Homework plays an important part of our continued efforts to raise achievement and make use of every available learning opportunity.

Homework is an essential part of the curriculum as it allows children to practise and apply the skills and knowledge they have developed in school, encourages independence, creates good working habits for future education and also allows you as parents and carers to share in their learning.

Literacy

All children from Reception to Year 6 will receive Read, Write Inc homework. For children on the phonics programme this will be almost daily as the children are introduced to new sounds. As children move through the scheme, Read, Write, Inc booklets will be sent home weekly.

Key Stage 2 children may receive Grammar homework during weeks where there is no suitable Read, Write, Inc homework and will receive weekly spellings.

Children will also be given individual reading scheme books and we expect these to be brought into school every day.

Maths

Children will receive maths homework every week which will contain all homework for the year. Children will also receive times tables to be learnt each week.

Science/ Topic

Children may receive Science or topic based homework at various points during the year in place of Maths or Literacy Homework.

Every child has been given a clear Perspex Homework folder in which to carry their homework. We do however also encourage children to use a school bag to ensure the homework folder and books are not damaged or lost.

Individual Pupil Mentoring

The return of homework is recorded weekly and forms part of your child’s mentoring grades.

Every term each child has an individual meeting with their class teacher to discuss their progress, targets , behaviour and attitude. Homework is graded as part of this.

Green – always returns homework on time

Yellow – returns most homework, mostly on time

Red – returns little homework , often late.

No child likes to see red on their Mentoring sheet !

Bug Club

Bug Club is a finely-levelled reading scheme, which ensures that all children can find books at exactly the right level for them. Bug Club has been developed so that it can be accessed via tablets. If you have had problems in the past, please try again to log in. If you still have problems, please discuss these with your child’s teacher so that we can resolve these issues. Thank you!

Reading a book online

We allocate books to your child according to their reading levels. These books will appear on their personal homepages.

Throughout the books there are quiz questions for your child to complete. To answer a question, just click on the bug icon.

Your child does not need to finish all the quiz questions in one sitting and can come back to a book later.

When your child has finished all the quiz questions in a book, he or she will earn ‘Bug Points’. By reading more books, your child will earn enough points for a reward. The answers to the quiz questions will be sent back to our teacher site so that we can see how your child is progressing. We will also be able to assign more books for your child to read if the virtual book bag is running low.

When your child has finished a book, it will move to ‘Books I have read’ (for KS1) or ‘Look again’ (for KS2). Children can read these books again if they want to, or they can choose new books from ‘My Books’.

Have you been using Espresso Primary at home?

Espresso Primary is an online cross-curricular service that provides video-rich resources to schools throughout the UK. It contains thousands of videos and multimedia activities, as well as a weekly news service.

For more information, please visit: www.espresso.co.uk

How to access Espresso from home

To access Espresso from home you will need a PC or Apple Mac and a connection to the internet. You can then go to https://central.espresso.co.uk and enter the school’s username and password.

These login details have been provided by your child's teacher. Please contact school if you need a reminder. 

Getting started

Before you start using Espresso, read the Parents’ guide. This explains what Espresso is, how to use it and how to support your child with their learning. To find the guide, select one of the Home Learning icons (from the appropriate key stage) on the left-hand side of the Espresso home page. The Parents’ guide button is located in the top left-hand corner of the following page.

If the site does not work well on Internet Explorer, please try another browser such as Google Chrome.

Click on the Oxford Reading and Oxford Maths links below for helpful ways to help yout child with their learning, as well as games and resources.

Oxford Reading	Oxford Maths

Reward Systems

We are also working with Class and School Councils to establish a further reward system for returning homework and consequences for not returning work.

Homework Club Passes

To support those who may have found completing homework and returning work to school difficult in the past we will be running an after school homework club to ensure that all children are completing this part of the curriculum. We do appreciate however that there may be exceptional circumstances where homework may be returned late or your child may need further support in school .

Parental Support

At Laurel Avenue we greatly value homework and as I am sure you will see when your child brings the new books and folders home, we have invested a great deal of money in ensuring they have consistent and  high quality resources. We welcome therefore your support in ensuring books and folders are well cared for and returned to school.