Dear Parent/Carer
Re: Home Learning at Leigh Academy Wilmington
We are writing to thank you for the invaluable support you have given your child in ensuring their positive and successful start to Module 2. Below, you will find important information regarding our approach to Home Learning at Leigh Academy Wilmington.
Purpose of Home Learning
The primary purpose of homework is to reinforce classroom learning and develop essential life skills outside of the school environment. It serves as a bridge between school and home, allowing students to practice, consolidate knowledge, and prepare for future lessons and assessments. Research highlighted by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) suggests that secondary school students who consistently engage with and complete homework gain an average of +5 months’ additional progress in comparison to their peers.
Google Classroom
Home Learning at Leigh Academy Wilmington is managed through the Google Classroom platform. Students can access their work by visiting https://classroom.google.com/ and logging in with their student account details. As a parent/carer/guardian you can get email summaries of your child’s work and progress in a class. Email summaries within Google Classroom do not include grades. For specific marks, please ask your child or contact their class teacher directly.
In email summaries, you can review:
Missing work – Work not turned in when the summary was sent.
Upcoming work – Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails).
Class activities – Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers.
To get email summaries of your child’s work, you must accept an email invitation from your child’s class teacher. These were sent at the start of the academic year. If you have not received your invitation, please check your junk/spam folder as occasionally these are sent there. If you do not find the invitation email, please contact your child’s college admin team.
- The teacher emails you an invitation to join your student’s class.
- In your email programme, open your email invitation.
- Click Accept.
- If you’re not the guardian, click I’m Not The Guardian.
- Click Accept to confirm.
When you accept an invitation, you and your child will get an email confirmation.
What homework does my child receive?
There are 3 types of homework:
- Self-quizzing homework: Your child receives self-quizzing homework from each subject. This ensures that your child is memorising and recalling the knowledge that they need to be successful.
- Paper homework: Every week your child receives one piece of homework from each subject. In some subjects this homework is complete on paper e.g Art. It allows students to consolidate and extend their learning
- Online homework: Some homework is set online and in place of paper homework. This includes most homework for Maths, Science, Humanities, MFL, Technology, Performing Arts, PE, Business and IT. Some subjects use specific online platforms e.g.
- Maths – https://sparxmaths.com/
- Science – https://sparxscience.com/
- Humanities – https://senecalearning.com/en-GB
- MFL – https://www.languagenut.com/en-gb/
Self-quizzing homework
For every learning cycle, the content for each subject is distilled into a knowledge organiser. Knowledge organisers will be used as a basis of low stakes testing across the module and this normally takes place as part of the starter activity in lessons. This will help build your child’s knowledge and confidence over the course of the module and the year, so that when they have an assessment, they can use the knowledge organisers for that subject as a revision tool. This encourages students to take ownership of their learning and to support them to develop good learning habits. Embedding this content is critical to long term success and effective retrieval from long term memory.
How to use a knowledge organiser, a step-by-step guide
We value your partnership and look forward to your continued efforts to ensure your child fully engages with their home learning, maximising the potential for additional progress. For any questions concerning Google Classroom or your child’s assignments, please reach out directly to your child’s class teacher.
Yours faithfully,
Ms C Quan | Assistant Principal
