Please help stop homework before its too late!!!

[freerangeeggsnookie]

I would like to appeal to all parents who are fed up with homework and encourage you to email, phone, tweet & post your school to stop it.

Having taught for a number of years in various schools I am sick and tired of the absurd homework we are setting. Here are some facts about homework from Visible Learning by John Hattie (summarising research on homework):

1. Homework makes no visible difference to pupils progress until they are in about year 10 and in high ability groups.
2. Homework does not help pupils learn time management skills.
3. For the homework to be effective the teacher must be actively involved.
4. Anyone who asks a pupil in year 7 and above to make a poster is taking the piss (pet hate, not from VL).

Now this is not to say that pupils shouldn't do any studying at all. If a student is independently studying at home doing extra work that they have requested then this will have a benefit. Also as stated above as pupils get older and are studying complex content it can be essential.

Unfortunately most pupils are snowed in with ridiculous tasks which teachers are forced to set by heads who are terrified of parental complaints. It is these complaints that need to be balanced out. If you are not sure if your childs homework is useful ask them after its marked "What improvements could you have made?". If they cannot answer then they have learned nothing. What was the point of that?! So if you are sick of homework like me please, please, please complain. Nothing would make schools a more happier place!!!!

and also 'learning' homework (rather than task-based) is frowned upon. For languages, the one thing I can't do in lesson time is give the kids time to really learn verbs and vocab, but this is seen to be lazy homework setting by the powers that be and parents, so, lose lose.

I'm gobsmacked by this. Surely this is the point of homework - it is a mini revision session to lay information into long term memory. As a parent, I would support this. It's much better than the ''do a poster or 'colour in' variety of homework.

Seriously, how can anyone complain about learning homework

BTW, am I the only one who finds a value to me in my children's homework. I like revisiting old subjects or finding out about new ones.

How would ideally spend that wasted 'homework' time as you see it, stateducationisboss? What would you like to concentrate on given the chance?

I've not read the entire thread but I really wish that DD had more homework. She's in Year 6 now and throughout primary school I've been fairly disappointed with the homework she's had.

Having had homework from an early age myself (I was educately privately from aged four), I wish that DD had had similar homework set. The kind of projects and research that seems to constitute most homework is fairly pointless IMO. Instead, I'd love it if she had spellings, grammar exercises, maths, history, geography, French etc to do at home.

Our neighbours' boys are at private school and the eldest (now in Yr 7) often has two hours of homework an evening. Latin, maths, science etc. He is excelling at school and clearly homework has had a major role in this.

So, I suppose I agree that I wish they had less 'useless' homework but far more 'traditional' homework.

Thing is, after all I've said, I do support their teachers and the ethos of the school and weekly homework is fine... but in the holidays, can we leave the mammoth projects? We just did India and the Aztecs for projects during term time.

NCIS Seems like your school let you down by not introducing homework in the right way. They should have done more to help you develop the skills you needed to complete it.

FreckledLeopard 2 hours a night means they are working a 40 hour week at 12! Seems a bit insane TBH.

If you don't like the homework, why not set your own 'traditional' homework. Honestly, if you want your kids to come home and do two hours more work, there really is nothing stopping you from organising this yourself. Why does it have to be set by the school and forced on all kids?

stateeducationisboss - Is it really that bad that you have to lie to SLT? I think that's disgusting (them not you).

I really can't remember having homework when I was in primary school, though that may be something to do with the fact that it is a few 31 years since I left! What I do know is that I read willingly every night and we had all pretty much learned our times tables (albeit by rote) by the age of 7.

The one thing I did do with my older three was make sure that they also read each day and, like me, they'd mastered their tables by the end of Year 2 - and I believe that this gave them a massive advantage with their maths learning through primary. My DDs could actually read when they started Reception, a mixture of lots of reading at home and their nursery school (pre school I think it's called these days). DS couldn't read, but he had a grasp on the concept...

I do agree that homework is important to reinforce what they have learnt in the class, but only once they are in Year 7, or maybe Year 6 in prep for secondary. What has driven me potty (and my children) over the earlier secondary school years is the endless crap that they were expected to do - posters, posters and more posters. I think that is total waste of time.

When my big ones learnt to read it was very much phonetically, together with word tins and sight reading. Is it still the same? Shall I sit here with DD3 and do what I did with them or will she be confused when she starts school in September 2013? I am actually really worried for when she starts - so much seems to have changed since my oldest started school in 1998. But I guess that is a whole other thread.

