Home Learning
At Alexander McLeod Primary School we believe that home learning should be a collaborative and enjoyable activity that engages the children with their class topic and creates a thirst for knowledge. We believe that home learning should be a tool to encourage children to pursue their interests and fascinations and begin their journey as life long learners.
Our homework challenge is issued at the start of each half term and is linked to the current topic being explored in class. Challenges vary from creating 3D models of animals to writing a postcard from a characters point of view. Children have 6 weeks to then identify challenges that inspire their learning and motivate them to find out more about their current topic.
If children wish to submit their home learning to their teacher they may do so throughout the term. Submitted homework will be acknowledged in class and often put on display.
Reading and Spelling
There is a vast amount of academic research and statistical evidence that highlights the importance of reading 20 minutes a day and the impact it can have on a child’s language and literacy skills. At Alexander McLeod, we encourage all our families to spend just twenty minutes a day reading to their children or listening to them read. By reading and talking with your child each day, you bond with them and model the love of reading, which will benefit them in school and throughout life.
This year we have launched the use of ‘Spelling Shed’ as a fun and interactive way for children to develop their spelling. Spelling Shed is an online application that uses a friendly interface to encourage children to practice their spelling; children are able to score points and compete against children locally and nationally!
Times Table Rockstars and NumBots
Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so.
This format has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 8 years in over 14,000 schools - both primary and secondary - worldwide.
In EYFS and Year 1, children use NumBots to support them with their maths. NumBots is all about every child achieving the “triple win” of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating.