Homework

Ask any parents or pupils about homework – or home learning as it might be more constructively labelled - and you're likely to receive a wide range of views and opinions – not all of them favourable.

Authoritative research published by the Education Endowment Fund (EEF) confirms the positive impact homework has on outcomes particularly for senior age children – on average five and potentially up to eight months’ additional progress. The evidence is a little less secure for primary-aged children. Nevertheless, one of the benefits of appropriate homework for younger children is the opportunity to develop positive learning approaches and habits from a young age – something we’re well placed to exploit in an age three to 18 year school.

Good quality homework promotes and supports classroom learning. In addition, it helps children to develop self-discipline, independence and planning skills as well as to take ownership of their learning. Balance is, however, an important consideration. Balance with the rest of children’s lives according to their age and balance with family life. Schools and teachers can waste an enormous amount of time and energy chasing and following-up missing or incomplete homework. One of the issues that homework can present, particularly for boys, is the incidental aggravation that arises sometimes even before the homework is started. Typical barriers can be uncertainty as to task requirements and lost or forgotten resources. Supportive parents can experience deep frustration fruitlessly rummaging in the bottom of sports bags followed by fraught, late evening pursuit on the unofficial portal of collective parental knowledge and wisdom: WhatsApp.

To counter this and with the aim of minimising or completely removing as many barriers as possible to our boys completing homework to a good standard, we have this term introduced a new online homework site called Show My Homework.

Early feedback and signs suggest that many of the frustrations of parents, teachers and boys have already disappeared. If there’s been any disenfranchisement, it’s from a small number of teenage Kevins and Perrys expressing it ‘so unfair’ that a previous homework loophole has now been closed and that their parents now know what homework they should be doing! Kevin and Perry have been outnumbered.

A lost or forgotten text book or worksheet or a lack of recall of what ‘do sheet’ recorded in a planner might actually mean, are things of the past. All of the correct information is now available to boys, parents and teachers at the touch of a button on a computer, tablet or phone.

The site also offers other functionality too; such as online submission, feedback and instant messaging – features that we will consider and explore in the coming months but, in the meantime, we’re celebrating the effective online sharing and accessibility of information to support the completion of learning tasks.

Energy can be diverted away from chasing and compliance to focus on the real business of learning and quality of work.