Home learning across the school

Home learning in Willow Class:
 
Home learning in Willow Class will include games and activities that help to provide fun opportunities for the application and embedding of the maths, literacy and phonics learning that takes place each week.

Children are encouraged to read every night to help build their reading confidence and fluency. Reading books are changed every Tuesday and Friday, with an additional self-selected library book sent home at the end of each week. Please try to remember to always write in your child’s reading log which will help us to support their reading development effectively during lessons.

Maths and phonics packs will also be sent home each week with fun activities, games or challenges to complete. These are collected in and sent home each Friday along with a home/school communication book to record any notes or observations. We hope that these activities will provide children opportunities to not only ‘show-off’ and celebrate their achievements from the week before, but also offer family members ideas as to how they might help to introduce problem solving into everyday tasks for their children at home too.

Home learning in Holly Class

In Holly Class home learning is sent out on a Friday and collected in the following Thursday. The home learning consists of an English challenge, a Maths challenge and a question related to our current topic for the children to research. In addition to this we like the children to read as often as possible and practice their weekly spellings that are tested every Thursday. Although it is fantastic to see all of the home learning challenges completed, this is not an expectation. The homework is always based around what we have been learning in class that week and the challenges often differ between interactive, verbal and written tasks.

The children have a really positive attitude towards their home learning and take great pride in it, often excited to complete the topic research question.
 
Home learning in Oak Class:
 
Home learning in Oak class will always aim to be to be an enjoyable process. It is given on Fridays and due for return the following Thursday. Generally it will consist of a Math and English task, designed to further the learning and understanding on given topics that have been studied that week.

Spellings are sent home at the same time and children are expected to learn them each week ready for Thursdays where we can see how well they can remember them. These are in line with the National Curriculum expectations.

It is strongly recommended that children read regularly at home to an adult. In doing so, please ask simple questions about the story to help develop comprehension skills. Children could recall what happened and why they believe so. Why did the author choose to use certain words? Please remember to make brief notes in the reading record books which help us to support their development.

Home learning in Ash Class:

Homework is set on a Friday and will generally comprise of an English and Maths activity or task which is linked to the work we have covered during the week.  Children are expected if they are unsure or stuck to speak to Mrs Lemos on a Monday so that they can then complete the task in time for Wednesday.  Homework is due on a Wednesday.

Spellings will also be given on a Friday and will comprise a list of spellings together with a short spelling activity.  The children are tested on a Thursday, although they are also expected to try and use the learnt spellings in their writing too!  In addition, the children will be assessed during the year on the statutory Year 5/6 spellings, a copy of which will be sent home at the start of the year.

We do expect children to read regularly at home, both to an adult/carer as well as independently and ask that your child's reading record is completed to reflect their home reading.  Children are expected to comment on their reading - for example: likes, dislikes, questions, in their reading record, as well as how much they have read.  We would be grateful if you could support your child in this task.

If you do have any questions regarding home learning in Ash class, please do not hesitate to speak to Mrs Lemos or Mrs Jones.

A Guide to Home Learning January 2021


A guide to your remote learning timetable.


As you continue your learning journey with your child, it is going to be extremely important that you keep to a routine at home. Children should be encouraged to wake up at a similar time to when they would have been whilst attending school and likewise the times in which they eat should remain the same. This will help them structure the routine of their school work around a normal functioning day. Below we have detailed the expected amount of hours the children should be completing their remote learning, suggesting how long (approximately) they should take on sessions during the day.
The remote education provided should be equivalent in length to the core teaching pupils would receive in school and will include both recorded or live direct teaching time, and time for pupils to complete tasks and work independently.


Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS):
Expected amount of time: Up to 3 hours a day:
Typical day –
1 hour – Phonics and writing tasks set daily and any enhanced learning tasks such as phonics play games or setting up a shop for role play incorporating reading/writing skills learnt in that lesson.
1 hour – Mathematics tasks set and enhanced learning such as cooking, Mathletics or setting up enhanced learning whereby the learnt skills can be applied, for example using money in role play shop to buy items and give change.
30 minutes – Reading daily
30 minutes – Topic or PE or Music or other Session
Time spent on session
Ways to encourage increased participation
Phonics 30 minutes
 Games, games and more games. Children love to compete and win so, let them! The engagement and soaking up learning reaches another level when it is fun so, think of games on the spot or stick to a favourite. Add in a puppet of your own as a Phonics helper. A fast pace, energetic learning environment works wonders!
 A timer. Sharing how long you will spend on a task helps children know the expectations. Keep a timer away from the learning to avoid a countdown but a constant reference point will help children and can also aid in giving them two minutes only to say all of the flashcards. Teachers would be lost without a timer!
 Could you incorporate some enhanced learning activities at home to support the learning? Having just learnt about the sh digraph for example, could you set up a shop for role play and children have to write shopping lists for customers, practising the sh sound each time they write.
English - Writing 30 minutes
 Practising applying your writing skills as part of your Phonics lesson is a must. Ensure this is a successful process and encourage independence as much as possible. Celebrate independence over
dramatically. When they write the learnt sound – ai in rain for example jump up and dance in celebration. Although embarrassed, they will love writing more and more. Maintain high standards. We would like to see neat, appropriately sized, correctly formed letters on the line with spaces between words, capitals, full plops, the lot! Children will try to be lazy here if we let them!
Reading 30 minutes
 Share your own excitement for reading. “I cannot wait to find out what happens, ooo I love this book”.
 Discuss the beginning, middle and end. Ask many varied questions about the plot. Why do you think she said that? What do think might happen next, why? How else could the story have ended?
 Enjoy it together and encourage paced reading that they are listening to as they read. They need to understand the story even if they are reading slowly sounding out and blending to read words. This is a skill all by itself!
Maths 30 minutes
 Repetition is important, so make it fun. Count down from 20 to blast off, starting at random numbers. Use concrete materials from around your home to touch and feel the learning. 5 bananas plus another 2 bananas?... I can show you that mum and dad!
Matheletics tasks 30 minutes
 Children should be completing tasks with increasing independence. This is a naturally engaging tool but the EYFS section can be somewhat limited. Enjoy the competition games too.
Physical education 30 minutes
 Back to games and more games. A playful but safe PE game will mean the children do not even realise they have just completed PE. Your own excitement and build up to…’we are going to play a game’ will have them with wide eyes if you make it fun! A very simple warm up jogging on the spot can get the pulse racing in a fun way…when I say jump, you don’t jump you sit down. When I say sit down, you don’t, you jump up, all while still jogging on the spot!
Topic 30 minutes
 You can be creative here. Who doesn’t like being proud of creating something. In our recent learning about people who work at night children will be drawn to the creating police hats to act out scenes with you. Or drawing their own emergency road signs for acting out a ‘save the cat from the tree’ scene!


Key Stage One:
Expected amount of time: 3 hours a day on average across the cohort, with less for younger children Session
Time spent on session
Ways to encourage increased participation
Phonics 30 minutes
 Let the children complete the work on whiteboards as this is often less daunting for them. Make use of you YouTube by simply typing in the sound that was in the phonics lesson and adding “for kids” e.g. ow sound for kids
 Treasure hunt; get your child to find objects in the house or garden that have the focus sound in their name.
 Beat the Clock; see if your child can write down words in the slides in a given amount of time.
 Bingo; tricky word bingo. Use the children common exception words to play bingo.
English 1 hour
 Clock; give them a timer so they can see how long they have left and therefor know when they can finish and have break.
 Blocks; don’t make them complete an entire task in one sitting. If they are struggling, then let them have a break or do it in 10 minute blocks.
 Highlighters; kids love highlighters! Set them a task after they have completed the work e.g. highlight all the adjectives they can see.
 Outside the box; pick your battles if it’s a written task and you can see they are not in the right mind-set to write then let them act it out and take a photo to stick in, or draw it or you scribe for them.
Maths 1 hour
 Resources; use what you have in your house to make as many tasks physical as possible
(pasta can be used for most tasks!)
 Games; use online maths games linked to the days topic. Hit the Button, Top Marks and Mathletics.
 Active; YouTube has loads of great maths videos that involve singing and dancing and jumping about and the kids love them.
 Challenge; time them and keep a score each time for them to beat on things like times tables, number bonds, counting in 2’s etc.
Foundation 1 hour
 Follow their lead; as long as you understand the lesson objective (the main thing to be learnt from the task e.g. what a habitat is) then go with the child, if they are not engaged in the set task but would like to research using a computer or write a fact file etc then go with it as long as the main learning is understood it doesn’t matter how you get there.
 Relatives; get them to write a quiz for a relative or ring them and them to tell the child everything they know about the topic.
Reading 20 mins
 Zoom; get them to zoom/face time a relative and read to them.
 Interest; let them read about things they are interested in, look on amazon and order books about unicorns or motorbikes.
 Speed Read; set them a challenge to read a certain amount of words in a set time and see if they can improve it.


