At Birchwood, we understand that home learning is an essential part of school life. Home learning activities can vary significantly, particularly between younger and older students, and may include (but are not limited to) home reading activities, longer projects or essays, or more directed and focused work such as revision for tests. The benefits of home learning are well documented. It has a positive impact on attainment and helps to build independence and organisational skills.

The level and duration of home learning will be appropriate to the age and ability of the students in each group.

At Birchwood, all home learning will be set as an Assessment via Microsoft Teams. Your child will be able to see their current home learning assignments in Teams in both the Assessment section and on the Teams class thread. Please note, this replaces the previous online system ‘Satchel’, which we will no longer utilise.  

If your child has not already done so we would ask you to prompt them to download the Teams app to their device(s). 

Some Home Learning assessments will be set to be completed and submitted via linked Microsoft documents within Teams. Other assignments may require students to complete work online outside of Teams (eg: Sparx Maths and Reader, SENECA etc.), while others may direct students to complete work offline (eg: Past paper questions, written essays etc.).  

Whichever type of Home Learning your child completes, they should press the ‘submit’ button within the Teams assignment when they have completed their work – this will allow their teacher to centrally track completion rates and will move the Assignment into the ‘completed’ section on Teams, so students have a clear overview of which Assignments they are yet to complete. 

For further information please see the FAQs below and you may also find the linked YouTube guide helpful: STUDENT GUIDE to Microsoft Teams Assignments