Homework approaches in secondary school

Since 2010 there have been massive funding cuts in education. This means fewer staff in schools.

In the same period there have been massive cuts to all other services and schools have been given more duties to address issues around safeguarding and mental health.

In the same period general family poverty has risen.

Plus curriculum changes.

It is a completely different context to when you were at school.

Because schools had more money, so more staff, so each staff member had more time.

@mellongoosein my particular example, It wasn’t about not having time, it’s about it being pointless as students have used AI to generate the work. I will spend my time marking work if it is meaningful, but when it is done outside of the classroom, I can’t guarantee that it is their own work. Why should I spend hours marking the work a computer has produced in seconds?

As a science teacher, I would say Seneca is pretty good up to GCSE level - a lot of passing GCSE science is about fact recall, and Seneca has always been pretty good at training this. It is designed using techniques informed by cognitive psychology research and it's specifically designed to train students to remember key facts.

In terms of marking, in science we no longer mark work done outside of the classroom until a level, and even that is increasingly pointless due to AI. There's very little benefit to giving written feedback on answers someone has clearly googled/got AI to generate, where the language used is nothing like the language used on our exam board spec.

We give written and verbal feedback on key assessments in class, students often don't really take written feedback on board so whole class verbal feedback and improvement time is often more effective. Again this is an evidence based approach and I think most schools have been moving in this direction for the last 10 years or so.

Not that we should do things just to please Ofsted but they are very happy with this approach.

Your son's school will have an assessment and feedback policy, you should ask to see this before complaining. It's very likely this will have been formulated in a way that is both evidence based and takes into account your school's specific context.

I’m a parent, not a teacher, so I am genuinely interested in getting this right. My DC will go to secondary (state) next year.

When did teachers stop having the time to mark homework and why? Is this AI related? What has now improved in your
lessons, given the extra time now put into planning them as PP mentioned?

I get that things will have moved on since I was at school but obviously want to make sure that I help DC as much as possible.

Absolutely this

last year I took in a set of class essays I had set for homework. Took me hours to mark them. As I was marking them I realised most of them had used AI to write them. There is no way of me proving this, but I could tell. I realised I was spending hours marking something they hadn’t written, and that had took them each seconds to produce.

I don’t set essays as homework anymore as it is utterly pointless. The only essays I mark are ones they have done in controlled conditions in front of me. Homework is revision which is then tested in class.

I think its ridiculous that nearly all the homework set is via online platforms. The only writing they do is for German.

On my daughters maths app, if you don't understand the question and ask for an explanation, parents have to pay to upgrade because the school only provide the basic app.

No but the teacher setting the mathswatch will set the questions at an appropriate level of difficulty.

Sparx is really expensive. If you are going to badger the school to buy it then what money should be used to pay for it?

Im not a teacher so cant comment either way about the best use of their time, just sharing the approach in our school (so far) for OP

What a waste of all those teachers' time. They could be marking and grading something meaningful instead.

Same here! London state school, no apps or online homework, all written and all graded with feedback. And loads of it! Didn’t realise that’s unusual.

Library and computer room open until 5pm every day.

For context, our DC are all through at least first degree, (two of them have done masters), so obviously, secondary school, let alone primary, is a while back. For those in schools where most / all - or even some - homework is done online, do you have pupils who don't have use of a suitable device / WiFi outside of school, and if so, how is that issue resolved?

Year 7 Mum here ....

State secondary...
No online platforms (yet! Maybe next term...)
All written homework...
All graded with feedback...
Loads of it, especially tests.

We seem to be the anomaly here!

Sparx maths is great, we've been using it for years now. It adapts to the needs of the child, so homework is personalised. Videos and instant feedback are much more helpful than completing a worksheet, which could all be wrong without knowing it. Teachers should be regularly checking it to see if there are any areas that need to be covered in class.
I taught 120 students today. We currently have mocks. I have a parents' evening coming up. I am working until midnight everyday as it is, there are simply not enough hours in the day for me to mark homework in top of this!

At my school, homework isn’t usually done in exercise books (we’d never see them again!) and so homework marking and book marking are two separate things. As the demand for book and assessment marking increases, something’s got to give, and that tends to be homework. This is why it has moved online.

In addition, as people have mentioned above, pedagogical theory has evolved and research now tells us that immediate feedback in class is more valuable than feedback on homework completed a few days ago.

Even in primary, we’re no longer expected to give detailed, personalised feedback for lesson completed in school. Verbal feedback in the moment is most important and known to have most impact.

Because pedagogical theory on feedback and moving students on with their learning has changed. Writtwn feedback on work a student did a week ago makes little to no impact on learning. Live marking books in lessons and whole class feedback to fix misconceptions, with dedicated time to reflect and fix up their mistakes, does.

Homework is always a contentious issue - too much, too little, too hard, too easy. No one wins. Mainly it’a an exercise to recall learning or to check understanding and to support children being disciplined with their own time and helping them with organisational skills which will support them into adulthood. If you need more, yes by all means feedback but where you think this isn’t enough, another parent will think it’s too much. So schools will try and find a happy medium - they cannot please all.

Its not the calculations, just the answers. So it will ask "what was the answer to question 2b".

In the maths GCSE they can still get a large number of the marks if their answer is wrong, but their method is correct. But only if they show all their working out.
The book work checks get them into the habit of doing this.

Thanks for this. I was going to mention it to school so its good to hear there are better ones out there. Its taken him from September to read 80% of the book, yet half term he read his own book in 2 days.

The sparx maths is actually really good and I think for knowledge building of facts for science it also useful. I think the apps help everyone. My sons school then mix it up with some more creative h/ w and research for upcoming lessons.

Sparx and ai use adaptive AI to set work. Amazing platforms and way better than copy out these questions into your book.

I teach 255 students over 3 key stages. I have 4 x 1 hr PPA's (planning, preparation and assessment) per fortnight. 16 hours of PPA last half term. That works out at less than a minute per student to plan, prepare and assess.

However I have assessed every one of those students twice in the last half term and provided written feedback and entered grade sheets to feed back to parents. my rough calculations are that was at least 60 hours of work (14 mins per student.

That's is an hour extra at the end of each day just on marking alone, not even considering planning, photocopying, catching up on emails, contact with parents, afterschool meetings, bus duties, performance management, supporting trainees, planning for clubs and trips, other admin such as printing or adjusting seating plans / support plans, open evenings and parents evenings. I am sure I've missed a million other things.

For planning I have to plan 35 lessons a fortnight and yes there may be some resources available but with school development plans and slt breathing down my neck to be on board with this years whole school target every lesson needs to be looked at, checked at least and adjusted. Even if I only spent 15 mins per lesson that nearly 9 hours across a fortnight.

There simply is not enough time in the world to do our jobs as it is, let alone adding more marking.