Using CENTURY for beneficial home learning at St Edmund’s

St Edmund's School Canterbury is an independent day and boarding school in Kent established in 1749. We spoke to Joseph Pellett, Head of English in the Junior School, about how they have used CENTURY to support beneficial home learning.

How do you use CENTURY for homework?

Homework support outside of school is the biggest issue we’ve faced. Many children have parental or guardian help through Key Stages 1 and 2, and then it stops as the subject matter becomes more difficult. After that, most of our children have ‘just about’ done their homework. Sometimes we would receive pieces of paper they fill out at break, and all the work looks the same because they copy each other. This is a waste of time and effort, as the students have got nothing out of doing it and the teachers have got nothing out of marking it.

Now CENTURY gives us homework. It has very good content. It’s really well taught, and the videos are incredibly easy to follow. The children can study something they don’t know and not get bored as the nuggets are segmented to be very short and snappy. It’s allowed us to build success. We give the children targets, one nugget a night or ten nuggets by next week. Engagement of homework has significantly improved. Some children are choristers, who would never normally do their homework because they’re singing. Now, if they have five or ten minutes, they complete a nugget. 

It’s become a competition. If they complete a course within two terms, they get a certificate and some chocolates. We put a leaderboard up every other Friday with the amount of hours they have done. We just put the time up - so we don’t judge them on ability, just the amount of effort they have put in and how much they are applying themselves. It’s gone through the roof. The children in school are almost learning by osmosis, because they’re looking over the nuggets and having a go at the questions. We only see the children for five hours a week in school time. We can double the amount of time they are taught with CENTURY nuggets.

How has CENTURY helped to inform teaching?

CENTURY gives us a standardised measure, regardless of what the content is - if Year 7 and Year 8 are doing the same nugget, we can see which children are actually struggling. We look at their time on the nugget. If they have spent 15 minutes on it, and they have got 10 out of 10, we know they get it. If they’ve spent an hour on the nugget and are still getting 60 or 70 per cent, we know they’re struggling. The absolute beauty is that we can pick the right course for each student to completely differentiate. The top set can do a more challenging course, and we can scale it back for the children that are struggling. Then the AI picks the course structure perfectly for them, so all they need to do is pick the next nugget.

Nobody has any time, because we’re all busy. The best thing about this system is that it is built for people who do not have time. We like to have something that you can pick up and learn very quickly and easily. The children took CENTURY on so quickly  because it is a platform that is really user friendly. There are a huge amount of features built in, and it offers a huge amount of real teaching. Parents love it, because if their children have any questions, they can take a look at a CENTURY nugget and work it out together. 

This is part one of a two-part case study. Read part two here.

Find out more about how you can use CENTURY at your independent school here. Book a demo here.