Dear Parent/Carer

 Buxton Community School is now using Arbor as our Management Information System (MIS). Arbor will allow us to communicate with you more efficiently and enable parents/carers and students to view school timetables, homework (assignments), behaviour, achievements and attendance data. We are really looking forward to getting started with Arbor and invite all our parents to familiarise themselves using the link below. We require all parents and carers to set up an account as this is how we will be communicating information home. We would advise you enable Arbor notifications on your device.

 Logging into the Parent Portal

• The Parent App can be downloaded from either the Playstore or the Apple Store. 
• To finish creating your account, you will just need to set a password. Your username is the email address we've sent this email to. 
• If you prefer not to use the App and are accessing Arbor via an Internet Browser, go to https://buxton-community-school.uk.arbor.sc and click First time logging in? to finish setting up your account.

 Student Portal

• Students will be shown how to log into Arbor during Monday tutor time. Student access is via the internet: https://buxton-community-school.uk.arbor.sc (there is no Student App available yet).
• Student login instructions are: Username is their school username followed by @buxton.derbyshire.sch.uk and click First time logging in? to finish setting up their account.

If you are having any difficulties with the Arbor app/website, we would ask that you please access this information page. If you are still stuck and need more help, please email: arbor.help@buxton.derbyshire.sch.uk and we will try to help you resolve the issue as quickly as possible. 

 Kind Regards

 Buxton Community School

Our New Homework Policy:

A brief summary of our new policy is below - 

At BCS we believe homework is an important component of learning. Education research demonstrates that it makes a positive impact on students' knowledge, literacy and academic progress, with recent studies suggesting that setting homework via digital technology is even more beneficial. Homework is also instrumental in developing the independent study skills and habits required for life-long learning. 

At Key Stage 3 homework will be set weekly in Modern Foreign Languages; fortnightly in English, Maths, Science, Humanities; and monthly in Technology and the Creative Arts subjects. These will be digital-based tasks (this format is optional for Tech and Creative Arts given curriculum requirements), taking no longer than 20 minutes, that build upon classroom learning through practice and recall of information or developing reading expertise (e.g. guided reading tasks). 

Extended writing tasks at KS3 will now take place in the classroom only and should not be set for homework.

In Years 10 to 11, students are expected to spend more time on homework. Whilst the time allowed to complete it will vary according to the requirements of each Key Stage 4 course, this will typically be 30 minutes per subject, either weekly or fortnightly depending on curriculum load. At KS4, this does not need to be digital-based tasks, but departments are encouraged to utilise this technology for purposes of embedding knowledge and developing literacy when appropriate.

Please allow sufficient time for students to complete their homework and set realistic deadlines. This would be typically be one week.

Sixth Form, The format of how homework is set is at the discretion of the teacher and their professional judgement.* 

Students are expected to be set work for both their study periods and independent learning at home. Teachers should aim to clarify what work is for completing at school and what should be done at home. It is reasonable to expect students to complete at least 4 hours additional work outside the classroom per subject per week.  

* The exception to this is Up Learn activities for the A Level Science subjects in Year 13. Students will be assigned a period per week per Science subject when they need to complete a digital-based task as directed by their teacher on the Up Learn Platform. This is a minimum requirement and teachers should encourage students to engage with Up Learn beyond this.