Homework

Michael Gove has announced that headteachers can decide upon their own school's homework policy based upon their clientele rather than being set guidelines from Whitehall. My initial reaction: that's good of him, to allow schools to make some decisions. My second reaction: what use is homework anyway?

Homework is arguably the most time-consuming part of a teacher's job. Teachers rarely like setting it and students rarely like doing it, so why does it exist? There are a number of reasons:

1. The most important one: parents expect it. It makes no difference what is set, but if a school had a policy of not setting the stuff, and there are good reasons for having such a policy which I will cover later, many parents would moan and the school's numbers would begin to fall, with the end result being its closure. Parental perception of homework is that it shows them what their child is learning in class, despite the fact that the parents themselves spend hours doing the stuff to dig their offspring put of a potential detention.
2. It should reinforce what a child has learnt in school, but many homeworks are set for the sake of it, which is ultimately a waste of time. Current guidelines suggest that a 14 to 16 year old should have around 2-3 hours per night of homework. This is ridiculous - homeworks should be around 10 minutes long if a child fully understands what to do, and a little longer if they have to learn it again because they weren't paying attention in class.
3. It gives the teacher some results and evidence (it's that word "data" again) to track a child's progress and performance over a year and possibly identify weaknesses in their knowledge. This is useful for the teacher and child, assuming that the child has the gumption to actually make an effort to fill these holes in their learning. Tests in class can also do this.

Why should homework be scrapped?

1. There's not a student or teacher who "loves", or dare I say even "likes" homework. It worsens the work/life balance for both parties and is generally a pain in the rear end to do and mark.
2. The amount of time teachers spend chasing up missing homework could be far better utilised planning "outstanding" lessons.
3. It prevents school children from having a childhood, like running around the park or playing sport apparently, or so the report on the BBC website said. I would possibly swap the two activities mentioned with "drinking cheap cider and smoking at the park" and "playing XBox", but I know what they mean. Children ought to be allowed to have a childhood is the point.

My solution:

Teachers should set homework, when it's relevent, but no more than once per week and it shouldn't be very time consuming. Children can do the homework if they want to, and if they do, it will get marked. If a child chooses not to do the homework, even on time, then that's their loss. The same should go for coursework.

Thank you Michael for allowing schools this opportunity. Let's see who's brave enough to make use of it.

Homework in Room 101

A new series of the popular TV show Room 101 began last night, with a new format whereupon three guests offer up an item for banishment and new host Frank Skinner decides which item is selected for disposal. The first category for the guest to choose was "School Days" and TV "personality" and the face of Ryvita, Fern Britton chose homework, which ended up being voted in.

Her argument was that children should work hard at school but be allowed to be children in the evenings whilst at home. I have some time for this opinion, I have to say, as long as the children actually do work hard in school.

As far as I can see it, the pros for homework are these:

1. It gives children the opportunity to practise the things they've learnt in class, relying on their notes and own understanding of the work - those are what they'd revise from after all. If they struggle then they know they need to get help to get over these issues.
2. It gives teachers some marks on different topics to see how each child in ttheir class is getting on, which helps the teacher plan for future lessons.
3. This is the main one: people expect it to be set, even if it's totally pointless, they want to see that their child is being set something to do. It is a way that parents can find out what their children are learning at school.

The cons for homework would be:

1. Teachers spend a huge amount of time chasing incomplete homework, time that could be better spent planning lessons or exciting activities to enthuse their classes rather than phoning home or sitting in detention with half a dozen miscreants.
2. Any child with half a brain will realise quite quickly (as I did) that if you do a little bit of a homework task and then say you got stuck you won't get detention because you "had a go", and you didn't waste your entire evening on pointless tasks.
3. It would save every school in the land tousands of pounds in photocopying every year. For a class of 30 children a teacher will have to produce around 45 worksheets due to loss of original, hungry pets, spillages in school bag and anything else they can think of. Could the money be spent better elsewhere?

It looks like it's here to stay whatever Frank Skinner thinks, as I noticed in Michael Gove's new document "Teachers' Standards" that was sent around this week that teachers must "set homework and other out-of-class activities to consolidate and extend the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired." This document will feature in future posts having read it.

I just think that homework is set purely due to expectation rather than any education value, which is ultimately, a total waste of time for all involved!

Homework - what's the point?

I've never been a fan of homework, whether as a student or as a teacher. The reason - it takes time that could often be better used doing something else, not always, but often.

That view has not changed in the umpteen years that I have been involved in the setting of homework, but every school I've in has a policy of setting it, so I duly set it. The real hassle for teachers is not the setting of it but the day of collection when a number of students feel that the homework didn't apply to them.

In one of my classes today, about a quarter (of a class of 28) felt that they didn't have to do the homework and so as it was the end of the day I decided to keep them for the school policy 15 minute detention. One walked out, but the rest stayed, albeit whilst moaning incessantly. That was until one girl who had claimed all lesson to not be allowed to stay answered her phone, and so the conversation went:

Me: Don't answer you phone please.
Student: It's my mum.
Me: I don't care, you are not supposed to have your phone out in school.
Student: Hello Mum - he's keeping me for a detention.
Me - dumbstruck by the sheer cheek of both mother and child.
Student: Do you want to speak to my mum?
Me: No, I want you to turn your phone off and do your detention.
Student - holds the phone towards me as I hear the mother shouting.
Mother: I've told you lot before, she ain't f*****g staying after school.
Me: I think I've heard enough enough, you might as well go.
Student: See ya!

