What do you think about no Homework?

[RobAnthony66]

As a teacher I have always had concerns about the usefulness of homework set for the sake of it. I am thinking of trialling a term of no 'normal' homework for our Year 8 students. Alternative tasks would be offered, though not made compulsory, along the lines of something to research or do (like find out about Pablo Picasso or find out how your parents maintain their car). There would be a choice of four each week but, as they are not compulsory, it would be up to students to decide which one, if any to do. They would not need to write anything down to 'prove' that they had done it but would be free to explore the ideas for themselves or with their parents. If it works I might make it school policy for Years 7 to 9.

I know this is a bit radical but I wondered what you all thought about it as an idea?

We're moving towards 'Extended Learning Tasks' atm - I teach English, & it's going to be full steam ahead for KS3 in September.

The argument is that it should, if thoughtfully set, provide genuine additional learning - so in some of our pilots, for example, students have built a model set for Macbeth & delivered a presentation on the process & the decisions they've made; or directed & filmed a scene using family members as actors, & producing an annotated 'director's text' & a director's diary; or have independently watched & compared in essay form several film versions.

Obviously, being able to choose the task is brilliant for student engagement.

I teach a lad whose literacy SEN means that he has always seen English = frustration + humiliation. He built a stunning model set, based on an Antony Sher theatre production he'd seen a clip from on video, & gave a confident & assured presentation on how he'd thought the production was great, but the design wasn't gruesome enough, so he'd got his Art teacher to advise him - she'd steered him towards some Chapman brothers dioramas, & he was off.

I've got the end result on a shelf in my teaching room. It's admittedly fairly grisly, but it's going to be a fantastic talking point when I do Macbeth again next year. & for this particular student, he a) had a blast & b) got properly to grips with Shakespeare, hunting down grisly horrible quotes to support his presentation!

I would make a couple of caveats:

Some subjects (MFL & Maths, off the top of my head) need regular drills/practices. Doubtful whether ELTs could ever replace conventional HW in these.

You need a definite learning outcome - another student created an animated film using Simpsons characters. It took him hours, it was well done & quite funny, but it had bugger all to do with advancing his understanding of Macbeth! Likewise the girl who simply filmed her grandparents reading the scene where Lady M goads Macbeth into killing Duncan - could've been very successful if she'd actually directed them & reflected on her decisions...

& yes, there must be teacher feedback, linked to the learning.

I'd be interested to know how you get on, OP!

One thing that did jump out at me was the OP's comment that 'If it works I might make it school policy for Years 7 to 9.'

I'll be the first to admit that my school is somewhat hierarchy bound (HT works on the general assumption that his entire staff are workshy, untrustworthy woo merchants who need a Tight Rein & a collective bollocking at least weekly) - but I'd be surprised at a teacher, or even HOD, getting to set the school HW policy, even within a given subject area.

I'd've expected it to require a little more consultation tbh, with the link member of SLG at the very least.

You can give the students responsibility for their own learning by allowing them to choose how best to consolidate the work done in class.

Instead of providing the same homework for all, a range of homework options could be given eg mind mapping/comic strip/Q&A/set a quiz/revision 'poster'/powerpoint presentation/podcast etc and students could choose which type of homework they preferred.

Such homework could even be displayed and peer marked. That way, students could learn different techniques for consolidating work done from each other. You could introduce certain provisos to ensure that everyone covered all the techniques.

I know, I know...I'm getting carried away .

I like those ideas dolly. getting students to choose the project creates ownership of their learning. and it'd be fairer on those with different learning styles - kinaesthetic etc :)

not sure about peer marking though (not too often anyway) as it'd take up too much class time.

what I really don't understand is why some people have a negative outlook on HW right from the start. their kids come home with their first piece of HW and the parents are negative about it "oh dear well never mind let's get it out of the way" or even just saying how horrible it is or telling their kids not to bother . I can understand if parents have trouble with the work themselves, especially subjects like literacy/maths and they are dreading helping, but surely they can understand that if they're overt about their hatred of HW, then their kids will pick up on that and that can't be good?!

is it THAT hard to pretend to be positive about it?

ravenAK I can decide because I am a Deputy Head. I want to look again at homework, its benefits and consequences. What I have read so far indicates that homework, even at secondary school, does not have a huge impact upon the attainment of students.

