Traditional Home learning is valuable for the following reasons:

1. It can help pupils to make more rapid progress in learning.

2. It can allow pupils to develop the practice of working on their own without the constant presence of the teacher or other pupils. This way of working is vital at the later stages of secondary education and after.

3. Work at home can provide the quiet and private conditions needed for creative and thoughtful work of all kinds.

4. It can allow valuable practice of skills learned in the classroom.

5. It can allow pupils to use materials and other sources of information that are not always available in the classroom.

6. It can involve parents and others in the pupils' work for their mutual benefit.

7. It can form an important part of the pupil's notes.

8. It gives pupils valuable experience of working to dead lines.

9  It forms a link with the methods of study crucial to success at Secondary School.

The new Home learning tasks below can offer the above plus more. With the massive rise in the availability and speed of the Internet, it is now possible to offer young people home-learning online.   As most young people spend time on-line already they are very familiar with the process.

On-line home learning has certain advantages over traditional homework.  These are outlined below;

1.  The parents can be informed both of the number and content of the home learning tasks being given to their children  This is accomplished by simply going on-line themselves and entering the Home-learning web site.

2.  As the tasks are on the computer it is impossible for the child to lose a home-learning task.

3 The young people will be given a home learning booklet to write down the answers to their tasks.  However, if the child loses it at any time then any sheet of paper will suffice.

4  For different levels of ability, answers are provided at the click of a mouse.

5.  It helps the parent see clearly if their child is having problems with work at the school.

6. Parent and child can work on these Internet activities together, exchanging thoughts and inter-changing verbally about the tasks.

7. As the tasks and answers are always available, they can be use as revision before exams.  Even if the child is on holiday in Spain, or wherever.

8. As the tasks and answers are always available, the tasks can be attempted before, during and after the relevant work is engaged at the school.

9.The tasks can be accessed from any computer. Therefore if the young person is absent from school then the tasks can help the young person to keep up to date with school learning.

Shown below are  S1 Home-learning tasks.  We would expect them to be completed in your child’s home-learning booklet by the end of the First Term.

Home-learning online.

S1 Structures Home learning