At the same time another non-doer was balling their eyes out saying the following, although I should put this in context that they have had extra time and been offered time in learning support, but failed to take up the offer:

Student: I'm a young carer - I have to get home.
Me: I realise that and I have sympathy (and I really do) with you, but you need to do your homework too, and I'm only keeping you for 15 minutes, no longer.
Student: But last time I was a minute late I found her on the floor totally helpless.
Me: I don't need this grief, you might as well go.

These conversations will be followed up with phone calls saying something along the following lines:

"I am just ringing to tell you that your child is not doing their homework, apparently with your consent - I'd just like to check that is the case. I would therefore like to inform you that I respect your decision but I ought to warn you that this decision comes with a likelihood that your child will not get a GCSE in my subject. If you are happy with that, then that's fine and they will no longer be hassled for homework ever again, although they will be expected to work in class so that they have a very small chance of passing their exams."

We live in what a politician called the other day "a society of accountability" whereupon I, as a teacher, get constantly told off for my students failing to reach their ridiculously high targets at GCSE by people in suits who don't teach anymore. I don't really see that I can do anything if parents condone their child's lack of work.

Unfortunately any pay increase I ever wish to have relies on the students I teach actually caring whether they do well in my subject, which is fine, but if I'm literally fighting against the parents too, what chance have I got? And I would like to point out that this is not uncommon - I teach in a nice area apparently. Something's broken, and I will be searching the local paper for jobs outside of teaching. Sad really, but I do this every now and then only to fail to find anything that I want to do. Fingers crossed people, and if the government get their way over pensions, you will find far more disaffected teachers in the profession.

What's the point in homework?

Contrary to popular belief, teachers aren’t keen on setting homework. It has just taken me an hour to set homework for all my classes for this week, which doesn’t sound like a very long time, but that’s not the end of it. There are photocopies to be made, an electronic version needs to be available for those who misplace the sheet or who have hungry dogs. When it’s due in you have to check that everyone’s done it (very rarely does this actually happen) and then mark it, either as a class or by taking the books in.

I reckon a single piece of homework takes up about 90 minutes of my week, certainly if I mark it personally, and if you multiply that by the 6 classes I take – that’s 9 hours! You may question why I don’t mark everything personally, and this is mainly due to the latest educational fad that is “peer assessment” / “Assessment for Learning”, or in English: the students mark each other’s work and point out positives and bits their peers need to work on. It does work in general, but very few teachers actually know how to peer assess properly, probably me included.

What purpose does homework perform? The traditionalist will say that it gives the students to practise what they have learnt in class without access to the teacher, forcing them to totally understand what’s going on. I would buy this argument if the students in general actually did this. What tends to be the case now is one of the following things:

·         A note at the bottom of the homework sheet saying “Sir, I didn’t get it”, “No idea” or something along those lines.

·         Just a load of answers with no working out, clearly copied off a classmate.

·         A note from a parent or carer saying something like: “Please excuse Johnny for not doing his homework, but he was unable to log onto the computer, and his gerbil was feeling off-colour, and we were in Basingstoke this weekend, and Johnny needs some downtime at the weekends to stop him from being so stressed etc”. Computer?! It was a sheet! What’s his gerbil got to do with it? I set the homework a week ago, the fact that he left it until the last minute is his problem, so being away at the weekend is irrelevant. Stressed – do me a favour!

I heard Irish TV presenter say something along the lines of this recently: “Homework – they should ban it. The kids don’t do it, it’s the parents who actually do the stuff whilst their children look on non-plused.” The fact that parents end up doing the homework isn’t a problem if the child is learning how to solve the problems at the same time. But how many parents just do it to keep the school off their backs? I don’t reckon that many, but I couldn’t give you any statistics on the matter.

In my view homework shouldn’t be compulsory. It should be set, but only done by those who want to do it. I think you’d be surprised as to how many actually completed it – about the same as do now. The reason for this is that the amount of time it would save chasing up and detaining those who simply refuse to do it would lead to far better teaching in the classroom as teachers won’t be stuck in a silent room with the non-doers. They could be producing resources that would make kids go deeper into the learning, consolidate their knowledge and hopefully make them enjoy their education a bit more.

I know what you’re thinking:

·         Lazy teacher can’t be bothered to mark books. Not true (although marking is really boring, it’s part of the job), the homework would still be planned and those who completed it would get it marked. Ask a student how useful they find their teacher’s marks – even if you put the most insightful comments down, a lot of the children totally ignore it.

·         How do you assess how they’re getting on? Nowadays you have to assess students all the time – we’ve got data coming out of our ears on all students, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

In fact, teachers could give far better feedback to the few that actually handed the homework in and those whop couldn’t be bothered haven’t wasted any time doing school work and get down the local park and hang around with their friends even quicker. It’s a win-win people!