BeenBeta Your comments about independent schools are interesting. I would argue that they set lots of homework because parents pay for the education and expect to see some action as a result - even if it does not actually deliver in terms of achievement. As for the reason that more independent school students go to top universities, it is far more to do with the social background of the students in the first place.

I suppose me reluctance to 'assess' the work produced by students is that it puts the pressure back on. Why can't they learn for its own sake? Of course, if a students did produce something that they wanted to be looked at, that would be fine.

Sorry RA66, I'm still not convinced. You started by saying that you would introduce this for years 7-9 but you now seem to be implying that homework at any level of secondary school is not worthwhile. How else are you going to teach potential FE/HE students the skills of self-study?

If you do not explain this properly to current and future parents then you will experience the brain-drain as described by cat64 in the sixth posting to this thread. Parents do not take kindly to schools experimenting with their child's future.

Also, as seeker said, homework is a useful bridge between home and school: if a child does all its work and school and consequently never brings its books home then the parents' information is severely curtailed. All we will know is what we glean from:
-the report (once a year, a cut&paste nonsense)
-the parents' evening (again, usually only one per year) and
-what the child tells us (hollow laugh).
As you must know, parental involvement does have a huge impact on the attainment of students (15% IIRC).

Can you please link to this research about the non-usefulness of homework that you keep quoting?

The person who has done most research into the effectiveness of Homework is Harris Cooper. He makes the point that at elementary school (our primary school) there is no link at all between homework and achievement. This is agreed by everyone doing homework research. However they all go on to say that children should do it anyway! At secondary school the best that can be said is that an average student who does all their homework will be five students higher than the average no-homework student if you rank them in order of achievement. i.e. they would move their grade from a C to a B- (American system of grading).

I just question whether this effect is worth all the hassle, arguments and hours of completing worksheets.

I am also looking at ways of telling parents exactly what their child is doing at school at the start of each year and possibly as the year goes on . . . but that is another story.

Cat64 All children will learn by themselves, with help they can learn even faster, 11 - 16 years olds are reluctant to do additional learning of their own (some of them) but after 5 hours at school followed by 2 hours of homework I would be too!

How do you get good at something if you don't practise it? I can't think of anything at which I have improved with no work. And there is limited time in the classroom for practising and working - as opposed to being shown something for the first time.

The quality of the homework is important, though. And different children need different things from the homework (eg weak at maths: need lots of repetition; strong at maths: need more problem-solving etc).

bloss I think you are right when it somes to skills-based learning, then practice is needed and homework for this may be a good thing. However for deep learning and understanding, most homeworks don't help IMHO. Interestingly the research (by Harris Cooper again) suggests that there is no learning benefit from varying the homework for individual children, something I find very odd. I would have agreed with you that giving different styles of work would have made a difference.

cat64 - that is how I feel.

Its all very well wishng that pupils would do home work for the pure joy of learning but the reality is that most will not because they do not have the maturity of life experience to know why they need to learn. It is pure fantasy to expect most children to do anything but the bare minimum. They can do what they like in their free time.

I know that if my DSs are given optional homework at their (admittedly fee paying Prep) school (they are age 8 and 10) they just dont do it until pushed because their friends dont do it. Boys in particular face a lot of peer pressure at school. Which boy wants to be known as the class swot who always does the optional homework for teacher?

In real life, employers require employees to deliver work on time to a required standard. Children need to learn that discipline in school.

In an ideal world, this idea of optional homework would be fine, positive even, but in real life it just does not work.

beenbeta Schools do teach students that they need to produce work to a set standard. They do that all the time. I just wonder why they have to do it at home as well.

