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Legal Homework Rights: What’s the Limit on Homework?

Hi, I just read your article Titled “Can You ‘Opt Out’ of Homework?” ( Click HERE  for the original article. ) I enjoyed the article but I guess I need a more concrete answer to the question of my legal homework rights: CAN I LEGALLY OPT OUT OF HOMEWORK FOR MY CHILD? – Dawn, SOAR ®  Parent

The answer is a resounding, Yes!

You have legal rights to put limits on your child’s homework time.

When homework begins to erode family relationships and/or increases the students anxiety, its time to make modifications. First, try communicating and working collaboratively with teachers and administrators.  If that doesn’t work, then you do have legal homework rights…

Legal Homework Rights

You absolutely do have legal rights to put reasonable limits on your child’s homework time. The legal tool you want to use is called a 504. For a link that provides a quick overview to the 504 law, click HERE .

504: The Legal Homework Rights Tool

Basically, the 504 law refers to legal homework rights (known as “accommodations”) that must be made for a child’s “impairment.”  As you’ll read, “impairments” are defined very loosely throughout the law, and this is done purposely to accommodate all students’ various needs. If your child has a diagnosis of ADHD, Dyslexia, etc. that will help, but it’s not necessary.

I have seen the 504 law used throughout my career as an educator for students and families exercising their legal homework rights.  I have also used it with my own children to get schools to accommodate what I felt was appropriate.

The 504 Process

The actual 504 process includes paperwork and a series of meetings. The meetings typically include a school counselor, a teacher, an administrator, and you and your child. In the meeting, all of your concerns will be documented and specific actions or remedies (like limiting homework) will be recorded. This document becomes a legally binding contract that your child’s teacher and administrator are required to uphold.

Legal Homework Rights: What’s a Reasonable Amount of Time for Homework?

So, what is a reasonable recommendation regarding time spent on homework?

We support the “10 Minute Rule.”   That’s a maximum of 10 minutes times the grade-level of the child. So, 10-minute max for 1 st grade, 20-minute max for 2 nd grade, up to 120-minute max for 12 th grade.

The “10-minute rule” is a great accommodation for a 504, because it is set to increase the limit on homework time as the child progresses through school. We’re not talking about eliminating homework just to create an easy path for our children.  Parents that have significant battles over homework, that can easily last an hour or more, understand that homework reaches a point where it is not productive.

Too much homework is destructive t o motivation, self-esteem, and to family relationships.  So, don’t be afraid to exercise your legal rights. This is the point where we want to pursue our legal homework rights.

In addition to pursuing 504 accommodations, you may want to give your students better skills to handle the demands of school.  To learn more about the SOAR ®  Parent Products, click HERE .

Brian Winter, M.Ed.

Co-Author, SOAR Social-Emotional Learning Skills

Six Steps to Conquer the Chaos

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Homework: A New User's Guide

Cory Turner

If you made it past the headline, you're likely a student, concerned parent, teacher or, like me, a nerd nostalgist who enjoys basking in the distant glow of Homework Triumphs Past (second-grade report on Custer's Last Stand, nailed it!).

Whoever you are, you're surely hoping for some clarity in the loud, perennial debate over whether U.S. students are justifiably exhausted and nervous from too much homework — even though some international comparisons suggest they're sitting comfortably at the average.

Well, here goes. I've mapped out six, research-based polestars that should help guide you to some reasonable conclusions about homework.

How much homework do U.S. students get?

The best answer comes from something called the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP . In 2012, students in three different age groups — 9, 13 and 17 — were asked, "How much time did you spend on homework yesterday?" The vast majority of 9-year-olds (79 percent) and 13-year-olds (65 percent) and still a majority of 17-year-olds (53 percent) all reported doing an hour or less of homework the day before.

Another study from the National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students who reported doing homework outside of school did, on average, about seven hours a week.

If you're hungry for more data on this — and some perspective — check out this exhaustive report put together last year by researcher Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution.

