Sorry if this study is old or this topic has been done to death but is there really any benefit for home work?

[Italiangreyhound]

Sorry if this study is old or this topic has been done to death but is there really any benefit for home work?

www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rethinkinghomework.htm

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-24/study-finds-homework-has-limited-value/4330514

happychild.mobi/articles/what-is-the-value-of-homework-research-and-reality

My dd is dyslexic, 10 year old, and is really struggling at school. Home work is a total battle and pretty much has always been so.

She hates it, resents doing it and often ends up in tears. Tonight I was the one in tears.

Is it all for something or just a massive emotional waste of time?

Any replies very gratefully received.

Thank you in advance.

The education endowment foundation rate homework as having little or no impact on progress - average gain of one month compared to no homework

Homework clubs at school, run by (paid) local uni students and sixth formers? Longer school day with last half hour/hour for homework including access to school library and teaching assistants (paid extra, obv)?

Agree with other posters that one of the worst things about homework is how unfair it is. There are children whose parents don't speak English, or who don't have any paper or books in the house, or who don't have any space to work, or who have to look after siblings, or who are carers ... How can it be fair?

Otoh, if you can spend half an hour a day reading a book of your child's choice with/to him/her, cuddled up, both of you relaxing at the end of the day - nothing wrong with that.

Reading and tables in primary school. Can't see the point in anything else.

In secondary school it's vital that they get into the habit of doing some outside school study because very few people can get really good GCSEs in school hours alone.

Generally speaking primary teachers hate homework too- but generally speaking parents love it. It's often one of the reasons people give for going private.

Agree they need to learn to learn to do project work on their own, but they don't need to start before the age of 8 or 9, imo. Also, it would still be on their own if they had an hour in the school day for private study, supervised by support staff or sixth formers. It would help to level out the differences between children.

One of the reasons that they say you can calculate a child's life chances by the age of 3 is the amount of support they get from their family. If you give all children the basic hour after school, that doesn't stop families from providing additional support, but it gives everyone at least the minimum.

I think it's great that parents want to get involved in their children's school work. Those children will benefit immeasurably - who would want to deprive anyone of that? But the unlucky ones who don't have that support at home need to get something from somewhere.

I am afraid home work for some is nothing about support, it is not a lack of support that is stopping my daughter.

I find the idea that children's lives are in some way determined by their abilities or support at age three as really sad, and also I can't see it is really true and certainly not desirable.

Of course it is nice for parents to get involved in school work.

I too think it is great for other people and would not want to deprive anyone of anything. Are you suggesting that if the school did not set the 'work' parents would be unable to spend time doing school stuff with their kids.

I wonder what amount of children enjoy homework? I wonder how many parents enjoy doing the home work with their kids? I wonder how many children benefit from homework? Where is the evidence.

I feel some of the thoughts people express are actually about some sort of fictional image of parents and children working together. If this is a true image of your experience with your kids, lovely. But for me and I would expect a lot of other people it is a very negative and unhelpful time.

Solopower1 I agree with you, how can it be fair for kids to get the same homework when their abilities and support are different. But I don't see how extra work would "... help to level out the differences between children." if some children have less ability at school work, whether it is done at home or in an additional classroom setting.

I think a proper homework should match what children have learned that day, parents shouldn't need to help. Children do it themself and give back to the teacher, after teacher marked it and return to the children, then children can check themself.That's why I think homework should wait till children is 6 or 7, so they can manage themself.

My mum was a teacher, but she never helped me with my homework. If I forgot to bring in my homework, I had to go home to get it. So I only forgot once. Of course , there are some children who won't care, and will not do it, then they don't get good grade at the exam. Only the children who care it and can work hard will get the good grade.

As many will know doing more at home has been very beneficial to DD1 (finishing NC L1 across the board end KS1/ going on with regular homework provided from parents (not school) to achieve NC L6 Maths/ NC L5 English & TA assessed Science).

Now this is actually what the educational endowment says on primary school homework (as opposed to mrz's version): educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/homework/

in particular they say: There is some evidence that when homework is used as a short and focused intervention it can be effective in improving students’ attainment (with some studies showing up to eight months positive impact on attainment). Overall the general benefits are likely to be modest if homework is more routinely set.

However if you look at the references - there are 6 studies - two of which are reviews of the previous data. So I'm no persuaded that this has been seriously studied - moreover structurally these studies link homework to schools' overall achievement - and does not follow individuals.

So in fact the data on whether giving a FSM child regular access to reading material and possibly computer time for maths games, etc... before/ after school might be of benefit or not simply ISN'T there.

I remain a firm believer that practice helps regardless of what you practice...

be it a musical instrument
a sport
drawing
painting

or heaven forbid

even mathematics.

