Supporting Your Child Evenings
Throughout the Year we hold a range of events for parents and carers to attend. This includes Supporting Your Child evenings which are designed to provide information and practical strategies for parents and carers to use at home in order to maximise learning and development.
Year 9 into 10 May 2023
Year 9 October 2022
Partnership with parents and carers
A close relationship between school and home is vital to students’ success. We encourage parents to become fully involved in the education of their children. Parents/carers and children enter into a partnership agreement at the start of Year 9 which reflects our intention to work in partnership, so that each student ourishes at The King Edward VI School.
Parents/carers will receive a Grade Update regularly regarding their child’s academic progress and we also have Parents Evenings each year.
Relationships between home and school are developed through the consistent use of planners, the school website and frequent letters home to keep parents/carers informed about issues relating to school life. Your son/daughter’s Form Tutor should act as the rst contact for any issues – they will act as an advocate and will work with you and other sta to support your child.
In addition to Parents Evenings, we also offer a Year 9 Welfare Evening in October to discuss how each child is settling into school and a Year 9 into Year 10 evening in May to discuss the changes entering GCSE courses. Rewards Evening allows us to celebrate your child’s successes towards the end of the year. There are many more opportunities for parents / carers to become involved in the life of the school and we encourage you to do so.
Attendance
Please ensure your child attends school and do not book holidays during term time.
The expected minimum level of attendance should be 97%.
Home Learning
We know that students who engage in effective home learning activities are likely to make more rapid progress than those who do not. Students are expected to spend at least 1 hour each weekday evening on independent study including all homework tasks set by their teachers. Sometimes they will receive specific homework tasks from their teachers with set deadlines, they should make a note of these tasks and deadlines in their student planner. When no specific tasks are set, it is expected that students spend their home learning time on reviewing their learning – this is a really valuable action and should be actively encouraged and engaged with by parents/carers. Students’ Google Classrooms will contain revision and review materials to help structure this. The school will provide help, support and facilities to those families who have difficulty in providing the resources necessary for homework completion. Please speak to Amanda Gilholm for advice. The Learning Resource Centre is open every day until 4.30pm. Any student can use it to access computers and complete homework.
The next page illustrates how students should be reviewing their work each day at home, all students should become familiar with these six approaches. This must be done from Year 9 and these methods will form the basis of formal revision strategies during exam season.
Summarising
Read through your class notes. Rewrite the main ideas of a lesson in your own words but don’t just copy out your class notes word for word. Check through your notes one final time to see if you can add in any extra points.
Graphic Organiser
Convert your written notes or the text from a textbook or worksheet into a diagram.
This could take the form of a (1) hierarchical topical organiser, (2) venn diagram or
(3) bubble topical organiser.
Self testing
Test yourself on previously studied content by answering practice questions – don’t cheat, cover your notes. You may have example questions from past papers or you may need to use your class notes or textbook to write the questions yourself.
Teaching others
Teach someone else about the content you have studied that day in a particular lesson. Ask a family member or a friend to be the ‘student’ and explain all of the key points to them, asking them questions about the topic covered.
Drawing
Create a drawing to illustrate the content of a lesson.
Online Learning Platforms
Use Google Classroom, GCSE Pod and Maths watch regularly to help organise your homework and revise for your subjects.
Equipment
Please support your child by ensuring that he/she comes to school with the correct equipment. This includes black and purple pens, pencils, ruler, rubber, calculator and PE kit or other specialist requirements e.g. food ingredients when necessary. Please contact the school via the Student Support Area if you have any problems with these requirements as we can offer support.
Your tutor will check each day to ensure you have these items:
- Pen
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Rubber
- Calculator
- Planner
- Reading book
Planner
The planner is a really important tool for helping students stay organised and up to date with their home learning – much of our home learning is set via google classroom but students should still note this in their planner. It also acts as a communication point between school and parents and carers. Please read and sign your child’s planner once a week. Give praise for credits and discuss any negative comments given and potential strategies to avoid this happening again.
E-safety for parents
Home school agreement
Parents and carers are required to sign our Home School Agreement at the beginning of Year 9. This outlines our expectations of ourselves, students and parents/carers. As part of the agreement we request that you do not post negative comments on social media, but rather talk to the school about resolving any issues.
