Homework

Homework

At The Hamble School, we know that homework makes a significant difference to learning and individual student attainment. It is often those who have highly developed independent learning skills from completing homework that make the best progress and are successful in examinations. In addition, the independent learning skills, resilience and organisation skills developed from completing homework are essential to success in post-16 and post-18 education.

At KS3 it is designed to build upon and broaden our student’s understanding of the topics they are studying for each subject’s curriculum.

At KS4 homework serves multiple functions. Feedforward homework asks students to research an area in preparation for it being covered in class. Revision homework allows students to revisit past topics (often in an interleaving style) and some homework intent mirrors KS3 to further broaden a student’s understanding.

How is homework set and how often?

In order to communicate homework tasks and expectations efficiently, we use our online homework calendar Class Charts. This ensures that we minimise the time taken to record homework in lessons and that all resources are readily available. It also means that parents can monitor the homework setting and assist their children with organisation and with the tasks, if required. Homework is set by the individual subject teachers. At KS3 usually, students are set half an hour of homework per subject, per week. There are exceptions.  PE does not set homework at KS3 (due to sports clubs) and subjects that see students once over two weeks will set half an hour of homework over two weeks. For all other subjects, homework although set weekly, may not be collected weekly as it may be part of a longer project or due to the fact that some subjects see a group multiple times in one week and not in the other.  Student will usually be given a week to complete homework (excluding the above exceptions). Homework is recorded on Class Charts and submission can either be through this application or in class.

At KS4 it is the same as KS3, although students are set one hour of homework per subject (excluding PSHCRE), per week and for all examination subjects this can be weekly.

Students need to record the fact that homework has been set and the deadline in their student planners. The task details and deadline are on the Class Charts website and this often carries links to wider reading sources or video clips that can support learning.

To do their very best, our advice to students is:

  • Check you have understood the task and made a note of the hand in date in your planner.
  • Attempt homework well in advance of the deadline so that you can ask for help if required.
  • Frequently check Class Charts for task details and remember that there is an app for your phone or tablet which may also help.
  • Ask your teacher what you need to do in order to achieve your best.
  • Produce work of a high quality – all the time.
  • Treat the guide time as a minimum time you should take to complete the tasks.
  • Extend your interests by reading widely around the topics.