Lower Key Stage Two:
Expected amount of time: 4 hours a day.
Typical day –
1 hour – English task set daily. Will include an input / guided session to work through, additional video clips to support when appropriate and an independent task to complete. Over the week activities will vary and aim to include spelling rules, “word of the week” activities, SPAG, reading comprehensions and writing opportunities.
10 -15 minutes – Spellings.
1 hour – Maths tasks set daily focusing on specific topics and recapping past topics and skills. To include an input / guided session to work through with questions to answer on whiteboards or jot down in maths books, links to interactive games which will support the lesson focus when appropriate and a selection of challenges to pick from for the independent task.
15 – 20 minutes – Mathletics activities / Maths Quick Recall skills (Number bonds to 20, 100, Times Tables) & Arithmetic practise.
30 minutes – Reading daily which can be split into two shorter sessions.
1 hour – Topic / P.E. or other. Over the week, activities will cover all subject areas just as we would in the afternoon sessions in school. There will usually be two activities uploaded for a day i.e. Science & French, but on occasion there may only be one, if the task involved will take longer to complete.
Session Time spent on session
Ways to encourage increased participation
English 1 hour
 Self-marking – what can the children spot in their writing that would get a pink tick if they were at school? Get the highlighters out and encourage them to look for great features in their writing.
 Editing & improve their writing – correcting
spellings (using a dictionary / thesaurus - available online) and punctuation, improve vocabulary choices, different ways to start their sentences, adjectives used to describe nouns etc
 Lots of praise. Notice if they’ve tried hard with their presentation, used interesting words, joined their handwriting, been focused on the task etc and give them that extra big verbal boost they might really need right now.
 Share their writing – when writing a story or descriptive piece get them to read it aloud to someone at home or share it with a family member on Face Time or Zoom, upload for us to see– children love to share their achievements.
 Word games can be a nice addition but still with an English focus: Games such as boggle, scrabble, hangman, articulate all encourage word making or description and can offer a much needed break.
 Adapt – some days will be more challenging than others. Please don’t feel worried about changing how the children complete a task or breaking the activity into sections. There will be occasions when an activity could be completed verbally, just on a whiteboard, practically with photos taken or on the computer rather than writing. If needed activities can be
Spellings 10 -15 minutes
 New spellings are set every Thursday with a test the following week. Practise these words, complete spelling activities that are sent out
via Google classroom and use words within sentences.
 Word of the week – children should try and use this word as much as possible at home, together with the synonyms and antonyms to develop their bank of words.
Maths 1 hour
 Self marking their work using the power point slides and then can made any corrections necessary.
 Using APE (Answer it Prove it Explain it) to help develop their mathematical thinking. Ask the children, “How do they know? Prove it!” “Can you show me that in another way?” “What resources could you use to prove that answer?”
 Use any resources you have to hand at home for children to practise skills & or solve problems
Mathletics / Arithmetic & Quick Recall 15-20 minutes
 Practise times tables using Multiplication Mountain sheets or online games such as Hit the Button which is also great for quick recall of number bonds and fact families.
 Use Mathletics & other online, interactive games to cover a variety of topics and as revision of skills learnt.
Reading 30 minutes
 This can be broken up into two parts. Consider15 minutes of children reading to you and 15 minutes of sharing a book together at another point in the day.
 Questions - Ask questions about what is happening in the plot, why a character is acting the way they are or why they are saying what they, how the character might be feeling and why. What do think might happen next, why? How else could the story have ended? Find different word types in the text: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs. Discuss the meaning of new words, think of words which have a similar meaning to a word in the text.
 Enjoy a book together that is slightly beyond what they could read alone; this is a great way for children to keep building their bank of vocabulary.
 Zoom; get them to zoom/face time a relative and read to them.
 Interest; let them read about things they are interested in, look on amazon and order books about unicorns or motorbikes.
 Speed Read for fluency; set a challenge to read a certain amount of words in a set time and see if they can improve it.
Topic / P.E. Science etc 1 hour
 Follow their lead; as long as you understand the lesson objective (the main thing to be learnt from the task e.g. what a habitat is) then go with the child, if they are not engaged in the set task but would like to research using a computer or write a fact file etc then go with it as long as the main learning is understood it doesn’t matter how you get there.


