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!!!!

Surely some homework is about making the learning experience enjoyable. So, the Church making homework is something the child will remember and it makes them feel positive about education.

I liked homework as a student and am looking forward to it, although with 3 DS perhaps I will rapidly change my mind, but I take on board what the teachers here have said that it should perhaps be more discretionary in some areas.

My DC have always had homework and I can hand on heart say it has never been a problem.

For the most part it has been useful and meaningful and focussed.
'Projects' have been optional (or I have opted out of them ).

Ooh guess what?!

I have just had DS's newsletter home today and there is a big section called "Home Learning", and it says that as part of the curriculum remodelling, they have abandoned traditional homework (I think they still have reading, spellings etc) in favour of "Home Learning" which is a mind map of activities relating to the child's current topic, which they pick one activity a week and do, to report back to the class.

I'm really stupidly excited about this This is my idea of the perfect approach to homework. Can be little or big to fit around whatever else is happening that week.

Also my DD (12) has just spent an hour on a piece about Molvolio. She said it was 'really cool'.

The thing is she needed space and time to think and research. Soon she'll need another stretch of time to put the piece together. You can't expect to be able to get these stretches of quiet time in school can you? School is for discussion etc.

I'd love to hear how children are suddenly then expected to cope with the 16 plus hours homework a week needed from yr 10 onwards if they've never done any beforehand

really, that's the answer - no homework for 15 years then suddenly start 2-3 hours a night? No sirrreee there will be no battles at all....

It's about self-motivation in Y10. The DC have to make a personal choice if they're invested in their education or not. Quality of homework completion in primary school is mainly dependent on parental support/encouagemen/pressure. I don't think that is a helpful model at all to take forward to GCSE/A-level/degree. That's when you end up with daft things like kids being paid for exam grades, or parents phoning university tutors.

I'm a maths teacher and I like homework because lessons are too short for students to get in all the practice they need to master the topics.

I can also tell from homework if students haven't grasped something so I can go over it again. In lessons students help each other so it is difficult to assess their individual ability on a topic.

Dd (y8) does her homework in break times and very rarely has any to do at home, except MyMaths. I like My!aths as it really does seem to highlight whether she is having difficulty with a particular aspect, and then she'll ask me for help. Usually, I'll only have to say something very vague about, say, factorising, and then she's got it.

When she was at primary, they were supposed to be getting x minutes' worth a night, but she kept coming home saying there was no homework. I asked her teacher about it and he said they did it in class, but I suspect he was in agreement with you and assumed I was complaining. I just wanted to know whether dd was supposed to be doing it but was skiving! If he'd said research has shown blah blah, I'd have checked here, and then said no more about it!

noblegiraffe! I am doing a maths degree with the OU and having problems with integration. Thread here ; could you help with problem book recomm?