Sparx Maths

At Brian Clarke Academy pupils complete their Maths Home Learning with Sparx Maths. Sparx is an online platform that offers every child personalised Maths Home Learning tasks. We are delighted with the significant, positive impact on learning that Sparx has had on our pupils progress and we are very proud of the tremendous effort pupils put into their Home Learning tasks each week. You can find more information about the impact Sparx has at this link: https://sparxmaths.com/impact 

We know that you will want to support your child’s maths progress, so we’ve put together this information to explain how Sparx works and why it is important to make sure that Maths Home Learning is 100% completed.  

How does Sparx Home Learning work? 

Sparx personalises each child’s tasks, creating a weekly set of questions tailored to their level of understanding and learning pace. The questions are designed to be achievable whilst offering the stretch that learners need to make progress.  

Each week, topics are set by your child’s maths teacher, and these will make up the majority of the questions. Questions from previous topics will also be included so that pupils can keep practising the skills they have learned before. 

What does 100% completion of Sparx Home Learning tasks look like? 

For a Home Learning task to be checked off as 100% complete, pupils must achieve a ‘green tick’ by: 

• Correctly answering all questions in their ‘compulsory’ tab. 
• Completing their times tables practice task. 
• Writing down the bookwork check codes from Sparx which appear with each question. 
• Using their Masters of Knowledge Book to record all their workings out and answers for every question before submitting the answer online. 
• Self-marking their written answers as they go along. 

As you can see, although Sparx is an online system, there is also an important written element to weekly tasks. 

Sparx is set every week on Thursday afternoon at 2pm and pupils have until the following Thursday to complete the tasks. If the ‘compulsory’ tasks are not 100% completed before 7am on Thursday each week then this will be classed as an incomplete Home Learning.  If your child does not complete their Home Learning you will be notified via MCAS and we would ask you to support us in encouraging your child to complete their incomplete Sparx tasks after school that day.  

Why does my child need to answer every question correctly?   

Home Learning is not marked as complete until all the compulsory questions have been answered correctly. This is to ensure that all pupils experience success and can recognise that, with the right support, success in maths is achievable for all.  

To make this possible, every question on Sparx has an accompanying help video which should be used as a first line of support if your child is struggling to answer a question correctly. In addition to this we offer lots of opportunities for support with Sparx during schoocompll time. It is therefore advised that pupils do their Home Learning as early as possible, so they have time to have a go themselves, use the videos and seek help at a support club if needed.  

Support clubs run as below: 

How can I help my child with their Home Learning?  

We appreciate that you will of course want to support your child with their Home Learning but please try not to help them with a question until they’ve had a go first! It is really important that they complete their Home Learning independently in the first instance. After three incorrect attempts at a question, Sparx will prompt your child to ‘Seek Help’ (providing they have watched the video first). At this point it is fine to support them at home or pupils may attend one of our clubs in school. Intervening with help on a question too early can result in Sparx setting questions which are too challenging in future Sparx tasks as the system will think your child is able to independently get all their work correct. 

You can keep track of your child’s Sparx completion in the weekly emails you will receive from Sparx but their maths teacher will be tracking their progress and will alert you to any concerns directly. If you do not receive any emails from Sparx then please let us know. 

You can find more information for parents and carers at this link: https://sparxmaths.com/parents/.