Home Learning

Intent  

At Elmhurst School we believe that children benefit greatly from the mutual support of parents and teachers in encouraging them to learn both at home and at school. By valuing home-school learning, children are afforded the opportunity to: 

• practise and consolidate key skills 

• enhance their understanding of work covered in the classroom 

• explore their own interests across the wider curriculum  

• develop their independence and creative thinking  

Reading 

Encouraging and supporting children to read at home provides them with an invaluable chance to develop into confident and fluent readers, which in turn builds their confidence in accessing their wider learning in all subjects. This includes listening to them read, asking them questions about the book that they choose to read and discussing the characters, plot or information. Children should explore a range of books and not just the books they bring home from school. Further guidance regarding age appropriate books can be found on the Curriculum Leaflets and will be updated termly with suggestions that link to what the children are learning about in school. 

Phonics/Spellings 

Phonics: we use ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds' phonics. This government approved scheme allows us to teach phonics in a consistent way across the school.  Phonemes (sounds) will be introduced each week in Reception, Year 1 and, for the Autumn term, Year 2. Weekly spellings, using some or all of these sounds, will be sent home for children to practise.

Spellings: we use ‘Spelling Shed’ as a tool to teach specific spelling rules and ensure progression throughout the year. Encouraging children to learn and practise new spellings at home each week not only reinforces their understanding of each new spelling rule, but also helps children to develop their confidence in using new language in context. Weekly spellings are sent home in the children’s pink folders every Friday. 

Numbots/ Times Tables Rockstars 

At Elmhurst, we use Numbots and Times Tables Rockstars to support and develop children’s learning of number bonds and times tables. Numbots is a game approach to developing speed and recall for number bonds and repeated addition, while Times Tables Rockstars is an online platform that enables children to develop the recall of multiplication tables and related facts. Levels will initial be set by class teachers until children are showing a good level of progress, at which point they will access ‘auto-training’.  

Home Learning Project  

As a school, we encourage children to be ‘divergent thinkers’ and respond creatively to enquiry-based questions throughout the wider curriculum. In order to further develop this approach to learning at home, we set a ‘Home Learning Project’ every two weeks via Class Dojo. In order to encourage families to work together on these, the enquiry question we set is open-ended and the same question is set across the school, so that any children with siblings can work together and share ideas. 

Page last updated: 04/03/24