximately 2 hours a night of learning and practice and are expected to also complete up to an hour of revision and consolidation. This will include at least 2 hours of English, Maths and Science at KS4, and about 1.5 hours per subject in their other GCSE options. At KS5, students can expect to receive approximately 3 hours per week per subject and are expected to complete an hour each night of revision and consolidation in addition.
Communication
All learning and practice tasks are set in Bromcom and can be viewed in My Child At School.
Support
To support students, we will provide a ‘Learning and Practice’ club, in the Library, daily after school from 3.00pm until 4.00pm. Students who do not complete learning and practice tasks on time will be directed to attend the club and required to complete the activities which they have missed.
Terminology
We talk about ‘learning and practice’ (instead of ‘homework’) to help students to understand the purpose of these tasks, to clarify to families what the expectation is, and to refocus these activities on acquiring knowledge (‘learning’) and developing skills (‘practice’). Learning key words and new vocabulary and practising skills and techniques needed for exam success are shown to be effective in boosting students’ progress and achievement. We will also be teaching specific revision techniques in lessons and encouraging staff to refer to a named technique when asking students to revise at home. (See the linked page on Revision Strategies at STA.)