An hour or less a day? But we hear so many horror stories! Why?

The fact is, some students do have a ton of homework. In high school we see a kind of student divergence — between those who choose or find themselves tracked into less-rigorous coursework and those who enroll in honors classes or multiple Advanced Placement courses. And the latter students are getting a lot of homework. In that 2012 NAEP survey, 13 percent of 17-year-olds reported doing more than two hours of homework the previous night. That's not a lot of students, but they're clearly doing a lot of work.

Source: Met Life Survey of the American Teacher, The Homework Experience, 2007. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

That also tracks with a famous survey from 2007 — from MetLife — that asked parents what they think of their kids' homework load. Sixty percent said it was just right. Twenty-five percent said their kids are getting too little. Just 15 percent of parents said their kids have too much homework.

Research also suggests that the students doing the most work have something else in common: income. "I think that the debate over homework in some ways is a social class issue," says Janine Bempechat, professor of human development at Wheelock College. "There's no question that in affluent communities, children are really over-taxed, over-burdened with homework."

But the vast majority of students do not seem to have inordinate workloads. And the ones who do are generally volunteering for the tough stuff. That doesn't make it easier, but it does make it a choice.

Do we know how much homework students in other countries are doing?

Sort of. Caveats abound here. Education systems and perceptions of what is and isn't homework can vary remarkably overseas. So any comparison is, to a degree, apples-to-oranges (or, at least, apples-to-pears). A 2012 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development pegged the U.S. homework load for 15-year-olds at around six hours per week. That's just above the study's average. It found that students in Hong Kong are also doing about six hours a week. Much of Europe checks in between four and five hours a week. In Japan, it's four hours. And Korea's near the bottom, at three hours.

Source: OECD, PISA 2012 Database, Table IV.3.48. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

How much homework is too much?

Better yet, how much is just right? Harris Cooper at Duke University has done some of the best work on homework. He and his team reviewed dozens of studies, from 1987 to 2003, looking for consensus on what works and what doesn't. A common rule of thumb, he says, is what's called the 10-minute rule. Take the child's grade and multiply by 10. So first-graders should have roughly 10 minutes of homework a night, 40 minutes for fourth-graders, on up to two hours for seniors in high school. A lot of of schools use this. Even the National PTA officially endorses it.

Homework clearly improves student performance, right?

Not necessarily. It depends on the age of the child. Looking over the research, there's little to no evidence that homework improves student achievement in elementary school. Then again, the many experts I spoke with all said the same thing: The point of homework in those primary grades isn't entirely academic. It's about teaching things like time-management and self-direction.

But, by high school the evidence shifts. Harris Cooper's massive review found, in middle and high school, a positive correlation between homework and student achievement on unit tests. It seems to help. But more is not always better. Cooper points out that, depending on the subject and the age of the student, there is a law of diminishing returns. Again, he recommends the 10-minute rule.

What kinds of homework seem to be most effective?

This is where things get really interesting. Because homework should be about learning, right? To understand what kinds of homework best help kids learn, we really need to talk about memory and the brain.

Let's start with something called the spacing effect . Say a child has to do a vocabulary worksheet. The next week, it's a new worksheet with different words and so on. Well, research shows that the brain is better at remembering when we repeat with consistency, not when we study in long, isolated chunks of time. Do a little bit of vocabulary each night, repeating the same words night after night.

Similarly, a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, Henry "Roddy" Roediger III , recommends that teachers give students plenty of little quizzes, which he says strengthen the brain's ability to remember. Don't fret. They can be low-stakes or no-stakes, says Roediger: It's the steady recall and repetition that matter. He also recommends, as homework, that students try testing themselves instead of simply re-reading the text or class notes.

There's also something known as interleaving . This is big in the debate over math homework. Many of us — myself included — learned math by focusing on one concept at a time, doing a worksheet to practice that concept, then moving on.

