‘Homework has a positive impact (on average +5 months progress), particularly on pupils in secondary school.’
Educational Endowment Foundation
As teachers, one of our most important roles is to prepare our students for their adult lives, ensuring that they can flourish, succeed and be happy in future employment. One of the ways that we can most productively achieve this is by ensuring that our pupils develop time management skills that are needed to balance responsibilities and deadlines. Furthermore, we can ensure that our students are equipped with the valuable study skills that will encourage them to be lifelong learners.
The King Arthur’s home learning ethos is that tasks must be purposeful and relevant to the subject and learning phase, embedding the key knowledge for that topic and continuing to consolidate prior learning. Additionally, we are passionate about ensuring students understand how to maximise the capacity of their brain to retain knowledge and develop study skills that will last a lifetime.
We recognize that for some students, completing home learning at home can be a challenge. We therefore run an after-school home learning club after school in IT2 between 3.00 and 4.00 where students can complete tasks with teacher supervision. For more information about this, please contact Miss Andrews (hayley.andrews@kingarthurs.org.uk)
Managing Deadlines
Home Learning tasks can be tracked and managed on Google Classroom using the King Arthur’s log in. Students can gain access to this through the portal homepage.
The KS3 Home Learning timetable can be accessed here – HL timetables KS3.
The Year 10 Home Learning timetable can be accessed here – HL timetable Year 10
The Year 11 Home Learning timetable can be accessed here – HL timetable Year 11
On the day the work is due, students will be required to show their task to their class teacher who will mark it. Completion of home learning is rewarded with a Home Learning house point.
Knowledge Organisers & Home Learning Booklets
All students in KS3 will be provided a printed copy of the knowledge organisers for their subjects once per term. These contain the ‘central concepts’ for each unit of work and can support with home learning tasks and revision. Students should keep these safe in their document wallet and refer to them when completing home learning.
At KS4, knowledge organisers are provided to students in their home learning booklets which are given out in each subject once per half term. Home Learning is set in these booklets to reduce the amount of screen time that students are exposed to, promoting better health and well-being, but also allowing parents/carers to more easily track completion and therefore support student study at home. They also provide invaluable study and revision material for exams and tests.
Maths & Science
Our Maths and Science departments will continue to use online platforms to set and monitor home learning this year, as these provide important data analysis functions that can inform teachers’ understanding of their class’ progress.
Sparx Maths can be accessed here.
Seneca Science can be accessed here.
Creatives & PE
At King Arthur’s, we recognize that not all subjects are equally suited to short, weekly home learning tasks. Our Creatives department are passionate about ensuring that our students have valuable opportunities for artistic, technical and sporting pursuits that develop project-based learning skills and spark interest and curiosity around the subject.
Each half term, in KS3, 2 Creatives subjects will set a project-based learning task. These will be linked to our house competitions and rewards system. From photography competitions to fitness challenges, cooking projects to app design, we hope that this will allow our students to become immersed in that subject, while also getting a flavour for the time management required to create portfolios and projects (one of the assessment criteria for GCSE.)
Tutor Time Study Skills
Beginning in September 2025, students in Year 7 – Year 10 will have one tutor time session per week dedicated to study skills. Using tasks linked to PSHE, current affairs and the science of learning, students will have the opportunity to explicitly learn how to create effective revision material using some of the most useful techniques:
– Mind maps
– Flashcards
– Summaries and notes
– Past paper questions
– Repetition and retrieval
We are hopeful that being explicitly taught how to revise effectively will support our students in having success in assessments, while also helping to support mental health and wellbeing by reducing stress and confusion around PPEs and public exams.
If you have any further questions about Study Skills, please contact Miss Howell (laura.howell@kingarthurs.org.uk)