Home Learning

From Homework to Independent Learning

Here at Blackminster Middle School we are totally committed to the personal, social and academic success of every student. We believe that work outside school can make a significant contribution to this success. However, in order for students to make the most progress, we need to move away from rigid ideas about traditional “homework”, and instead provide opportunities for students to learn independently.

We also know that many parents and carers value the opportunity to share purposeful learning activities with their children in the supportive atmosphere of the home. Independent Learning can, therefore, become a vehicle for developing and enhancing partnership and raising student attainment. Independent Learning tasks can take many forms – learning spellings; answering questions; carrying out an experiment; teaching something to a parent or carer; watching a documentary; carrying out some research, memorising some vocabulary; using the mymaths.co.uk website to practice maths skills......the list is only limited by our imaginations!

Parents and carers are sometimes surprised to find that we don’t have a “Homework Timetable”, with set subjects each night of the week, but we have found that more interesting, challenging activities like those we are trying to encourage need a more flexible approach. Increasingly too, students will find themselves being set longer, project-type tasks. The idea here is to give the opportunity for a more extended piece of work, but all of this means that students will need to manage their time and workload in order to meet deadlines. These are skills that are needed throughout school, Further and Higher Education, as well as in many workplaces.

Teachers will give students guidance on Independent Learning projects, and may even break them down into short-term tasks to help, but if you find that your child is struggling with projects or with any other aspect of managing their Independent Learning please do contact the teacher concerned or your child’s tutor by telephone, email or by a note in your child’s Diary.

If you’d like to see a copy of the full Independent Learning policy that was drawn up after consultation with students, staff and Parent Voice, you can find it on the school’s website (www.blackminster.org.uk). We would welcome comments from parents and carers, either via Parent Voice or through the usual school channels.