Why I love… Homework and strongly believe in it (or home learning!)

---

This September I arrived in a school that has an experienced, well organised and dedicated team of professionals working collaboratively together and became the new Leader of learning in English and Drama. Prior to my arrival I asked for the team to complete a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) so that I could try to hit the ground running. There didn’t seem as if there was anything major to look at in terms of curriculum. We work on a mixed ability basis across the whole department, in every year group, which in English is my preference and the research supports this approach for everyone, apart from perhaps the most able. However, that is a different blog post or focus.

One of the stand out ‘grumbles’ or things that they wanted to change, from staff was the lack of homework completed by the students and the difficulty in ensuring that they did do it well and effectively. Bedrock vocabulary was in place and remains in place and we are very happy with this and the vocabulary/learning outcomes that this leads to. However, it was clear more focus on learning extending outside of the classroom was needed. Prior to starting I spoke to @katiesuther the Second in Department and an absolute professional whizz, about what I wanted to do and she was in complete agreement with me, which was great as I didn’t want to come into a new department and make changes for the sake of it, or alienate anyone straight away.

This meant on day one of the new term, when we had our first meeting of the year, I introduced what I wanted to do with homework (although this also involves a re-branding to home learning). This has been hugely influenced by the work of @TLMPsF and I have to thank her for this as it is simple, doesn’t make a lot of extra work for teachers and means that we can check the homework in about 5 minutes in the lesson.

Essentially, students in Y7, 8, 9 and 11 will continue to complete a total of 4 Bedrock Vocabulary quizzes online over the fortnight, in addition to this each week they will have 1 40-minute piece of reading or writing homework, uploaded to and accessed through Google Classrooms. There is no need to print and hand out the sheets as every student has a Google Classroom password and can access this information from their school account. Also, if they have no computer access the homework club is on every night afterschool and they can use the library computers at break or lunchtime. Year 10 is slightly different but they are still set weekly homework linking to their Literature texts that they are being taught (they sit Literature at the end of Year 10 and while we pair up and teach the same texts there is some flexibility in choice, meaning that we can’t be quite as organised with this year group as we need a range of home learning tasks depending on the text). We have mixed ability classes and the homework we set has specific parameters:

We also (as a team) have divided into pairs and are setting home learning for a year group each. This means that by the end of this year, all homework for all year groups will be available and ready to go, linked to the units that they are studying or to prior learning. This means that the planning is not too onerous, and we are all responsible for quality checking the home learning set and ensuring that the multiple-choice quizzes that go with the home learning works for the questions. We did envisage questions in regard to accessibility and differentiation but agreed that if we all set Q1 as an accessible to all question and progressively make the questions more challenging then we are offering differentiation and for the students who we know will really find it challenging then we can discuss with them exactly what we want them to do.

Below is the information that we went through in the first meeting and the rationale for doing homework in this way:

Why home learning not homework?

Homework has a bad press. Students don’t like it. Teachers don’t like the administrative burden of setting and chasing it. By calling it home learning the intention is to get students to recognise it as an extension of the learning undertaken in lessons.

To alleviate the potential administrative burden, we do this:

• Set home learning on the same day for each year group every week, making it easier to remember when it is/should be set.
• Homework will be centrally managed and uploaded to Google Classrooms removing the need to individually set homework, teachers will just need to remember to check for the homework with the class on the following homework setting day.
• For Reading homework checking will take the form of MCQs (multiple choice questions) set by the teacher when the home learning task is created ready for a quick ‘do now’ task in lessons. Teachers will be easily able to circulate and know whether homework has been completed through knowing the class and seeing how students respond to the MCQ.
• For Writing challenges homework checking will be through peer assessment (modelled each time by the teacher) and then giving the opportunity to circulate and see the quality of work/live mark if you wish.
• Students who can’t access internet at home will have an opportunity to use the computers in the library or go to the homework club
• Faculty detention will be available on google sheets for students who don’t do homework – I will administer the chasing & detentions

Part 1: All year groups: Bedrock Learning (except Y10)

Re-launching with all students – the rationale

• Remind them of the importance of purposeful practice
• Raise their literacy in English and across the whole school
• Improve vocabulary
• Raise the profile of applying vocabulary rules learnt in Bedrock in lessons for improved reading & writing comprehension
• Embed the importance of the power of words
• Last year there were teething problems and we want to see how powerful the programme can be when used for a whole year
• Want to harness the potential of the programme
• Want parents to ‘buy in’ and engage with the programme

 

Part 2: Weekly *Reading/Writing* Challenge homework with MCQ (multiple choice questions) in class to check understanding/application. The intention will be a combination of consolidatory tasks based on the units being worked on in class, and interleaved tasks as the year progresses returning to previous learning. These will be added weekly to Google Classrooms under the relevant year group and under a specific Home Learning Tab. Reading could be a weekly article with questions linked to vocab/comprehension/different aspects of Fiction & Non-Fiction or reading a short story and responding to it in some way. Writing could be redrafting the weekly writing challenge to improve after the two lessons or an independent task that helps students to focus on specific skills or challenges for example grammar focus or applying a specific technique to their writing.

