In the previous two news posts, I’ve presented a summary of the end-of-year annual reports and your responses on the subject of behaviour and our ‘warnings’ system. Your views on homework were far more mixed…
The creative homework is good, rather than too much learning by rote.
We feel there’s too much creative homework and we would be in favour of more talk time and practice makes perfect.
On the whole my children enjoy homework (especially creative)…
I am happy with the practice and talk-time homework but feel the creative homework should be reduced.
As you can see from the quotes above, your views vary considerably, even about just one aspect of homework. Of those who put forward a particular opinion, around a quarter were completely positive; a third had mixed views, usually positive but with some suggestions for improvements; and just under a half wanted our homework policy to change in some way. You might think this presents a clear case for the need to revise the policy, but the problem is that the suggestions put forward differed quite a lot. Two broad areas of agreement are:
- many wanted to see the amount of homework increase in Year 5 and Year 6 – this is something we’ve already put in place
- quite a few of you wanted the homework to be more structured / less open-ended / more Practice Makes Perfect – this is something we will look into, perhaps through a subscription to software to enable more practice of skills at home
Only one parent / carer mentioned marking. Please be aware that a written comment in the books is not always as effective as verbal feedback, and teachers always ensure there is a homework review session in the week, which helps to engage children even more with the homework: rather than passively ‘receive’ a comment in their books, they actively discuss their homework, for example, by comparing their creative ideas with others (and whilst this happens, teachers circulate and give feedback).
The governors take an active interest in your views. We can’t always act on them – we can’t ‘suit all of the people, all of the time’ on a subject like homework – but your responses will help in the discussions we have around homework. I will be passing on all responses to the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum sub-committee.
Look out for two more news articles about your views…