Homework approaches in secondary school

[Stevie77]

I'm genuinely interested to hear about your child's secondary school approach to homework.

My son started Year 7 in Sept. I also have a Year 11 child in a different school. My son's school uses Seneca and Mathswatch as their main platforms for homework, with other work being on Google Suite, or other platforms. But all on digital platforms.

I've reached out to school (they have a dedicated Yr 7 transition lead) querying it as it seems like the reliance on an automated platforms leads to a lighter-touch approach to homework overall. I can see how it is convenient for teachers not having to mark books, but I am concerned about the lack of written homework, lack of personalised feedback, no teacher-guided assessment or the chance to meaningfully learn from mistakes etc. I also don't think that Seneca alone provides the level of academic challenge or the development of independent study skills needed further down the line. I also don't think it promotes focused work, as the system is really distracting - you get celebratory pop-up memes when you answer correctly, when you type an answer it automatically completes the end of the word for you etc. It seems like a useful for revision and quizzing, but for all homework?

School have so far replied reinforcing (expected, I guess) this school-wide approach, stating that they find Seneca to be a highly effective, interactive online platform that supports learning and revision. They say they also utilise a Seneca Plus model, where while they have a core approach, individual faculties incorporate specific independent learning strategies tailored to their subject area.

So, am I right to be concerned? I can't see how this approach prepares the students for what sitting GCSEs and the level of studying needed in the coming yars - which I am seeing with my older child now. Assuming I am correct in my concerns, where else can I take this next? Governors? Happy to be told I'm wrong!

@Octavia64 I would add that the lack of textbooks is crazy. We have had situations where our kids asked for help with their homework. We explained something. No, that's not how the teacher explained it. How did the teacher explain it? I don't remember. Can you look it up anywhere? No.
Aaaaargh!!

What this leads to is some families not giving a damn, while others end up buying the Collins CGP etc books to explain the subjects to their children. Ie they end up buying the textbooks which are not used in school.

When I raised this point, teachers looked at me as if I were an alien and as if textbooks were a thing of the past.

You get an adult who can't research effectively, who can't string a basic sentence together, who doesn't know what evolution is and who fails their Biology exam. Why on earth would you want that?

We have millions of adults who can't do that, they never had AI but still failed to develop these skills. In fact, just a tiny minority of the population can research effectively, and it's definitely not AI's fault.

The fact that we have always had functionally illiterate people is hardly a valid argument to advocate something (AI) which will make functional illiteracy even worse!

Sure, AI isn't going anywhere. But this doesn't mean we should minimise or downplay the risks of bringing up a generation of brain dead idiots like in the film Idiocracy

the sort of homework that many primaries set - make a Viking longship, investigate castles etc

We had all that AND daily spelling, maths and comprehension starting in y1. Some basic science projects HW too.

Why do you think pupils in academic private schools are a year or two ahead of state? It's not magic, they just get homework and do it. And the parents are involved of course. You can't expect a 7yo preparing for maths challenges 100% by themselves or 11yo researching and writing an essay on highly abstract philosophical concepts just off the cuff (this is the actual HW children get).

@Ubertomusic what makes you say that pupils in private schools are 1 or 2 years ahead?

There is more variability in the state sector, with some excellent schools and some awful ones, but yours seems too much of a generalisation.

I tutor maths (qualified teacher)

Sparx is bloody awful. Mathswatch is significantly better. There is absolutely no benefit at all in Sparx as it forces you to answer the question to move on and completely your homework. I can 100% guarantee that the majority of pupils are using AI, screenshotting the question and just giving the answer. They have NO CLUE how to answer it. Then, because the damn question disappears, I can't even help them at their tutor session.

Also the fact that one of my Y11's and one of my Y7's (set two, not even top set) had the same question set this week on their homework. Quite often my bright set 1 child has work that is more suited to year 10.

Luckily, I'm here to teach the topics that haven't been taught but have still been set on Sparx.

Much prefer helping my students whose schools use Mathswatch.

I couldn't hate Sparx more tbh.

The stats and experience. My DC went to an excellent state, top grammar, hot house pre prep, super selective private and non academic private. I have first hand experience of assessments and standards at top tier schools, and even an excellent state school is incomparable in terms of homework and expectations.

I specifically said "in academic private schools" so I wasn't actually generalising. There are all sorts of private schools including rubbish ones, and there are state grammars that outperform all other schools, but grammar usually set even more HW.

Ah, so you were comparing "academic private schools" (ie the very best among a group which tends to select students based on ability) vs the entirety of state schools (the vast majority of which are not selective)? If so, your comparison is utterly meaningless.

