Burrendah Primary School supports the following principles selected from the Department of Education’s Homework Guidelines, 2014.
Homework should:
- Support the development of the student’s independence as a learner
- Further the partnership between school and home
- Avoid dependence on unreasonable levels of parental assistance or resources that are not readily available to the student
- Be set without impinging on reasonable time for family, recreational, cultural and employment pursuits relevant to the student’s age, development and educational aspirations
- Be phased in gradually and consistently as students move through the years
- Be consistently applied in a whole-school approach that is responsive to individual needs
- Form part of a developmental learning program that is responsive to individual needs, clearly relevant, supported by classroom practice and, where appropriate, developed in collaboration with students
- Be disassociated from any form of punishing students or means of securing discipline.
Purpose of homework:
- To provide developmental appropriate drill and practice of fundamental skills which underlie literacy and numeracy e.g. phonics and automatic recall of number facts which are critical to students’ future success
- Provides an opportunity to fill gaps in skills, knowledge and understandings which may inhibit further learning
- Support children who have come from a different context and do not meet the year level standards as outlined in the Western Australian Curriculum
- Provide the opportunity to further develop oral languages skills essential when speaking in front of an audience
- Provide the opportunity to apply and reinforce research skills and engage in areas of interest
- Complete unfinished work not completed in class within a reasonable amount of time
At Burrendah we aim to focus on the whole child and acknowledge that there needs to be a balance between academic, social/emotional and physical outcomes. We encourage a balanced family life - families should have the capacity to connect with each other and engage in enriching life opportunities.
Burrendah key messages:
- Completion of homework is strongly encouraged, however, it is not compulsory and uncompleted homework will not incur a negative consequence
- There should be consistent and connected practice within each year group (please refer to the Year Level Homework Guidelines which describes the task, frequency and whether the teachers deem the activity as core or an extension task)
- We acknowledge that homework needs to be appropriately responsive to the individual needs of students who have gaps in their skills, knowledge or understandings. This will require consultation with parents and, in some cases, outside agencies (e.g., speech pathologists etc.)
- Homework should be engaging and motivating for students
- Homework should support independent practice of basic skills and to consolidate the learning taking place in the classroom
- Independent reading should be promoted as an enjoyable daily activity
- Additional homework will not be set by teachers to supplement learning missed during unauthorised holidays
- Homework activities should be task-oriented and not too complex or cover new concepts for self-learning
- Homework needs to be linked to what is being covered in class
- Homework should not create a marking workload that infringes on explicit teaching time
- Preparation of students for the time commitment of homework anticipated in years to come is not, in itself, a reasonable basis for setting homework
- Completed homework tasks should not be used as assessment data
Roles and responsibilities of class teachers, parents and students:
- Year level homework guidelines will be communication to parents at the parent-teacher meeting in Term 1
- Class teachers may set weekly homework for basic academic skills which are linked to classroom content; and activities designed to encourage the development of the whole child
- Homework which is individualised and at point of need will require communication between teachers and parents
- Parents to support and encourage their child in the homework task
- Parents to make a decision based on their student’s and family’s needs as to how they engage with homework
- Students to engage with homework to the best of their ability and work towards appropriate management of time
