Homework Letter

Dear PCS families.

We hope that you have had a wonderful summer. It has been lovely to see the students back in school over the last two weeks; we have had an incredibly positive start to the new term.

Exam results
We are really pleased to share with you that PCS achieved some fantastic final assessments and GCSE results this year and that we have made significant improvements since the last external exams in 2019. Our students showed our PCS values of resilience, responsibility, rigour and showed us all that hard work really does pay off, they fully deserve this success.

Please see the table below for a summary of some of our GCSE results:

GCSE Headlines

Homework
Research shows that homework has a positive impact and adds up to an extra five months of learning, particularly with students in secondary school. Studies involving digital technology typically have a more significant impact. We believe that consolidating their learning from school at home will help them to achieve greater success.

Therefore, we will be focussing on homework this year and into the future. We would value your ongoing support in this area. Homework is expected to be completed weekly by all students.

We will be setting homework as outlined below:

KS4 Homework Tasks
Throughout Years 10 and 11 students should be set tasks as below:
Homework will be set weekly for Core Subjects and fortnightly for Option Subjects.
Homework tasks should take no longer than 45 mins to complete. There should be an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
• Set questions/ quizzes using digital resources - GCSE Pod, Educake, Seneca, MyMaths, Maths Watch, or Google form quizzes.
• Exam practice questions. (These will be marked and students will have the opportunity to improve their response)
• Mind maps or flash cards

KS3 Homework Tasks
Throughout years 7, 8 and 9 students should be set tasks as below:
Homework should be set weekly for Maths, English, and Science and fortnightly for
Humanities and MFL. Other subjects as appropriate. Homework tasks should take no longer than 30 mins to complete. There should be an emphasis on quality rather than quantity. A timetable of when the homework will be set and due in will be supplied to students and parents.
• Set questions/ quizzes using digital resources.
• Set homework that explicitly involves reading and comprehension that consolidate previous learning.