Poland's homework ban

[cornflakecrunchie]

What do you think?
I'm all for it!

I grew up with about 5 hours of school all the way through to GCSE Levels and A Levels. We finished school at 1, had homework etc. 1-4 pm was for extracurricular activities or you went home at one if you didn't want to do anything after school.
The school days in the UK are very long, I am not sure there's any real benefit (except childcare), you can still achieve the same grades or better with shorter hours.

That sounds good eise. I think more time to play/do sport/extra curricular would be good for kids. Primary in the UK has become a treadmill to exams.

In Poland they were achieving a lot by a lot of homework and short hours for 7-10 yrs old. The experiment of short hours and no homework is yet to show the results.

Short hours= childcare issue when you are at work

I think this is really interesting. Any Polish people I have met through work or parents in the dc's school are very well educated & place a huge emphasis on their dc's learning & extracurriculars.
I'd imagine many parents will just work away themselves with their kids at home?
My Polish friends talk very fondly about the P. E they had in school & are shocked at the poor level in state schools here.

I was a teacher for 25 years.

I don’t think any child under 14 needs homework. It adds nothing and is ruining childhoods.

I wish our curriculum could be slimmed down. It’s appalling what GCSE have to know.

I think Poland sounds amazing.

I support it for primary age.

My child doesn't need to write the same 10 words they have written in school all week at home too.

Fully support reading homework though.

But you don't take into consideration the number of hours spent at school in UK and in Poland. If you account for that then the equation is not that simplistic.

Btw the new rule in Poland is only in reference to the early years and definitely not to the entire education.

ridiculous. Polish people are known for their fabulous work ethic - this won't last long if they stop instilling the responsibility from a young age. a true shame and a loss for Poland.

Do they have a narrower curriculum? In Primary Schools in England mornings are normally English and Maths lessons, and then other subjects like Art, History, Geography in the afternoon

It is in the beginning. Then as the children grow ,hours increase and so does the curriculum.

Teacher here..... i honestly believe homework serves no purpose. Kids are tired at the end of the day let them do their hobbies or curl up with parents in front of a film

Lots of countries dont do homework way more successful than the uk system

Exactly

@Maddy70 but in UK they stay at school longer hours so they have time for reading time, times table etc. Now, in Poland kids at that age stay 3-4 h at school. I cannot possibly see progress without reading at home or doing multiplications.

Homework isn’t necessary. I’m a teacher of 25 years. It just steals childhoods

Tables, reading and spelling. And that’s it.

School is 15% of a child's week. 85% is home. Parents need to be more aware of what they can and SHOULD be doing to bring their children up in a way that stretches their learning experience. Some 5-6 year olds (not SEN) don't know how to dress themselves, use cutlery, count to 3, hold a book the correct way up, roll a ball. They never eat at a table or even with their parents, some parents seem to think that schools will actually cover everything!! Provide breakfast, change nappy, brush teeth, wash hands, show how to share, hold a crayon, teach cutlery handling, show how to put foot in a shoe, hold lunchbox, open water bottle spout. That all is time consuming when it's 1 adult and 25 children, maybe 18 with poor skills.
Then there's this thing, the curriculum.........

In UK they don't have more than what you listed. And in Poland they had what you listed. Now they will not even be asked to read or memorise multiplications. And the time at school is 3-4 h for 7-9 years olds. I can see that reading fluency lol

Wonderful to see teachers & ex-teachers agreeing about homework. I hated it when I was at school, so stressful, & I hated when my children struggled with it, too.
I understand that some countries let children play & grow socially before formal education begins at around 6 or 7 years. I'd love to see any statistics to show whether their children are more well rounded & less anxious than ours.

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything it's not the gotcha you think it is. We didn't get specific reading homework and then it was reading the texts we covered in class.

The whole system is different not just little bits and pieces so you can't pick and choose what you compare.

I actually don't think all homework was/is pointless, but a lot of it was. I'm quite curious to see how this will all turn out.

@ArseholeCatIsABlackAndWhiteCat
I must admit I' m not quite sure to which educational system you are referring in your first two sentences.

I was brought up in the Polish educational system and I only studied outside of Poland. Yes, children from an early age receive so-called "lektury," which are reading assignments. At the beginning these are very basic booklets

My son is 11, and he is at the end of primary school here in the UK. Kids here receive color-banded books at school, bring them home, and are expected to read them.

Therefore, I am a little bit confused by your post...?"

I'm Polish decent and I go every year to Poland. People are about 1,000 times better at speaking other languages when I was younger many people had a solid grounding in Russian, and could get by in German and English. The same cannot be said in this country people are shit at languages.
Polish literacy rate is slightly higher than the UK as well and I find there is better taught sciences.

@BringMeSunshineAllDayLong

I understand where your impression comes from. It is based on the fact that you meet people here, who are already fluent in English (like myself). But trust me, Poland is not the Netherlands, and most people who are living in Poland do not speak foreign languages better than English people do. Most people have exactly the same number of hours at school and achieve similar results. How do you imagine they amazingly fluent at German or French with 2 -3 hours per week of lessons? Unless they sent to private tutoring there is no way to achieve anything beyon B1 level. You just met educated people with Univ degrees and not folks without higher education.

Russian was compulsory at school only until the 1990s. I had Russian at school, but I am hardly fluent at it 😄. Most Poles of my generation have some sort of amnesia when it comes to Russian.

As for literacy and science - Pisa international exam ranking tells you all. Poland is not bad neither are the English