Upper Key Stage Two:
Expected amount of time: 4 hours a day
Typical day –
1 hour – English. Over the week this will cover spelling rules, “word of the week” activities, SPAG sessions, reading comprehensions and learning writing styles / genres.
1 hour 15mins – Maths: we will build on our learning of specific topics, as well as revising and revisiting past subjects. Arithmetic will be in addition to the Maths lesson, where quick fire tables / mental maths knowledge will be recapped and revised.
30 minutes – Reading daily, to include listening to the class text as well as independent reading at home.
1 hour – Topic, Science or Creative Write, each afternoon. In addition there will be RE and PSHE/ RSE lessons over the week.
15 minutes – PE per day.
Please don’t worry if there are days when things don’t quite click – the best teaching you can do at home is to offer, praise, encouragement and support.
Session Time spent on session
Ways to encourage increased participation.
English 1 hour
Children are expected to check their work using ETIW (every time I write), this will mean:
* editing for spellings (using a dictionary / thesaurus which they can do online)
* making sure they have used accurate punctuation, full stops (are some of the sentences too long?), exclamation marks, question marks after a question, using commas not just for a list but to split up sentences and as parenthesis
* improving their writing, using semi colons, colons, ellipsis – experimenting with punctuation
* avoiding repetition of the same words: find synonyms and use these instead!!
Other activities to extend can be playing games: such as boggle, scrabble, how many words can you make from the word “Outstanding” (for example)
Class book 15 mins
Every day the next part in the class text will be posted. Children are expected to listen and keep up to date. If you can encourage your child to listen and talk about the book this will develop their understanding. If there are any words your child isn’t sure of the meaning, please do encourage them to use a dictionary, talk to you and develop their vocabulary bank.
Daily reading 15 – 30 minutes
As normal, children are required to read at home. We have provided some reading books and will also be pointing to online texts that are available at present.
Weekly spellings 5 minutes daily
Spellings are set every Thursday with a test the following week. Children should learn these daily, there are an abundance of spelling apps to help with this! But if you are stuck or would like some tips please feel free to get in touch.
Word of the week – children should try and use this word as much as possible at home, together with the synonyms and antonyms to develop their bank of words.
Maths 1 hour
Children are required to mark their work and make any corrections. If there is a specific issue with any questions please e mail Mrs Jones on ash@hopton.suffolk.sch.uk
We use APE (Answer it Prove it Explain it) to try and encourage children to explain their mathematical thinking.
Ask the children, “How do they know? Prove it!”
Extension tasks can be to use the learning from the day in a contextual sense – think of a word problem for them, ask them to prove it in a different way (can they use counters – draw dots / diennes – draw symbols to be diennes / show the problem using a bar method?)
Arithmetic practise 15 minutes
Once marked, children can practise their times tables / use Mathletics to cover a variety of topics and act as revision.
Topic Creative write
4 topic sessions
1 Creative write
1 hour
Children are expected to spend some time researching around the topic, sharing what they find out with the class so we can develop a more in-depth understanding of the topic together – building on their interests!
As with all writing they should be using the ETIW criteria – ensuring beautiful presentation in everything that they do, as well as editing spellings, punctuation and aiming
to improve their work.
PE – two 1 hour sessions per week 15 mins
Please encourage your child to be as active as possible everyday (within the current guidance). On top of the weekly lesson provided by Mr Wooler, children can use online sessions, such as the 3 live weekly sessions by Joe Wicks, or just long walks with the family!
RE PSHE/ RSE
Two 45 minute sessions per week 15 mins
To extend these sessions, children can talk to you about the concepts covered, undertake their own research or think about their own, “I wonder..?” questions to share with the class.

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contact

Hopton CEVC Primary School
Thelnetham Road
Hopton Diss
Norfolk
IP22 2QY
Telephone No:  01953 681449
Fax No:  01953 688938
Email:  admin@hopton.suffolk.sch.uk

Mrs Sarah Adnett and  Mrs Terri Baker will deal with any of your enquiries.
Headteacher:  Mrs Claire Wright
SEND/Co: Mrs Claire Wright