The English department are excited to continue with last year’s initiative to support your child with their reading skills and homework this year. In line with the school policy, your child will be set two pieces of homework a week. Your child will receive one reading homework and one vocabulary homework per week. This page outlines what homework your child will be set and how best to support them with their homework.
Vocabulary Homework:
For each of the topics taught in the year, teachers have selected key, ambitious vocabulary that will support your child within the topic taught. The new GCSE demands that students can understand and use ambitious vocabulary so this homework set each week will specifically develop skills needed for GCSE study. The aim of the homework each week is to embed the vocabulary into your child’s long term memory so that they will understand the vocabulary if they come across it in a text and they can use their vocabulary in their own writing. Research has shown that students should be exposed to vocabulary a number of times in order for it to retain in their memory, therefore, we have specifically incorporated this.
Each week your child will be taught a new word and will complete a task on this during their English lesson. The following week they will be given homework tasks to consolidate their knowledge of this word. The work will then be addressed again in another lesson before finally being tested in a quiz at the end of the half term.
It is essential that homework is completed every week and on time in order for this initiative to have the ultimate impact on your child.
How can you help?
Research consistently shows that regular reading for pleasure is the best way to ensure children develop a wide vocabulary; it would be helpful if you could encourage your child to read for pleasure as often as possible. It can be helpful to set this into a routine, i.e. twenty minutes three times a week. In addition to this there are several strategies you can also use to support your child with their home learning. We have attached with this letter a Parent Information Sheet with the selected words students will be taught throughout the year and a number of strategies that you can use to help your child secure their understanding and spelling of the words. Please use this sheet to support your child in completing the homework on time and correctly.
Reading Portfolio:
Each week your child will have a reading lesson as part of their English lessons. In reading lessons your child will be taught how to comprehend and analyse texts independently, working in groups and as a class on a ‘class reader’ – a high quality novel. As part of their work on the novel read in class each week, students will be able to select a homework activity to complete that will support them to consolidate their understanding of the themes, characters and events in the book. This activity will be creative and will form their portfolio. Your child’s English teacher will check your child is completing a reading portfolio task each week and this will be marked at the end of each half term/ term. It is essential that students take pride in this and their presentation of work is of a high standard and we ask for your support in ensuring your child completes their reading portfolio to the best of their ability each week. We have also attached a copy of the portfolio tasks for your information.