Homework and Self-Quizzing

There are three types of homework:

1. Paper homework: every week, your child receives one piece of homework from each subject due for the following week. In most subjects, this homework is completed on paper. It allows students to consolidate and extend their learning.
2. Online homework: Some homework is set online and in place of the paper homework, including most homework for mathematics and science and some homework for English, geography and MFL.
3. Self-quizzing homework: Your child also receives self-quizzing homework once a week from each subject. This ensures that your child is memorising and recalling the powerful knowledge that they need to be successful.

Your child should receive one piece of homework from each of their subjects once a week, in addition to self-quizzing. This will mean that every day they should be completing homework from at least two subjects. Homework tasks will be varied but should include a mixture of activities that consolidate learning in class, extended writing and self-quizzing.

• Students in KS3 should spend approximately 30-40 minutes per subject each night
• Students in KS4 should spend approximately 1 hour per subject each night
• Students in KS5 should spend 1 hour 30 minutes per subject

There is a daily homework club that takes place after school in the library. Students can use this time to complete homework in a quiet environment or ask for help from subject specialists. In addition, Sparx Maths, Sparx Reader and Sparx Science clubs run each week to support students with the completion of their homework tasks.

If you have any questions about homework, please contact your child’s Head of Year.

• Make sure your child brings their planner, homework folder, self-quizzing book and 100% book to school every day.
• Check your child’s planner every day and encourage them to complete their homework in order of priority, completing the homework with the soonest due date first.
• Make sure your child has a quiet, well-lit place to do homework.
• Avoid having your child do homework with the television on or in places with other distractions.
• Be positive about homework.  Tell your child how important school is. The attitude you express about homework will be the attitude your child acquires.
• Help your child with time management. Establish a set time each day for doing homework. Don‘t let your child leave homework until just before bedtime. Think about using a weekend morning or afternoon for working on big projects.
• Stay informed. E-mail your child‘s teacher. Communicate with your child's teacher via their student planner about the quality and quantity of homework.
• Encourage your child to attend homework clubs. Homework clubs run every day after school in the library. Students are able to work with teachers and access resources to help them complete their homework successfully.

For every learning cycle, the content for each subject is distilled into a knowledge organiser. This provides key fingertip knowledge for each subject. For each cycle, all the knowledge organisers are collated into a 100% book or folder which each student receives. These 100% books underpin mapped revision homework, alongside regular skill-focused homework.

Students are also provided with a self-quizzing book, which they use in order to test themselves on the knowledge in their 100% book; self-quizzing is one of the most effective revision strategies to embed key knowledge. Students are taught how to use the read, cover, write, check revision strategy and question and answer flashcards to test themselves. This encourages students to take ownership of their learning, and to support them in developing good learning habits. Embedding this content is critical for long-term success and effective retrieval from long-term memory.

Read, cover, write, check

Students learn key information in their knowledge organisers by reading a small section, covering it up, saying the definitions to themselves, writing out those key terms and definitions in their self-quizzing books, then checking to see if they got them right. They should correct any errors in green pen, then repeat the process.

Set-up, read and cover - video

Write, check and repeat - video