When you instead say that even an excellent state school is incomparable, that's a sweeping generalisation. Didn't you agree earlier in the thread that MN is full of bs and that too many adults cannot spot bs?

Yes, it is good to remind people on this thread that 7% of people in this country go to private schools and apparently there are loads of rubbish ones within that despite the fact that they generally select their students, as do grammars….

Many independent schools are non-selective and not academic hot houses. Just to remind you.
There are good and bad in both state and independent sectors.

Re using AI to do Sparx, teachers can tell if they are doing this by the speed at which they answer each question. We now give questions the next lesson which, if students have acquired the correct knowledge and skills via their homework, they can do. It helps indicate which students have used ai to solve Sparx but is another example of ai as a barrier teachers now have to deal with and overcome despite not being experts in it.

No, the complaint wasn’t that state teachers weren’t setting homework, but they were setting homework online and it was marked electronically rather than by teachers.

Many teachers have listed good reasons why marking homework is a waste of teachers’ time.

I marked homework when I started teaching, per school policy. Reams of it. Spent hours on it. It was 100% absolutely a waste of my time.

We then ditched teachers marking homework and switched to teachers marking exit tickets completed in the lesson instead and the amount of useful information both teachers and students received from this was so, so much higher.

I would never go back to marking homework. If a school insisted on it, I wouldn’t apply for a job there because they are clearly more interested in how things look to parents than whether they are a useful exercise.

So genuinely how do you teach children how to study/revise for GCSEs if schools aren't setting homework? I'm not talking about primary years obviously.

No, I was comparing academic private schools with excellent state, not the entirety of state schools. I assume the situation in "the entirety of schools" is worse than in the subset of "excellent state schools", it's just logical.

The selection does not work quite as simple as that, excellent state schools often have sets so effectively it's an internal selection without external exams. DC1 was in top sets for all STEM and MFL in an excellent state school and the workload was much less than DC2 does in a non academic private. If DC1's state school was not excellent, the gap would have been absolutely huge. The gap between DC2's non academic private and our friends' top 5 schools is also huge, they do hours of HW every single day, and in y10-11 it's not unusual to go to bed past midnight just to be able to finish all HW. After such a military drill, young adults are not afraid of anything in the workplace. Some of them burn out early of course, this is also real and such schools are not for everyone, I personally didn't want that for my DC for various reasons.

On the other hand, there are private schools that do select by ability at 11+ but do not stretch their pupils and the results are mediocre. So it's not just about the ability of the intake, it's the actual work that has to be done every single day to develop that ability. Homework is part of it but it's parents' responsibility to oversee it and make sure DC understand that copy pasting AI is not developing them and not in their own interest. I think in AI era the aim of education is shifting (or at least should be shifting) from delivering exam results to developing personal responsibility and understanding of the long term consequences of one's actions, owning your development iyswim. Schools are not doing this at the moment and I'm not sure they will ever be able to do
it, it's mostly the parents' job I think.

If "top schools" think forcing children to work beyond midnight is necessary and healthy I'm glad mine only go to a good Comprehensive tbh. So they might get 7s/8s instead if straight 9s but they won't be nervous wrecks.

(And they do their homework without AI as they want to succeed. Those who want to do well won't cheat. )

Who said they were working beyond midnight?

Read the post above mine, its what that poster is claiming the pupils at top schools do!

Sorry I completely missed that!

Yes, horses for courses I suppose.

We set homework, online and marked electronically.

We don’t mark homework.

My dept uses mathswatch, same as the OP and she seems to think that’s unacceptable. It’s not at all.

@Ubertomusic

We agree that homework is important but we probably disagree on how much is reasonable.
After midnight? Burning out? Thank you but no thank you. I don't envy certain Asian societies, where on one hand kids have a work ethic many of their British cousins don't, but on the other hand some burn out, develop mental health issues or kill themselves. There needs to be a balance.

A family I know moved their child from a state secondary which was giving too much homework. The kid had aced the 11+ but didn't qualify for scholarships, so went to state. . But was visibly stressed, had stopped reading for leisure, and had given up sports. No.
He went on to get good GCSE at another, more reasonable school.

When you say this prepares them for the workplace, it depends. Where is the the balance between instilling a work ethic, and normalising overwork? Do these schools normalise the behaviour of the toxic bosses who assign work on a Friday afternoon spoiling your weekend not because it's necessary but just because they can?

AI can't mark essays accurately though. So you are setting MCQ type Qs?

We don’t have essays in maths.

Obviously

But as there are a lot more subjects than just maths, how are humanities homework tasks set and marked?

I don’t know.

But the OP was objecting to mathswatch and is thinking of complaining about it.