 

Rationale for adding this layer to homework in Y7-9 & Y11

• Getting students used to purposeful practice without the teachers help
• In an ‘exam only’ curriculum we need students to revise effectively, this way of home learning supports this
• We are setting homework deliberately to: consolidate knowledge, get students to revisit work which forces them to use their long-term memories and retrieve the information they need, therefore strengthening their ability to remember information, interleave previous learning again to aid retrieval practice.
• Not setting tasks with no purpose, rather setting tasks that will benefit the students in the long term
• Helping students to revise
• Making students more resilient
• Supporting them in becoming independent and autonomous learners
• Giving them the tools to success later in their academic career (students at A-Level who have always worked hard independently, irrespective of their ability level achieve more academically when they understand how to study effectively)

Why is Year 10 different?

Year 10 is about ensuring that students are able to apply their knowledge of the Lit texts and to consolidate and learn the information that they will need for the exams at the end of the year. Therefore, the tasks set will still be consolidatory in nature but specific to the Lit exam and reinforcing the learning of quotes, plots and knowing the texts inside out. Therefore, setting homework slightly differently in Year 10 makes sense.

This is how we can set home learning in Year 10: KO learning & quotes learning / Revision focused homework – can be consolidation or timed essays practice/ Online MCQ for all units / One Stop Revision Booklet with independent study tasks , Meta-cognition work / practice papers / A question a week from previous knowledge to write about or complete / give students a text and get them to create an exam paper /grammar exercises /redrafting writing tasks

Administrative Points to consider:

We knew we needed to log all non-completion and chase this, so initially we started this process through a google doc and now are moving this onto SIMS. However, no class teacher should have added workload for homework chasing beyond checking it is done in class – all will be centrally monitored & maintained. Setting up reading and writing challenges will add to workload initially, but we have divided this between the team, so it should be easier.

Homework marking – there is no marking expectation in Y7, 8 & 9 as this is up with an in class MCQ check – teacher can circulate and check and sanction according to the faculty detention for HW. Y10 & Y11 Homework marking is at the discretion of the class teacher, but Y10 and Y11 can also be checked using MCQs.

Rewarding Excellence in homework:

We don’t want it to be only a punitive system. On the same detention monitoring spreadsheet there is a second tab, where we add the names of students who have gone above and beyond with their home learning and deserve a praise phone call home. Although, we are setting detentions for non-completion or home learning not being in on time, we are also keen to get the message out that we value the effort and focus completed by students in their home learning. Already since launching this policy I’ve made 55 positive calls for students across all year groups and from all classes to say well done to them for the effort and excellence they have shown in their home learning.

When we set homework:

• Make sure that the questions gradually get harder
• Articles are selected that are age appropriate
• The work follows up on classwork
• Tasks should be 30 – 40 minutes
• Bedrock expectations is the same as the previous year – 4 a fortnight
• We create the homework & the MCQ/Peer assessment feedback task
• We upload to google classrooms in the relevant year group, home learning folder, labelled with the year group – reading/writing and w/c date
• We will upload on a Monday for every year group & then set & check weekly

Parents have also had a letter sent to them letting them know about our new expectations of home learning in English.

I’m not saying that this policy won’t be without issues and that it won’t need tweaking but hopefully by asking students to complete 40 minutes a week of either reading or writing work we are in the process of helping prepare them for future learning as the work they complete at home consolidates, provides confirmation for them of what they can do and prepares them for the final GCSE that they take.

The team have been fantastically supportive with this new initiative, working collaboratively, offering small tweak suggestions, supporting with lunchtime detentions and running around in tutor time to speak to students. As well as this, our excellent Assistant Head for behaviour has provided the whole school homework policy, a letter for parents to follow up on non-attendance, a listening ear and excellent advice on changing the culture around home learning. The Head also announced in briefing that it was “nice to hear students outraged at the prospect of a detention for not doing homework” and “was this true” from the students, which I think is a result not only of English but Maths and other faculties as well promoting the importance of home learning.

At this point in time students may not understand the rationale for us insisting on home learning completion but the extra hours or purposeful practice, should and we hope will make a difference to their ability to independently cope with the rigour of the exam only syllabus.

I’ll leave you with a Dylan William quote “Preparation for future learning is the most effective form of homework.” And we hope that we are putting in place strong foundations for future learning both while our students are in school with us, but after they leave and are independently studying or learning later in life. Hopefully, this is interesting, and it clearly is topical, with the high profile attention that homework has been given in the news this week. As I’ve said to the students (a quote completely stolen from the wonderful Katie Sutherland @Katiesuther) they are competing not just with the students in the school, but every student across the whole country and we want to help them stand out just that little bit more.