Learning at Home – Boulcott School

Home Learning ideas

After much deliberation and consultation with staff, students and the community, the Senior Leadership Team has decided to scale back our homework programme across the school in 2020.

Current research has shown that for primary school aged students most homework tasks do not improve academic outcomes (Kohn, 2006; Cooper, 2006; Blazer, 2009; Farrow, Tymms & Henderson, 2013) and do not help young children develop study or time management skills (Hattie, 2009). The only homework activity that has consistently been shown to improve outcomes across a range of measures for primary students is reading (Allyn & Bacon, 2005).

Junior students will continue to have a reader issued each night, Middle and Senior school students will be asked to read independently for at least 10 to 20 minutes each evening. If sustaining independent reading is a struggle for your child then reading with or to them each evening is also hugely beneficial. There may be times throughout the year that students will be asked to complete some additional homework for a special project.

We encourage families to use the time that would otherwise be spent on doing homework to do activities that research has shown improves student outcomes: spending time outdoors, preparing and eating dinner as a family, playing board games, reading together, reducing screen time and getting to bed early!

If you would like your child to complete learning tasks at home, there are some handy link below that we would recommend:

NZ Maths site

This section provides some ideas for how you can raise awareness and share mathematics using everyday experiences and resources found around your home. It includes ideas for supporting your children’s learning in all areas of mathematics: geometry, measurement, statistics, algebra and number.

Below are some ideas you could encourage your child to do at home, based around their passions and interests.

Maths

Maths posters
Basic Facts
Multiplication and Division Facts

Literacy

Poster about books or authors
Research Posters about a topic that interests you
Book Reviews
Pamphlets
Spelling Activities
Power points/slides or movies about interesting topics
Epic – A digital reading platform for kids 12 and under. It has 40,000 books, audiobooks, learning videos, quizzes and more. Both English and Spanish books are available.

P.E.

Create a fitness circuit
Invent a game for others to play
Create a healthy menu for your family
Help someone at home to cook a meal
Research a new sport

Other Curriculum Areas

Sketch objects from home
Paint a picture of a scene from a holiday place
Conduct some science experiments at home and record your results
Write your own song or rap
Choreograph and record a creative dance
Design and create a poster promoting our EnviroSchool principles
Practising simple Te Reo Maori phrases around the home.

If you are interested in purchasing workbooks to support your child’s learning at home, we would recommend:

Dragon Maths Books

Start Right Workbooks