Supporting Your Child's Learning

Supporting your Child’s Learning: Organisation

Adapting to the secondary school routine is challenging for many children at the start of Year 7. They need to be prepared with their books and equipment for six lessons each day and your help is invaluable in teaching them how to organise themselves. Please encourage your child to refer to the School Diary every evening as they prepare for the day ahead.

Practical Tips:

ï‚· Display a copy of your child’s timetable somewhere obvious at home. Colour-coding lessons is helpful.

ï‚· Provide somewhere to store school books and equipment safely and in one place.

ï‚· Ensure that the school bag is packed in the evening for the following day.

ï‚· Encourage your child to empty their school bag regularly and carry the equipment for just one day at a time.

ï‚· Plan ahead for when cooking ingredients are needed.

ï‚· Purchase a locker and encourage your child to use it to store coats, PE kit etc. during the day.

ï‚· Label all items of personal property, especially clothing, including coats, shoes and PE kit.

Supporting your Child’s Learning: Homework

We believe that homework is important. We allow a settling-in period for the first two weeks of Year 8 when very little homework is given, and then it is set only in English, Maths, Science and Spanish for the next fortnight. Following this, however, the normal homework regime will apply. Further information can be found on each subject page in this booklet. As parent or carer, you will help to make homework as effective as possible, if you can:

ï‚· Provide a reasonably peaceful and suitable place in which pupils can do their homework.

ï‚· Establish a routine for when homework is done.

ï‚· Make it clear to your children that you value homework and believe it can help them to make good progress.

ï‚· Encourage your children in their homework tasks.

ï‚· Expect deadlines to be met and check that they are.

ï‚· Check regularly (at least weekly) and sign the pupil homework diary.

The school expects IT to play an ever-greater role in homework and our Virtual Learning Area, CambourneLearn contains a great deal of material to support homework tasks. Most pupils have access at home to appropriate IT for use in homework. For those not in this position, pupils can access IT resources on the school site at various times outside lessons, in IT rooms, and in the Library. Please contact your child’s tutor in the first instance, if any aspect of completing homework is causing problems for your child.

Homework Club usually operates every afternoon after school in the Library, where friendly support is always on hand to help pupils to complete homework. Should a pupil arrive at a lesson without homework and without a compelling reason such as illness, confirmed in the homework diary, he or she will be required to stay for 60 minutes to complete outstanding work in Homework Support after school, on the same afternoon. This applies even if the homework has been done, but left at home. You will be informed by text message before the end of school if your child is required to stay, and for how long. This system has been used since the school’s opening and has proven extremely successful in helping pupils to keep on top of their studies. Full details can be read in our Homework Policy on the website.

Supporting your Child - Special Educational Needs and Disability

Cambourne Village College will support all pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disability in a fully inclusive environment.

Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) has responsibility for co-ordinating SEND provision across the school and for managing the SEND Department, known as ‘The Centre’. Members of The Centre staff include teachers, teaching assistants (TAs), and administrative support staff. We work very closely with outside agencies where appropriate. The staff of Cambourne and Comberton SEND Departments work closely together, so that expertise can be shared across the two schools.

Identification of Special Educational Needs and Disability

We work with our partner primary schools, well in advance of transfer, to gather information about pupils. At the start of the school year this information is shared with the staff who will work with the pupils.

We encourage parents to discuss concerns and insights about their children with the school, so that information about a pupil can be shared and ideas exchanged. We encourage pupils to request support if they feel that they are not making adequate and appropriate progress.

We employ a variety of assessment methods to establish the nature and scope of SEND, including the use of assessment tests as appropriate and the careful monitoring of individual progress including progress towards agreed targets, in keeping with a graduated approach of action and intervention to help pupils with SEND.

The SEND Department is able to carry out assessments and submit requests for special public examination arrangements for pupils with identified SEND.

For further information please see our Special Educational Needs Policy which can be found under the policies section on our website.

 

Contact: Mrs L Harvey