FEATURE: HOMEWORK
How EdTech can help increase parental involvement with homework
can help more than they thought they could. I think most parents want to be more involved
in their children’s learning, but because they lack confidence or think they don’t have the skills, they can be a little hesitant. During my ten years of teaching, I’ve seen how beneficial parent involvement can be – it enhances the conversation between the teacher, child and parent, and this ultimately supports student motivation, wellbeing and outcomes. However, traditional homework policies have not always made this easy. When we assign a student homework in the
‘usual’ way, they’re very much on their own when they get home and, without much context or guidance, this can be daunting for parents. The potential with EdTech is that it acts as an effective intermediary between parents and teachers, and gives parents so much more insight, background and feedback. At All Saints Academy Plymouth, we have
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n our final feature this month, we’re delighted to speak to Mark Raymont, maths
teacher at All Saints Academy Plymouth, who shares his ideas on how to use EdTech to involve parents more with their children’s homework.
EdTech has really been under the spotlight over the last year. We’ve seen how it’s supported schools across the country not just with remote lessons, but with homework as well. Parents have had a wider window into their children’s world of learning and in many cases, they’ve realised they
embraced a new Maths EdTech tool which spans both the classroom and homework, and the transformation in parent involvement has surpassed our expectations.
Why we implemented EdTech and how we got started The initial appeal of EdTech for us was reducing lesson time spent resetting homework and marking that instead could be used to plan and analyse pupil progress and provide more tailored student support. Both teachers and parents wanted to have assurance that students were progressing and for this we needed more insight -
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we felt Sparx could give us this. Of course, embracing a new tool and way of working was daunting at first and it took some adjusting, but after doing considerable research we felt confident it would have a positive impact. Once the decision had been made to
implement Sparx, we committed to investing the necessary time and effort to get students on board and parents involved. We initially had Sparx homework for Years 7 and 8 before moving to all year groups. There were a couple of teething issues - mostly logistical and IT-related (such as internet access), and it took some parents (and teachers) a while to get the hang of it, but no more so than we expected. As part of our decision to implement this solution for all year groups, we decided to invest in Chromebooks for all pupils, which helped alleviate accessibility concerns. Having the complete support of our senior leadership team was also a big help. A trial and feedback phase allowed us some
time and room to make a few tweaks and adjustments. Once we had the Year 7 product it took us a term to get the infrastructure fully up and running. We spent the next year ironing out the logistics of managing the students with the equipment, and the processes we needed to protect and look after it. Someone from Sparx also worked in school with us for the first year to help us with any issues we were encountering.
Introducing EdTech to our parents Before going full steam ahead, we invited parents into the school and explained what the EdTech solution was, why we wanted to use it and the
April 2021
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