True Cortina, but it is conflating two discussion points. Whether or not homework is useful is one discussion, the differences between children whose parents can choose prep schooilng and those that do not is entirely different.

I supect these prep school children have their own laptop/easy access to the computer or table at whch to hand write this essay and parents who will make sure that what they write has been completed and probably proof read. They have parents who have paid very well to hothouse their children from a young age and are likely to make sure they see the results of their investment (i go back to a child removed from an independant school because his parents decided he wasn't getting high enough grades to justify the costs). I'm not saying i disagree with it but it is a parental choice not all parents will want to make.

I've worked in schools where we had to assume the child would have nothing but what we gave them and possibly a pen but not always, (pencils of any colour probably not) a place to work quietly almost certainly not and parental support unlikely for a whole host of reasons. I've taught children where i would never have dreamed of complaining to their parents about their lack of homework and i would never have dreamed of setting a feelings based homework (although i'm a science teacher anyway). I was just glad when they got to school unbruised on a monday morning.

At DS's (state, school-linked) nursery we get given a schema for the next term with suggested activities to support learning. This is fantastic IMO and I hope it continues as he moves up the school. Sadly I think not though.

Class sizes are too big for homework to be set individually (at least at primary) and what is helpful and engaging for one child is frustrating and may switch off another.

The problem with non-compulsory homework is that it would show up quite clearly the divide between pupils whose parents are invested and interested, and those who can't be bothered. :( Although I would imagine that the latter group are already disadvantaged, so I don't know.

Will be interesting to see what happens when Free schools get more established.

I've sent in letters about homework before - to no avail. If homework isn't done at home then it is done in lunchtime detention. Some children are there every day.
This holiday dd2 had spellings to learn, complex and compound sentences to write using the spelling words, daily diary, 2 grammar activity sheets, a science research topic, literacy - find a fable, rewrite it in your own words and then summarise it and daily reading (with a written record of how many pages read each day and a weekly review of what has been read). Some holiday!
dd2 is in Year 5 at a state school.

I don't see the need for homework in primary school, we managed fine without it when I was at school. Though I did tend to do little 'projects', write stories etc, and read a lot, just because I wanted to - it was fun not work though!

Maybe learning spellings or times tables, or practicing maths techniques taught in class could be useful, but often these days it seems to be a case of giving pointless homework just for the sake of it, which often gets done by the parents anyway. Seems like a waste of everyone's time to me.

But not supporting homework does not necessarily mean that parents aren't bothered about education and don't support their kids. It just means they don't support homework.

FrankWippery - It's a game in schools to be honest. Tables and reading are spot on for me. All thats needed until they are studying complex work. Don't know about the phonetics I'm a Maths teacher so I am bang up with you about tables. I still have pupils in years 10/11 that can't do them. Can't stand posters as well it drives me mental.

Freckledleopard - read the thread, I think you'll find it interesting.

I agree with you and others have said you could set this type of 'traditional' homework yourself BUT most of us won't will we because it's difficult. We're busy etc. I think the sort of approach you've outlined gives those children a huge advantage. They can punctuate, spell etc. They will appear more intelligent and articulate etc. Our children are being disadvantaged.

Rhinos: the problem is that the school don't really give you flak. They give your kid detention and nag at him instead. That's the really annoying thing.

State I shall follow my own little path with DD3 then! Maybe I am wrong, but I really believe that knowing the times tables gives a massive boost to all areas of maths, without them I'm sure things must take so much longer to grasp.

Idontknowhowtohelpher - Keep complaining the more the better. Onward Comrades!

For me, support from a parent is when I phone home to talk about behaviour and from the anger in the parents voice you can tell the xbox is history.

Thanks, Maples. :).

Frank Timestables are everything. Any kid with good mental maths will be fine.

You say that state but I never understood how to apply my times tables or why I was learning/what the point was?

No one ever told me. I just tried to struggle along with long division and multiplication without any idea of the concepts behind the problems and numbers?

For me, support from a parent is when I phone home to talk about behaviour and from the anger in the parents voice you can tell the xbox is history

Have you taught my son then!?

Here's an argument for Maths homework: go and look in MN threads and see the numerous examples of someone saying DC can't do their homework because they don't understand it and I can't help cos I never got it when I was at school either.

There will then be loads of helpful posts explaining it in a way that the OP understands - it's wonderful when you see the lightbulb go on - and they then explain it to their DC. So the teacher - despite their learning outcomes and plenary sessions and all that eduspeak - has not taught the child but MN the homework has. And taught the parent, too.