Well, there's evidence that students learn more when homework requires them to choose among multiple strategies — new and old — when solving problems. In other words, kids learn when they have to draw not just from what they learned in class that day but that week, that month, that year.

One last note: Experts agree that homework should generally be about reinforcing what students learned in class (this is especially true in math). Sometimes it can — and should — be used to introduce new material, but here's where so many horror stories begin.

Tom Loveless, a former teacher, offers this advice: "I don't think teachers should ever send brand-new material that puts the parent in the position of a teacher. That's a disaster. My own personal philosophy was: Homework is best if it's material that requires more practice but they've already received initial instruction."

Or, in the words of the National PTA: "Homework that cannot be done without help is not good homework."

• The Journal
• Vol. 19, No. 1

The Case for (Quality) Homework

Janine Bempechat

Any parent who has battled with a child over homework night after night has to wonder: Do those math worksheets and book reports really make a difference to a student’s long-term success? Or is homework just a headache—another distraction from family time and downtime, already diminished by the likes of music and dance lessons, sports practices, and part-time jobs?

Allison, a mother of two middle-school girls from an affluent Boston suburb, describes a frenetic afterschool scenario: “My girls do gymnastics a few days a week, so homework happens for my 6th grader after gymnastics, at 6:30 p.m. She doesn’t get to bed until 9. My 8th grader does her homework immediately after school, up until gymnastics. She eats dinner at 9:15 and then goes to bed, unless there is more homework to do, in which case she’ll get to bed around 10.” The girls miss out on sleep, and weeknight family dinners are tough to swing.

Parental concerns about their children’s homework loads are nothing new. Debates over the merits of homework—tasks that teachers ask students to complete during non-instructional time—have ebbed and flowed since the late 19th century, and today its value is again being scrutinized and weighed against possible negative impacts on family life and children’s well-being.

Are American students overburdened with homework? In some middle-class and affluent communities, where pressure on students to achieve can be fierce, yes. But in families of limited means, it’s often another story. Many low-income parents value homework as an important connection to the school and the curriculum—even as their children report receiving little homework. Overall, high-school students relate that they spend less than one hour per day on homework, on average, and only 42 percent say they do it five days per week. In one recent survey by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a minimal 13 percent of 17-year-olds said they had devoted more than two hours to homework the previous evening (see Figure 1).

Recent years have seen an increase in the amount of homework assigned to students in grades K–2, and critics point to research findings that, at the elementary-school level, homework does not appear to enhance children’s learning. Why, then, should we burden young children and their families with homework if there is no academic benefit to doing it? Indeed, perhaps it would be best, as some propose, to eliminate homework altogether, particularly in these early grades.

On the contrary, developmentally appropriate homework plays a critical role in the formation of positive learning beliefs and behaviors, including a belief in one’s academic ability, a deliberative and effortful approach to mastery, and higher expectations and aspirations for one’s future. It can prepare children to confront ever-more-complex tasks, develop resilience in the face of difficulty, and learn to embrace rather than shy away from challenge. In short, homework is a key vehicle through which we can help shape children into mature learners.

The Homework-Achievement Connection

A narrow focus on whether or not homework boosts grades and test scores in the short run thus ignores a broader purpose in education, the development of lifelong, confident learners. Still, the question looms: does homework enhance academic success? As the educational psychologist Lyn Corno wrote more than two decades ago, “homework is a complicated thing.” Most research on the homework-achievement connection is correlational, which precludes a definitive judgment on its academic benefits. Researchers rely on correlational research in this area of study given the difficulties of randomly assigning students to homework/no-homework conditions. While correlation does not imply causality, extensive research has established that at the middle- and high-school levels, homework completion is strongly and positively associated with high achievement. Very few studies have reported a negative correlation.

