At Townville Academy we believe that homework can play a positive role in helping the children to develop the necessary skills to become independent learners. Homework encompasses a whole variety of activities that can support a child’s learning. Children can benefit greatly from the collaborative learning opportunities and mutual support of parents and teachers in encouraging them to learn both at home and at school.

We believe that homework should:

• consolidate prior learning,
• provide opportunity to practise and improve
• develop skills
• inspire, excite and enthuse children through shared, family experiences.

Early Years Foundation Stage

In Nursery, we use the ’50 things to do before your 5’ scheme as a great way to encourage families to engage in age-appropriate activities designed to support child development.

In Nursery, each Friday children will be given a home learning bag during their Love and learn session.  This bag is full of activities for children and their families to share together.  Bags should be returned and swapped the following Friday.

In Reception, every parent is encouraged to support their child to read their book or practice their phonics at least 20 times each half term.  Each reading/practice session should be a minimum of 10 minutes.

Children are also encouraged to begin engaging with our online maths fluency platform: Numbots, 3 times per week for a minimum of 5 minutes each time.

Through focus child meetings each term, your child's class teacher will also share with you ideas as to how best to support your child to develop the specific skills or knowledge they need support with.  

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1 children will receive a ‘Homework Challenge Sheet’ each half term.  This will contain a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 9, homework challenges for a range of subjects across the curriculum.

Each half term, children and their families may opt to do as many or as few of the challenges as they wish.  Any child completing all the challenges within the half term will receive a ‘Homework Champion’ certificate in celebration assembly and will be entered into a prize draw.

Completed challenges can be recorded in a child’s homework book and brought into school each Wednesday to share with their teacher/class.

In addition, children are expected to:

• Read at least 20 times each half-term.  Each reading session should be a minimum of 15 minutes and recorded on the School Gateway app through the ‘Useful links’ section.  All home reads will also count towards the children’s 100 read challenge.

• Practice reading and writing the given red words at least once per week.  These should be recorded in the child’s homework book.
• Play Numbots 3 times per week for a minimum of 5 minutes each time.