Cat64 my argument was that if school kept in school hours only then students would be free to explore their own interests, wherever it took them. I taught myself to program a computer, before I had even seen what one looked like and I still use my spare time to investigate ideas and learn. Homework was a distraction and, with very few exceptions, I can't remember actually learning anything from homework. Yes, it helped me to practice skills-based knowledge an I accept that is one use of it but as for actual learning - waste of time.

What could all our children be learning if they didn't have to do homework?

"i.e. they would move their grade from a C to a B- (American system of grading).
I just question whether this effect is worth all the hassle, arguments and hours of completing worksheets."

THis is red rag to a bull.
This reads as "most children will scrape a C. Why should we put ourselves out to try to improve their grades, when they have already got the minimum requirement for league tables." You may not have meant it but that is how it reads to a parent. If you are going to stand a cat in hell's chance with this policy then you need to learn some diplomatic language.

Thanks for the reference to Harris Cooper. I found this article which opens with the comment "It turns out that parents are right to nag: To succeed in school, kids should do their homework." which doesn't seem to chime with the way that you present his findings.

I have to say I learnt loads from homework. we never (and I mean never!) got worksheets, we had proper, interesting, varied activities to do, with bigger projects too. I loved it. I'm sad to see that the school my stepkids are at has no such standards

WRT this idea of children not wanting to learn for themselves. hmm, difficult one. obviously there is a lot to be gained from enthusiastic parents (such as mine! thanks mum and dad :)) which sadly many children don't have. but I'm wcndering if it's one of those things that takes a generation or two to change?

any big change (sorry if I rambled about this already, I'm on too many threads ATM!) risks alienating current generations. like if you tried to increase BFing rates and suddenly made formula prescription only. this would be devastating to many women having babies now. but in a few years people would just accept it because that's what they'd grown up with. and that's the difficulty with changing society, do you hurt the current generation, or do you not make the big change but then society never improves?! it's a tough choice and I don't envy politicians for having to make it over various issues!

a more trivial (or not?) example - this obsession with changing kids' playground equipment to encourage more risk taking. I've seen so many older kids arrive for the first time at the new park and think WTF?! how do I play on this? they then don't enjoy it. but young children such as mine (DD is 3) are growing up used to it IYSWIM.

sorry for the waffle - I just think it may be a similar thing with autonomous learning. current pupils may take this optional homework as a green light to do bugger all. bad for them (depending on your view) - but hopefully future intakes would grow up seeing this as the norm and be used to taking initiative. but again - it's risking (or experimenting with as a PP said) the education of the current students. difficult one

senua That isn't what I'm saying at all. I work in a school where we work very hard to improve all students' grades. The point I was making is that homework can cause many family arguments, put stress on students and for a very limited improvement in grades. If teachers didn't have to set and assess homework they could spend more time producing intersting, engaging lessons and providing powerful feedback to work done in lessons. This has a huge impact upon results. Harris Cooper is the US's hugest supporter of homework, of course he is going to say get them to do it but his research hasn't looked at any of the negative effects. I've read his book and several of his papers. Fo a different view, why not try www.education.com/magazine/article/The_Homework_Debate/ or wwww.alfiekohn.org/teaching/research.htm or even www.learnersedgeinc.com/file/704-1.pdf

MathsMadMummy You are right that when any change occurs there will be some that abuse it. They think that because they are free of compulsory homework they don't need to do anything. I suppose it would be my job to explain otherwise. However, these things always have to be considered whenever change is mooted and shouldn't be a reason not to do the right thing.

We are all on the same side in that we want to do what's best for the children. The argument is about what is best.

Have to admit my coments on this thread have been fuelled by the annoyance I feel at the lack of serious homework being set by DSs school. They are age 8 and 10 but we get a lot of 'optional' things set and not much in the way of practice homework of things they have learned in maths lesson.

swallowedAfly - good points.

swallowedFly yes there is lots of research about parental involvement being good for students. However parental involvement in homework actually decreases attainment. The research says parents shouldn't get involved with their child's homework other than to make them do it! And that's from Harris Cooper himself.