In our case with a child who sincerely could not take 1 from 10 by May of Y2 - I can say hand on heart that doing more at home made a huge difference.

Issues like noisy classroom/ distractions/ poor instructions/ poor explanation could be avoided by doing things at home. Initially I had to give a lot of support whilst she used an on-line maths' tutorial - but soon DD1 just got on with it herself.

DD1 finished Y2 at NC L1 in Maths on KS 1 SATs.

DD1 finished Y6 at NC L6 in Maths on KS2 SATs.

Maybe it was homework/ maybe it wasn't.

I am really curious, do you Cloud2 and other people really think it is "Only the children who care it and can work hard will get the good grade."? Where does ability come into all this, are all kids equal. Surely the way we test work we are testing kids on being all able to achieve exactly the same. Which clearly they cannot all do.

Thank you PastSellByDate for the link. I am fascinated to know qhat they mean by costs?

"There are few costs associated with homework, though there are implications for staff time for preparation and marking. With younger children there may be additional resources required (such as reading books or games for children to take home). Overall costs are estimated as very low."

I am assuming this means the financial cost?

But what about time, what about emotional costs?

Thank you one and all for your help.

Are you suggesting that if the school did not set the 'work' parents would be unable to spend time doing school stuff with their kids.

^^

There does seem to be this assumption sometimes with school homework and I find it very annoying.

Our hearts sink when there is project/topic work - it's always a battle and always seem to need parenteral input to a large degree. Large projects always seem to be given over holidays as well.

I don't mind the 10 minutes reading every day - despite having 3 DC and despite that at times being a battle - to point one year we stopped it for months for one DC as it was counter productive - there was underlying causes which school were dismissing. Thankfully they seem much keener to read to us these days.

I don't mind the weekly times tables or the weekly maths sheet with written word questions in later school years - despite me needing to read it out as there is limited time for each question. Older two have chosen musical instrument lessons - so they practise those few time a week - and it varies wildly how pleased they are to do that.

I have more issue with weekly spellings - which seem to have no long term affect and seem to actively discourage my older two DC.

When they have struggled we their parents have done phonics programs for reading and spelling at home - and when they struggled with maths - we started maths factor and there confidence has massively improved and they've moved up the maths sets at school. When youngest was forming letters completely wrong - found a handwriting book and insisted she do that - which sometimes she was trilled with and sometimes very reluctant to do.

So I can't say I'm against extra work for DC - though me working more hours would make that much harder to do, it's just the school homework often seems poorly thought through and not particularly informative to us as parents or useful to the DC.

I agree with PastSellByDate - we had more sucess with DD to catch up with handwriting and maths since we do regular sessions at home. She knows when and what and we hardly ever have trouble.

Italiangreyhound - I know what you mean with time and emotional costs. We struggled for over one term to get DD to do violin practice. She wanted to play but practice at home was a nightmare.

Only when we started agreeing on set days and times we managed to get somewhere. She now has a home schedule, fixed times for homework, fixed times for violin. Since then we hardly have trouble. If she is stroppy we leave her but she knows that without the practice no ipad, computer or TV until it is done. It didn't work overnight but after a couple of weeks it is a lot calmer.

The main benefit of primary school homework is to get used to the idea of homework otherwise secondary school will come as a big shock!

DS just started Y7 and homework seems to be about researching a topic. He is getting used to looking up and interpreting information, presenting it appropriately, managing his time and organising his work (sort of). All useful skills to have.

Also especially with maths DS finds it easier to concentrate at home than in class room so probably learns more through homework than just in lessons.

When we done extra with the DC - we do try for everyday weekday - as it's less arguments long term.

We have also done a chalk board listing things to do - things like violin practise go on there which they can then cross off - it does get easier to do set days as they get older - so eldest will do weekly school maths stuff on a Sunday with no arguments.

I do reading every day with youngest before school - she still trying to get out of it despite me doing this since term started- it's getting past that and setting it up a habit .

The main benefit of primary school homework is to get used to the idea of homework otherwise secondary school will come as a big shock!

I keep reading this - but both DH and I went to university and have post graduate qualifications and despite being at very different school we did no homework till last year or less at Primary.

I did 30 minute last 6 months of primary as my teacher wanted to get us used to idea of homework. That I can understand - it's less clear why my nursery, reception DCs came home with homework - and why they all do now they are older - my eldest has just started yr5 so 2 yrs off secondary really.

DH is in HE and the general view across many subjects - every passing year the students do less and less reading round their subject. Yet these I assume are the product of more and more primary school homework.

Yes probably not much point in KS1.

