St. Lorcan's

Homework Policy

The Board of Management of St. Lorcan's recognizes the importance of assigning meaningful homework to students. It believes homework contributes to the learning process and promotes good learning habits fostering responsibility and independence amongst the pupils. It is also a very important element of the home school link maintaining a flow of information between both.

Homework is a learning assignment that is undertaken by students outside of normal school time. Characteristically, students may be required to complete classwork, undertake some practice or preparation for the next day's classwork. Homework also assists teachers in their assessment of students' understanding and attainment and alerts them early as to the appropriate direction for interventions, further teaching and learning.

A special emphasis is placed on the learning process and parents are advised that a major portion of homework involves reading for understanding. Written assignments are likely to take up the lesser portion of homework.

What will be in a typical night's homework?
It is important that there is a balance within the homework between written assignments and learning. Whereas written assignments draw on a particular set of skills, e.g. recall, comprehension and analysis and so on, it is also important that pupils practice internalising, processing and manipulating information in developing memory and thinking skills.

Three Elements (The Writing, The Practice and The Learning)
Homework will normally comprise of three elements. There is likely to be one or two written tasks, there will be a requirement to read text with the dual purpose of practising reading and comprehending and there will be an exercise in memorising information. The last two elements may occur within the one assignment, e.g. in reading a piece of history text with fluency and also memorising the facts and events and having a supported opinion on the topic prepared for the next day.

Within any given homework assignment, students may be engaged in revising or completing classwork, practising skills that were taught in class that day and or preparing ahead for class assignment that are to follow.

Homework is normally given on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Normally, there is no homework given for the weekend although project assignments may require some time here. Set homework should take no more than the following guideline:

• Infants - 10 minutes
• 1st & 2nd classes - 30 minutes
• 3rd & 4th classes 45 - minutes
• 5th & 6th classes - 60 minutes

The teacher undertakes to:

• Set clear standards and expectations for the quality of the work
• Provide an effective means for communicating homework assignments and requirements. To this end, there is a standard Homework journal.
• Review homework and provide timely and appropriate feedback
• Set work that is of an appropriate level for the student's abilities and competencies.
• Be relevant to the curriculum.
• Provide for varied learning styles using and setting different assignment formats
• Set a reasonable amount of work.
• Provide students the opportunity to ask questions to clarify assignments before leaving class.
• Correct the homework and feedback to students within a short timeframe.

Students are obliged to:

Understand that homework is part of normal school related activities.
Seek clarifications on homework assignments before leaving class.
Complete and submit homework assignments the following day or later as required.
Complete all assignments honestly and independently in accordance with the teacher's instructions.

It is expected that parents will undertake to:

• Set a time for doing homework.
• Provide a suitable environment for homework.
• Remind the child to undertake the homework.
• Ensure the homework is complete.
• Assist and support the child undertaking homework when difficulties arise and communicate these to the teacher.
• Never to do the homework for their child.
• Encourage students to approach their class teacher on any difficulties they may have.
• Supervise the work to ensure the child is correctly engaged during the homework period.

Pupils with Special Needs:

Pupils who recevice additional learning support will have homework that is differentiated and set to an appropriate level by the class teacher, the learning support or resource teacher. For example:

• Reading will be set at a level of the pupils' competence as will the amount of reading given.
• There will be different or fewer spellings to be learned.
• An emphasis will be on the quality of the work rather than the quantity.

Sample Homework Assignments
(This section is under construction)

Homework is recorded each day in the homework journal. Senior and Junior infant classes do not have journals, instead they bring home folders with their work.

Junior Infants

Senior Infants

First Class

Second Class

Third Class

Fourth Class

Fifth Class (60 minutes)
Reading
Irish Reading
English Spellings
Irish Spellings
Irish written exercise
5 English comprehension questions
5 Maths sums
Revision of tables


Sixth Class