At New College School, we believe that it is vital to foster independence in learning from an early age. Boys gradually take responsibility for some of their learning by undertaking little extension tasks at home. In the Pre-Prep, this consists of regular reading and learning of tables. From age 7, there is a 20-minute homework each evening. From age 9, there are two homeworks on three days of the week and one piece of homework on the other two days; each homework should not take longer than 30 minutes.

For this prep to be effective, it is important that the right learning environment is encouraged at home, with parents providing the right kind of support. It is important that our teachers know if a pupil is having issues with a particular topic, so we encourage a healthy home-school dialogue about each boy's needs. We are also aware that New College School boys are often extremely busy people, so we are indulgent about deadlines when necessary - we just encourage an honest approach to rearranging those deadlines. We also believe that boys should not spend their entire evening on schoolwork - they should stick to the timings they have been given; if a task has not been completed in the allotted time of productive work, a parent's signature in the margin just lets us know that this is the case.