As noted above, findings on the homework-achievement connection at the elementary level are mixed. A small number of experimental studies have demonstrated that elementary-school students who receive homework achieve at higher levels than those who do not. These findings suggest a causal relationship, but they are limited in scope. Within the body of correlational research, some studies report a positive homework-achievement connection, some a negative relationship, and yet others show no relationship at all. Why the mixed findings? Researchers point to a number of possible factors, such as developmental issues related to how young children learn, different goals that teachers have for younger as compared to older students, and how researchers define homework.

Certainly, young children are still developing skills that enable them to focus on the material at hand and study efficiently. Teachers’ goals for their students are also quite different in elementary school as compared to secondary school. While teachers at both levels note the value of homework for reinforcing classroom content, those in the earlier grades are more likely to assign homework mainly to foster skills such as responsibility, perseverance, and the ability to manage distractions.

Most research examines homework generally. Might a focus on homework in a specific subject shed more light on the homework-achievement connection? A recent meta-analysis did just this by examining the relationship between math/science homework and achievement. Contrary to previous findings, researchers reported a stronger relationship between homework and achievement in the elementary grades than in middle school. As the study authors note, one explanation for this finding could be that in elementary school, teachers tend to assign more homework in math than in other subjects, while at the same time assigning shorter math tasks more frequently. In addition, the authors point out that parents tend to be more involved in younger children’s math homework and more skilled in elementary-level than middle-school math.

In sum, the relationship between homework and academic achievement in the elementary-school years is not yet established, but eliminating homework at this level would do children and their families a huge disservice: we know that children’s learning beliefs have a powerful impact on their academic outcomes, and that through homework, parents and teachers can have a profound influence on the development of positive beliefs.

How Much Is Appropriate?

Harris M. Cooper of Duke University, the leading researcher on homework, has examined decades of study on what we know about the relationship between homework and scholastic achievement. He has proposed the “10-minute rule,” suggesting that daily homework be limited to 10 minutes per grade level. Thus, a 1st grader would do 10 minutes each day and a 4th grader, 40 minutes. The National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association both endorse this guideline, but it is not clear whether the recommended allotments include time for reading, which most teachers want children to do daily.

For middle-school students, Cooper and colleagues report that 90 minutes per day of homework is optimal for enhancing academic achievement, and for high schoolers, the ideal range is 90 minutes to two and a half hours per day. Beyond this threshold, more homework does not contribute to learning. For students enrolled in demanding Advanced Placement or honors courses, however, homework is likely to require significantly more time, leading to concerns over students’ health and well-being.

Notwithstanding media reports of parents revolting against the practice of homework, the vast majority of parents say they are highly satisfied with their children’s homework loads. The National Household Education Surveys Program recently found that between 70 and 83 percent of parents believed that the amount of homework their children had was “about right,” a result that held true regardless of social class, race/ethnicity, community size, level of education, and whether English was spoken at home.

Learning Beliefs Are Consequential

As noted above, developmentally appropriate homework can help children cultivate positive beliefs about learning. Decades of research have established that these beliefs predict the types of tasks students choose to pursue, their persistence in the face of challenge, and their academic achievement. Broadly, learning beliefs fall under the banner of achievement motivation, which is a constellation of cognitive, behavioral, and affective factors, including: the way a person perceives his or her abilities, goal-setting skills, expectation of success, the value the individual places on learning, and self-regulating behavior such as time-management skills. Positive or adaptive beliefs about learning serve as emotional and psychological protective factors for children, especially when they encounter difficulties or failure.

Motivation researcher Carol Dweck of Stanford University posits that children with a “growth mindset”—those who believe that ability is malleable—approach learning very differently than those with a “fixed mindset”—kids who believe ability cannot change. Those with a growth mindset view effort as the key to mastery. They see mistakes as helpful, persist even in the face of failure, prefer challenging over easy tasks, and do better in school than their peers who have a fixed mindset. In contrast, children with a fixed mindset view effort and mistakes as implicit condemnations of their abilities. Such children succumb easily to learned helplessness in the face of difficulty, and they gravitate toward tasks they know they can handle rather than more challenging ones.

