Independent learning
Intent, implementation, impact
Intent
Independent learning at HSAEL encourages growth by ensuring all students continue to make progress outside of their lessons independently.
It instils a sense of responsibility as students must learn to become responsible for their own study habits helping them to organise themselves and their schedules.
Independent learning promotes ambition as students know that are not reliant on their teachers to improve. They know what they need to do outside of school to help them move closer to achieving their goals.
It fosters compassion as students recognise the effort teachers have gone to in order to provide them with the necessary knowledge to succeed in the subjects at home.
Independent learning cultivates excellence as independent learning helps students to master their subject knowledge increasing their levels of success, motivation and curiosity inspiring them to undertake further study.
Principles and research
Research suggests that independent learning can add an additional five months’ worth of progress onto a learner. The most effective pieces of home learning are integrated into the curriculum students are studying and are not ‘bolt on’ extras.
Endowment Foundation (2018). Homework (Secondary). Teaching & Learning Toolkit. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/homework
Huntington Research School (2017). Homework: What Does The Evidence Say? Available at: https://researchschool.org.uk/huntington/news/homework-what-does-the-evidence-say
Institute for Effective Education (2015). How much homework is too much? Available at: http://www.beib.org.uk/2015/04/how-much-homework-is-too-much/
Lee, S (2018). How all stakeholders helped redesign our homework process. Available at: https://www.ssatuk.co.uk/blog/redesign-homework/
Vatterott, C (2010). Five Hallmarks of Good Homework. Available at: https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/five-hallmarks-of-good-homework
Willingham, D (2016). Important New Study of Homework. Available at: http://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2016/10/18-1
Implementation
Master golden nuggets
Every summer holiday, winter break and spring break, students are given the most important terms they learnt the previous term. Those on the Alpha pathway must learn 40, the Beta 30 and the Gamma 20 pieces of knowledge to memorise through the Look, Cover, Write, Check method. The knowledge is mostly from their previous terms learning but can be important knowledge that is essential to their studies from previous years.
They are tested on the terms upon their return to school.
Master the core knowledge
Every week, students are set a block of core knowledge for each subject; 10 terms for Alpha, 7 for Beta and 5 for Gamma. These are pieces of knowledge students have just learnt or will learn the following week allowing them to arrive to the lesson confident to use the terms. They are often tier three vocabulary and help students to consolidate their learning.
Additional platforms used help to their learning.
Maths https://sparxmaths.com/
English https://app.bedrocklearning.org/
Science https://www.my-gcsescience.com/ and www.uplearn.co.uk
Humanities https://app.senecalearning.com
Join the dots
Teachers help students piece together the golden nuggets and core knowledge in the lessons to provide schemas for learning.
Apply the knowledge
Mastering these terms to ensure they can be used automatically helps accelerate progress when teachers begin showing students how to apply the knowledge to problem solve.
Independent stretch
Success in lessons fosters curiosity. Teachers can direct students on to further reading or study.
Real world examples in character education
Students see the knowledge they have learnt in action in the real world on field trips.
KS3: One block of LCWC a week set per subject + Bedrock + Sparx.
KS4: One block of LCWC a week set per subject + an exam style question + Bedrock + Sparx + My GCSE Science
KS5: One block of LCWC a week set per subject + 5 hours of independent study including Uplearn.
Links to core knowledge books
Summer Golden Nugget and Core Knowledge booklets 2024
Autumn Golden Nugget and Core Knowledge booklets 2024
Impact
Winter Golden Nugget testing 101 students scored 50%+ in all but one subject
Spring Golden Nugget testing 236 students scored 65% in all but one subject
