Is homework legally enforceable in state secondary school?

How about you assess the homework and agree a time limit for each piece? He won't get in trouble for not doing it and won't spend ages on it.

Ultimately if your child doesn't do homework they may not do as well as they should. There are plenty of parents who would rather allow their kids to do what they want rather than what they need to do. That is their decision. The school may apply sanctions or they may take the view that it is up to you as their parent to support their lack of progress.

The fact that your school is choosing not to impose any sanctions in your particular circumstances does not mean that it is not enforceable. If the school thought it was appropriate, they could impose sanctions.

With an SEN child l sometimes have to make a choice as to whether homework ( often a battle ) will disrupt the family as a whole and just don’t do it. I have said this to the school who don’t like it but grudgingly accept it. Also DS is dyslexic and struggles with English so l don’t force any Spanish homework on him as it’s too much. The Spanish teacher is angry but l haven’t been told at anytime that there will be sanctions over any of it. As long as l put in the teacher’s notes ( on Google Classroom ) that l’d made a decision about the homework, l wouldn’t expect a detention either. So l guess it’s not enforceable .

This is how it should be dealt with, unfortunately in most state schools, the GCSE results are blamed on the teachers no matter how much effort the teacher puts in.

I love these parents as a teacher due to the way my school deals with it.

We basically just say, "Sure, no problem, don't worry about the homework. However please note that this is likely to affect their future attainment."

And then of course little Timmy or Tina get to their GCSEs and are miles behind their peers, the parents come in screaming bloody murder, and we just smile and point to the fact they haven't done homework for five years, so what do they expect?

Unfortunately for the child the penny with the parents drops far too late and the damage has already been done.

I think if you don't agree with doing homework then most mainstream secondary schools aren't for you. It's a crap school if the homework at this stage is not supporting their classroom learning, which is what it's supposed to do. Honestly, if your expectation is that in Y9 or 10 they won't need to do additional work outside the classroom, then you probably need to seek out a niche private school with the same philosophy.

What a pile of shite

They've even started using American spelling and phrases to wind the teacher up, who accuses them of using AI and occasionally I get a phone call at work. This is all hilariously funny of course.

Hilarious. What cards they are.

Tinfoil hat time.

the homework thing is a nonsense as you should be able to do your job in the time you're paid to. I can only assume its a form of control mechanism

This is just obvious bollocks....

Wow. You have clearly never set foot in a classroom or read the curriculum for a core subject. No, it is not possible to cover it all. It’s also not possible for many teachers (essay writing subjects in particular) to do their job in the time they’re paid to, not well anyway, which is why teachers work upwards of 15 hours a day 🙄

WRT travel, I also teach rurally, and our local council have cut the bus services they provide so many of our students have longer and/or more difficult journeys to school this year. As a school, there is nothing we can directly do about this. And we don't really want to change the way we have been teaching which mostly gets reasonable exam results due to this.

A lot of my Y12s use their longish journeys to complete work though!

I would actually argue there is insufficient time to cover the science curriculum in the time I'm given by the school I work at. Or rather, we have the time to cover the curriculum, but not enough time for practice. Pretty much every lesson I have to introduce a new topic, a new boat load of key words, a new concept, a new equation etc etc.

Obviously it does depend a bit on the class, but for e.g. an upper-middle set who are capable of grasping the content, but need a bit of time to go over it, ask questions, for me to check understanding and correct what's wrong, etc, there's not much time in class for them to get recall practice or to practice their exam technique.

Therefore, they get set homework, for my GCSE classes this might be past paper questions, it might be recall practice on Seneca, it might be to create a revision resource for a topic we've just finished etc- all things that unfortunately we don't have enough time to do in class. I do think the homework is worthwhile, or I wouldn't bother to set it.

If we did all these things in class, I think we would genuinely struggle to cover the whole course before exams start, and my Y11s are already asking me when we will "finish the course" and start revising (the answer to this is "soon" but they need to be revising in their own time too).

Unfortunately, I can't change the curriculum, or the way my students are assessed, so homework is really the only viable solution.

BTW, normally we don't have a TA in class unless we teach an individual child with a specific need, but even if I did, I'm not sure how that would help me cover content faster? Should myself and the TA deliver two separate lessons on two different topics? I'm not sure that would work well!

Schools don’t turn out rude, badly behaved children. Parents do.

I would say that schools never turn out rude or badly children, that would be the parents.
Schools cope with rude and badly behaved children and parents all the time.

Why are we promoting young people doing 10 hour days - with travel and 3 hours homework?

Who is promoting that?

Mental health issues among young people is at its highest levels. Why are we promoting young people doing 10 hour days - with travel and 3 hours homework? Why are we allowing our children's childhoods to be dominated by work.

We have allowed primary aged children to have homework when they should be playing, socialising, having time with family and time to relax.

Children are now data. Homework data. Progress data. Attendance data.

Why are we not pushing back or supporting people like OP to push back.

You sound like hard work.

You cannot legally overrule the school behaviour system, so if the penalty for a missed homework is a detention, you cannot say that your child isn't doing the detention.

If your child doesn't do the detention because you tell them not to, then the school can escalate the sanction according to their behaviour policy (e.g. to an after school detention).

I have not read the whole thread. However, the answer to the question in the title is that the school has wide powers to set behaviour policies including penalties for non-compliance (Education and Inspections Act 2006). This can include policies that affect pupils outside school time. So, whilst homework, like school uniform, is not directly legally enforceable, the penalties for failing to complete homework or not wearing the correct uniform are legally enforceable.

It's sounds from the OP that their school is more like that of my DS, handing out behaviour points and detentions. So the point is more about dealing with the here and now rather than whether they will be functioning adults.
You are lucky to have a school like that. It will probably bring out more functioning adults than the app/behaviour points/detention approach.

It’s not really about what’s legally required OP. If the school is handing out homework in line with its policy, child will get in trouble. You had a choice to send him there - if you want zero homework home educate?

I think that’s my point there was no negotiation everyone just reasonable and pragmatic. If DC are achieving then I didn’t worry about homework and neither did DCs school seem to either. There was no app. It didn’t affect their learning, behaviour or ability to succeed at life and it didn’t lead to chaos at the school.

It’s my perspective and I want to add it for balance. In my experience not doing homework sometimes doesn’t affect whether you can hold down a job or study for higher education. I should also say I wore a pelmet rather than a skirt aged 14 but I’ve never struggled to dress appropriately as an adult.