Of course, learning beliefs do not develop in a vacuum. Studies have demonstrated that parents and teachers play a significant role in the development of positive beliefs and behaviors, and that homework is a key tool they can use to foster motivation and academic achievement.

Parents’ Beliefs and Actions Matter

It is well established that parental involvement in their children’s education promotes achievement motivation and success in school. Parents are their children’s first teachers, and their achievement-related beliefs have a profound influence on children’s developing perceptions of their own abilities, as well as their views on the value of learning and education.

Parents affect their children’s learning through the messages they send about education, whether by expressing interest in school activities and experiences, attending school events, helping with homework when they can, or exposing children to intellectually enriching experiences. Most parents view such engagement as part and parcel of their role. They also believe that doing homework fosters responsibility and organizational skills, and that doing well on homework tasks contributes to learning, even if children experience frustration from time to time.

Many parents provide support by establishing homework routines, eliminating distractions, communicating expectations, helping children manage their time, providing reassuring messages, and encouraging kids to be aware of the conditions under which they do their best work. These supports help foster the development of self-regulation, which is critical to school success.

Self-regulation involves a number of skills, such as the ability to monitor one’s performance and adjust strategies as a result of feedback; to evaluate one’s interests and realistically perceive one’s aptitude; and to work on a task autonomously. It also means learning how to structure one’s environment so that it’s conducive to learning, by, for example, minimizing distractions. As children move into higher grades, these skills and strategies help them organize, plan, and learn independently. This is precisely where parents make a demonstrable difference in students’ attitudes and approaches to homework.

Especially in the early grades, homework gives parents the opportunity to cultivate beliefs and behaviors that foster efficient study skills and academic resilience. Indeed, across age groups, there is a strong and positive relationship between homework completion and a variety of self-regulatory processes. However, the quality of parental help matters. Sometimes, well-intentioned parents can unwittingly undermine the development of children’s positive learning beliefs and their achievement. Parents who maintain a positive outlook on homework and allow their children room to learn and struggle on their own, stepping in judiciously with informational feedback and hints, do their children a much better service than those who seek to control the learning process.

A recent study of 5th and 6th graders’ perceptions of their parents’ involvement with homework distinguished between supportive and intrusive help. The former included the belief that parents encouraged the children to try to find the right answer on their own before providing them with assistance, and when the child struggled, attempted to understand the source of the confusion. In contrast, the latter included the perception that parents provided unsolicited help, interfered when the children did their homework, and told them how to complete their assignments. Supportive help predicted higher achievement, while intrusive help was associated with lower achievement.

Parents’ attitudes and emotions during homework time can support the development of positive attitudes and approaches in their children, which in turn are predictive of higher achievement. Children are more likely to focus on self-improvement during homework time and do better in school when their parents are oriented toward mastery. In contrast, if parents focus on how well children are doing relative to peers, kids tend to adopt learning goals that allow them to avoid challenge.

Homework and Social Class

Social class is another important element in the homework dynamic. What is the homework experience like for families with limited time and resources? And what of affluent families, where resources are plenty but the pressures to succeed are great?

Etta Kralovec and John Buell, authors of The End of Homework, maintain that homework “punishes the poor,” because lower-income parents may not be as well educated as their affluent counterparts and thus not as well equipped to help with homework. Poorer families also have fewer financial resources to devote to home computers, tutoring, and academic enrichment. The stresses of poverty—and work schedules—may impinge, and immigrant parents may face language barriers and an unfamiliarity with the school system and teachers’ expectations.

Yet research shows that low-income parents who are unable to assist with homework are far from passive in their children’s learning, and they do help foster scholastic performance. In fact, parental help with homework is not a necessary component for school success.