From Y3 they probably should practise reading, timestables, spelling and telling time at home so that these basic skills are established by secondary.

Many parents do that anyway but not all.

To Italiangreyhound
I think every child have different abilities. Some may good at academic, some are good at sports, some may not be good at anything. However, hard work can always improve attainment. I always use a simple example maybe not correct but is easy to understand for children. If give score to a persons ability, from 1-100 and the same to his effort. A child with 90 score on his ability but only 50 effort, that makes 140, he will do less well than a child with 60 ability but 100 effort. For a top achiever in any area, you may need to have talent and hard work, but for most people, average ability and hard work, Its already enough to have a good career. The same apply to school life.

I find this discussion quite interesting. I hate homework! My DC aren't home until 4.30 at earliest and often 5.30. They are hungry and tired and just want to eat, chat and chill. As it is they have to do homework which normally involves me nagging, them rolling about in their seats doing anything but. The expected 20 mins is normally like an hour. Sometimes they get in, do their homework, eat, shower, read, bed. No downtime at all - what a stressed life!

I would much rather they played or we chatted and had decent family time.

I discussed it with school who said they set as by far the majority of parents expect it and like to know what their DC are up to at school - so I thought I must be in some kind of parenting minority until now! They did say we didn't have to take part, but when we tried this my DC found they did not earn any extra merit points (ever!) and some teachers even deducted points for not having done it, so opting out have a very visible negative effect.

I agree spellings and timestables are ok.

Yes hexu my children didn't appear to have an issue with occasional homework when they started getting it at secondary despite having none for the last few years of primary. They were older, they understood the benefits and got on with whatever was needed with pretty much zero input. Having said that there is not much homework at secondary here either, it is a much less stressful system (and yet Canada scores very highly on international tables).

Italiangrey that study clearly considers any costs incurred by children or parents as irrelevant. Which to me sums up the homework problem. When we lived in the UK both dh and I worked. We picked up our children from a childminder at 6/7 so the homework space before bed was small and the children were tired. It was a long way from optimal but for our area not particularly unusual. The schools take very little notice of such things and still tend to assume a SAHM is at home. If your child is home at 3.30pm or so then there is plenty of time to spend an hour on homework, and the opportunity cost is fairly low. If you have only a couple of hours before bed then the cost of having to do pointless, stressful homework which your child does not want to do or see any benefits from then it's a very different scenario.

BearsAndAngels I am glad this thread has had some uses and I am so sorry for your experiences with homework.

I just think a lot of parents have no idea what some parents know only too well, that some kids are not suited to homework. Why should they be! Which of who works outside the home brings home 'homework'!

Of course if you are in a really high powered job, you will. But most of us will not. So we are back to the old preparing for it thing. I certainly do not lie around in sun oil and a swim suit in the winter to get ready for summer so why do kids need so much preparation for something in the future!

I'm dyslexic and can remember losing points for spelling for my team 30 plus years ago. What a crap way to motivate kids, by humiliation. I really thought we had some a bit further than that!

Thanks Nooka I am at home at moment and even when not I am home after school, if that makes sense! But really for us it is dd's unwillingness to do it and my unwillingness to make her do it if (and this is the crucial bit!) there is no discernible benefit to it!

The good thing for me is to hear others views and to hear what works for some, and so I am very grateful to all who have replied.

So Thank you one and all. Italian - ps please keep views coming if you have the energy to type I have the energy to read!

I am a teacher, it is school policy to give homework, but if I had a choice I wouldn't give it. I believe the benefits are negligible, also having a child with dyslexia I know what a nightmare it can be.

Parents can get in an awful state about it too.Totalled up its perhaps 2% of the work they do in a week, it really isn't worth the angst for everyone.

As a teacher I dislike setting, chasing up and marking homework. We can't differentiate the way we do in class due to varying levels of support. However I think it is very important for parents to take an active part in a child's academic education - which is more than just reading! One year I worked in a school where children had to read and write a sentence about the book daily - brought writing on no end as some parents realised just how much support their child needed to write and did extra to help. Times tables, basic maths facts (stuff that just needs memorising) ect will only be strong if they are done outside of the 4 hours of academic learning in school.

yy, as a teacher and a parent I am completely opposed to homework, but have to suck it up on both counts...

"I agree with PastSellByDate - we had more sucess with DD to catch up with handwriting and maths since we do regular sessions at home." but is that homework or work you choose to do at home?

Hours of tantrumming this evening I wonder if it's worth the effort. The problem is I have older DC (in secondary) so it would seem unfair if I didn't enforce for all. The kid in GCSEs especially I think he should do homework. But he has a long list of reasons why it doesn't matter (& I think he may be right, after all). ARRRRGGGHHHH.