Properly designed homework can play a valuable part in a student’s education:
1. It offers opportunities for work which is independent of the teacher and other students.
2. It can exploit materials and sources of information that are not accessible in the classroom.
3. It allows students to extend and complete work started in College and to practice skills learnt in class.
4. It permits the setting of tasks suitable to individual students.
5. It can help to strengthen links between home and College, thus involving parents/carers in children’s learning.
6. Homework can invite students to pursue their own lines of enquiry on particular topics.
How can parents/carers help?
We ask parents/carers to support us in seeing that homework is done conscientiously and in the best possible conditions. An area where your child can study quietly and comfortably without distractions is the ideal.
There are many ways in which you can encourage and support your child in the completion of homework, for example:-
➢ Encouraging your child to attempt all the tasks set.
➢ Checking the presentation of the work, including spelling and hand writing.
➢ Testing what has been learned.
➢ Listening to and reading what has been written.
➢ Asking for explanations about the subject being studied.
➢ Allowing the performance of simple and safe experiments.
Try to have available – pens, pencils, ruler, rubber, coloured crayons, glue, a scientific calculator etc.
Homework Planners
Time will be allowed during the lesson for the completion of your child’s personal Homework Planner.
It is important that it is filled in correctly and kept up-to-date as it is a valuable record for staff, students and parents/carers. Sometimes the assignment will be written out, other times the note in the planner will refer the student to a printed sheet or the full version of the task written elsewhere.
If the work is set to last over a number of homework allocations this should be clearly marked in the planner at the time the work is set. Parents/carers are asked to check their child’s homework diary and sign it at the end of each week adding any comments they may feel are appropriate.