How does Sparx personalise homework?

A key aspect of Sparx Science is that the homework is personalised so every student is challenged at the right level, meaning success builds confidence, not frustration.

The makeup of each homework aims to be:

The precise amount of each of these parts will change depending on a number of factors, including the number of homework topics in the Planner, the amount of available consolidation, and the amount of available Flashcards that week.

To further personalise homework, we also adjust four key areas:

As students complete homework, we analyse their time spent on questions, the number of correct answers, and the amount of support needed. We use this information to adjust their Sparx level to make sure students are seeing questions that are right for them.

For example, students that need the most support will be set to level 1. Here, questions are carefully written with low reading ages in mind and to avoid the need to spell complex scientific words where possible. This means students on level 1 will see more multiple choice, link box, and word bank questions, focused on the fundamentals.

If a student is at Level 4, they will practice with our most challenging questions. These questions may ask students to apply their knowledge to unfamiliar contexts or link multiple ideas or parts of the curriculum together. To enable deeper application, there is a higher proportion of short answer questions of up to 4 marks.

A student's level will change as they complete more questions to respond to changes in student confidence.

The number of questions a student sees will also adjust based on their previous work. We do this to try to match the students' working time to the set time by the teacher. This means a student who tends to work through questions more slowly will see slightly fewer questions each week. We cap out each questions working time at 3 minutes to prevent any students having prolonged “non-active” time.

Consolidation resurfaces questions from previous homeworks, normally 3 or 10 homeworks ago in the current academic year. When choosing these questions we prioritise questions that were incorrect the previous time they saw them.

If a student has previously attempted a question in their Independent Learning, then these attempts will also be used when prioritising questions. They are therefore less likely to see questions they got right first time, and more likely to see questions they have not seen or struggled with.

We may resurface questions they were more confident on to ensure knowledge is retained at key intervals.

Each students Flashcard “deck” is unique to that student, with each fact in the deck assigned its own confidence level. When selecting which flashcards to show students we use this information alongside new topics to create a tailored practice.

For more information see: Flashcards.