Will there ever be a time where children's school homework be abolished?

Andy From Sligo

With better use of time management could homework be abolished for schoolchildren do you reckon? Some children take to it fine but an awful lot struggle and its hard for a lot of parent to get their children to do their homework, plus when kids are at home they could be missing out on recreation, or quality time with the family, sure you could say that the parents could sit down with the children and get bonding time then but us it the same?

What about if all school learning was done in school hours? .. What if it meant longer school hours?

Should maybe homework start around the age of 12 onwards or maybe only start getting homework in secondary school?

Just been watching a piece on the news about the pressure homework can cause children and prompted mec to write this.

Winterlong

Are you tripping Andy?

Laois_Man

If it's hard for a lot of parents to get their children to do their homework, then the fact that they have homework isn't actually the big problem!

TallGlass

Doubt it, looking back on it now, homework wasn't such a bad idea. Just a pity I never done it. I can see the point of it now, I just think the amount handed out needs to be more manageable and not 5 days a week for all subjects.

Or just go the way of college, either do it or not, I don't care it's your choice.

PucaMama

Homework is not a bad thing op

Jack the Stripper

Laois_Man wrote: »

If it's hard for a lot of parents to get their children to do their homework, then the fact that they have homework isn't actually the big problem!

Drinking cans maybe?

What a load of old bollox.

Nothing wrong with homework.

5-10 hours a week for primary and 15-20 for secondary sounds about right to me.

Should be decent exercises too, not just work for the sake of it.

If you let the little bollixes off the hook early on, they'll be rightly fecked come 3rd level time.

GLaDOS

Teaching kids to work by themselves and manage time is hardly a bad thing.

Nothing wrong with homework.

Barry Badrinath

JayZeus wrote: »

What a load of old bollox.

Ah leave him alone.

Andy just wants to do his colouring in. He hasnt got time for homework.

pjohnson

Problem: Parent cant get Child to perform task.

Solution: Remove task

Don't: Attempt to raise own child.

wakka12

Why should it be abolished? Most irish children have such easy lives already if they get any easier were all just going to turn into vegetables

cbyrd

I don't mind the homework, it's more about routine and getting them used to it. I've always done the straight in the door, shoes and coats off and homework out. No hanging around.

My eldest is 18 now doing her leaving and study is not a problem, my 14 year old is doing after school study Monday to Thursday so has it done by 6 in the evening too. My two younger are junior and senior infants and don't mind homework at all takes about 15 minutes.

Holiday time trying to entertain them is a pain in the butt.

diomed

There are lots of reasons why children should have homework:
it refreshes what they learn at school
it teaches them to solve problems
they learn to time manage
their parents know what they are doing at school
they learn about standards and achieving them

King George VI

I read somewhere that a school abolished homework and the students got higher grades. Or they abolished homework with the stipulation that any work the students didn't finish in school they had to finish at home. Can't remember which one but it's an interesting idea.

_Brian

Some of the biggest problems with homework stems from the parents. They seem to think teachers have full responsibility to raise their children and many would rather browse Facebook or be engrossed in soaps to bother engaging with their child and supporting homework.

It takes an effort to raise a child and that includes being involved in their education and supporting the homework. If nothing else it helps a parent understand their child's actual ability.

The_Valeyard

Homework on Easter Holidays?????????????

Jurgen Klopp

Whatever about reducing homework I'd much rather see a move to projects in secondary schools rather rewriting the same essays and answers over and over again to reproduce in the exam which may as well be labeled the memory test

retro:electro

TBH I think I learned more from doing homework than I did learning at school. My mam used to sit with me and help me and we'd make up stories and try innovative ways to learn things. I still remember how to spell certain words and certain x tables because she helped me. My teacher had no patience for helping me spell as I found it quite tricky.
I get that a lot of kids don't have that, but from experience the ones who refuse to do homework are the ones who need to do it the most.

Dirty Dingus McGee

King George VI wrote: »

I read somewhere that a school abolished homework and the students got higher grades. Or they abolished homework with the stipulation that any work the students didn't finish in school they had to finish at home. Can't remember which one but it's an interesting idea.

That was very informative.

freshpopcorn

_Brian wrote: »

If nothing else it helps a parent understand their child's actual ability.

