Teaching Approaches to Promote Consistent ... - Learning Wales

parents at the start of each half of term, with the intention that it should if at allpossible be done with parents and pupils as a joint enterprise. The school had madeoutreach to parents a school priority over the past couple of years, and the homeschoolliaison policy, including this homework arrangement, was a product of thisLEA-supported initiative.In the remaining schools, various homework policies existed:“15 minutes reading a day, 15 minutes spelling a week, parents expected toensure this is kept to but not exceeded and feed back to school if anyproblems.”(literacy co-ordinator, school B, group En)“Differentiated homework every week for English and mathematics. Parentscan collaborate, but this is not very effective for level 4 in numeracy”(numeracy co-ordinator, School I, group Ma)6.2.3 Encouraging a cooperative environment and self regulationCollaboration between pupils, where it was seen in use as a teaching technique,involved pupils of similar ability in pairs. Mixed-sex pairings occurred as often assingle-sex pairings. Where lessons used collaboration between pupils, it was wellreceivedby the pupils involved.Finding 38: Collaborative working was seen in most schools. It was not usedextensively, however. Usually it was in the context of group work phases ofliteracy and numeracy lessons.Evidence to support this finding was drawn from lesson observations. Datacollectors’field notes contained such information as:“Collaboration in pairs and groups, Q and A. Well motivated during maintask.”(lesson observation, Y6, school G, group Ma)72