Westbourne Primary School

Why are we introducing pre-teaching and what is it?

As we know, our children’s learning has been impacted during the last 2 years due to school closures and isolation periods.  One of the ways in which we want to support our learners in maths, is to provide pre-teaching materials for use at home.

Pre-teaching exposes children to a concept before they are taught it in school.  Studies have shown that this is an effective way of helping children to catch up and minimises a child’s sense of failure in maths lessons.

What will your child be provided with?

We will be providing every child with books for use at home.  For Keystage 1 it is a single book whereas in Keystage 2 there are two books (one page explains the concept and one page has some practice questions).

Each half term you will be sent (via Parentmail) an outline of what will be covered within class – the outline will indicate what pages should be looked at and when.  It is important to follow the order as it has been proven that pre-teaching works best when done as close to the point of teaching as possible.  Some weeks, there will be videos put on Google Classroom for children to watch – this will be indicated on the half-termly outline.

Is it just more homework?

Pre-teaching is not the same as homework.  Pre-teaching happens before the concept is taught in school and homework is to consolidate after it is taught.  It is not expected that the books are handed in like the weekly homework.

What if my child is unable to fit it in each week?

We understand that many children have extra-curricular commitments, so the resources are provided for use when it is appropriate – some weeks you may manage to do more of this than others.  Even if your child reads the information or tries a couple of questions- it all goes towards supporting their learning in the classroom.

Further information

If you would like further information, a video will be posted on the Google Classroom stream and on the school website.  If you have any further queries please contact me by email: amcguire@westbourneprimary.co.uk

Ami Collins (Year 6 teacher and maths subject leader)