That's a complaint I've often heard from teachers. Certain parents think their child is a genius.

josip

My problem with homework is that they don't get any over the weekend.
Gearing them up for a 4 day working week later in life

cml387

King George VI wrote: »

I read somewhere that a school abolished homework and the students got higher grades. Or they abolished homework with the stipulation that any work the students didn't finish in school they had to finish at home. Can't remember which one but it's an interesting idea.

Typical response of someone who hasn't properly done their homework. 3/10

freshpopcorn

josip wrote: »

My problem with homework is that they don't get any over the weekend.
Gearing them up for a 4 day working week later in life

They do in secondary school!

_Kaiser_

josip wrote: »

My problem with homework is that they don't get any over the weekend.
Gearing them up for a 4 day working week later in life

Well with advances in technology and automation and more jobs being outsourced to far away places a 4-day week (or less) may be more common than not at some point soon.

But yes, there's no harm in homework at all. As already said it reinforces the topics of the class, teaches kids to learn and study on their own initiative, and it keeps the parents informed of what's going on in school.

But as also mentioned above, a BIG problem is the notion in some parents that their children should be educated and raised by the teachers and the TV rather than they themselves taking an active role and RESPONSIBILITY (not something many people like these days I know!) in the upbringing of their offspring.

We've a generation who've been told that they can achieve anything, are special, and who will fall back on excuses when things go wrong for them that are unprepared for the reality and occasional harshness of life. Now we should "dumb things down" further by removing a valuable part of early education?

I for one (as the parent of a young child about to enter the school system properly) am seriously worried about some of the nonsensical proposals I've heard in relation to the "reform" of the syllabus - and from supposedly mature educated people!

WTF is going on in our society? Real Life is not bloody Facebook, Twitter, instant results and happy consensus. What's worse is that those countries that "we" smugly consider less advanced than ourselves will be the ones to reap the rewards of our "outdated" models, leaving our own kids further and further behind.

blueser

About 45 years too late!

the_pen_turner

I think the volume is the problem.
When we were in secondary school some of the teachers would give you so much homework that you could spend 6 hours doing it. A few of had to go to the principle about it. . We did evening study. By the time you got home and got dinner it was 7. 3hours of work and you would have 5 hours and you would still have to decide which teacher you could get away with ignoring

Badly Drunk Boy

josip wrote: »

My problem with homework is that they don't get any over the weekend.
Gearing them up for a 4 day working week later in life

I was just about to ask if there was a modern equivalent of the Sunday Night/Glenroe/Homework Syndrome. Obviously not...

LirW

Didn't go to school in Ireland but in my last 5 years in school I had 42 hours school a week. Plus we had a couple of projects, short and longterm and were quite occupied with it.
To clarify: I went to a school on the mainland where you'd not only do your leaving cert but get a diploma in a field, in my case it was Multimedia design.
Since a lot of my classmates had to commute over 1.5 hours each way and would come home between 7 and 8 in the evening we simply couldn't manage with much homework. Gladly we didn't get very much, because most teachers knew our schedules.
Especially in the last two years the workload was so huge that a lot of us even struggled to keep up with social activities.
Average age of graduating was 19 due to the additional year we had in this school.

Don't get me wrong, I do think in the early years homework is very very important.
But I think at some point you reach an age depending on the workload that can really impact your social life because a lot of teachers think their subject is the center of the universe and you're just drowning in work. Also at some point you reach an age where your parents can't really help you due to the tasks being too "complex". I never had any support in Maths at home because my mom simply was bad at it. She was helpful in a lot of other subjects though.

Capt'n Midnight

"There is no royal road to geometry."
Euclid to King Ptolemy I , around 300BC


So no there's no shortcuts. The child has to do the work.

Spanish Eyes

Finland does not have any homework, and the kids turn out to be VERY successful.

I think parents have enough going on with working fulltime, getting home in the traffic, getting the dinner on and then having to sit down and do homework WTF? Not to mention the kids doing a near full time working day aswell with homework. Too much already.

Anyway...

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

Dirty Dingus McGee

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Finland does not have any homework, and the kids turn out to be VERY successful.

I think parents have enough going on with working fulltime, getting home in the traffic, getting the dinner on and then having to sit down and do homework WTF? Not to mention the kids doing a near full time working day aswell with homework. Too much already.

Anyway...

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005

Parents don't have to do homework.The children have to do it.