Brown University’s Jin Li queried low-income Chinese American 9th graders’ perceptions of their parents’ engagement with their education. Students said their immigrant parents rarely engaged in activities that are known to foster academic achievement, such as monitoring homework, checking it for accuracy, or attending school meetings or events. Instead, parents of higher achievers built three social networks to support their children’s learning. They designated “anchor” helpers both inside and outside the family who provided assistance; identified peer models for their children to emulate; and enlisted the assistance of extended kin to guide their children’s educational socialization. In a related vein, a recent analysis of survey data showed that Asian and Latino 5th graders, relative to native-born peers, were more likely to turn to siblings than parents for homework help.

Further, research demonstrates that low-income parents, recognizing that they lack the time to be in the classroom or participate in school governance, view homework as a critical connection to their children’s experiences in school. One study found that mothers enjoyed the routine and predictability of homework and used it as a way to demonstrate to children how to plan their time. Mothers organized homework as a family activity, with siblings doing homework together and older children reading to younger ones. In this way, homework was perceived as a collective practice wherein siblings could model effective habits and learn from one another.

In another recent study, researchers examined mathematics achievement in low-income 8th-grade Asian and Latino students. Help with homework was an advantage their mothers could not provide. They could, however, furnish structure (for example, by setting aside quiet time for homework completion), and it was this structure that most predicted high achievement. As the authors note, “It is . . . important to help [low-income] parents realize that they can still help their children get good grades in mathematics and succeed in school even if they do not know how to provide direct assistance with their child’s mathematics homework.”

The homework narrative at the other end of the socioeconomic continuum is altogether different. Media reports abound with examples of students, mostly in high school, carrying three or more hours of homework per night, a burden that can impair learning, motivation, and well-being. In affluent communities, students often experience intense pressure to cultivate a high-achieving profile that will be attractive to elite colleges. Heavy homework loads have been linked to unhealthy symptoms such as heightened stress, anxiety, physical complaints, and sleep disturbances. Like Allison’s 6th grader mentioned earlier, many students can only tackle their homework after they do extracurricular activities, which are also seen as essential for the college résumé. Not surprisingly, many students in these communities are not deeply engaged in learning; rather, they speak of “doing school,” as Stanford researcher Denise Pope has described, going through the motions necessary to excel, and undermining their physical and mental health in the process.

Fortunately, some national intervention initiatives, such as Challenge Success (co-founded by Pope), are heightening awareness of these problems. Interventions aimed at restoring balance in students’ lives (in part, by reducing homework demands) have resulted in students reporting an increased sense of well-being, decreased stress and anxiety, and perceptions of greater support from teachers, with no decrease in achievement outcomes.

What is good for this small segment of students, however, is not necessarily good for the majority. As Jessica Lahey wrote in Motherlode, a New York Times parenting blog, “homework is a red herring” in the national conversation on education. “Some otherwise privileged children may have too much, but the real issue lies in places where there is too little. . . . We shouldn’t forget that.”

My colleagues and I analyzed interviews conducted with lower-income 9th graders (African American, Mexican American, and European American) from two Northern California high schools that at the time were among the lowest-achieving schools in the state. We found that these students consistently described receiving minimal homework—perhaps one or two worksheets or textbook pages, the occasional project, and 30 minutes of reading per night. Math was the only class in which they reported having homework each night. These students noted few consequences for not completing their homework.

Indeed, greatly reducing or eliminating homework would likely increase, not diminish, the achievement gap. As Harris M. Cooper has commented, those choosing to opt their children out of homework are operating from a place of advantage. Children in higher-income families benefit from many privileges, including exposure to a larger range of language at home that may align with the language of school, access to learning and cultural experiences, and many other forms of enrichment, such as tutoring and academic summer camps, all of which may be cost-prohibitive for lower-income families. But for the 21 percent of the school-age population who live in poverty—nearly 11 million students ages 5–17—homework is one tool that can help narrow the achievement gap.

Community and School Support

Often, community organizations and afterschool programs can step up to provide structure and services that students’ need to succeed at homework. For example, Boys and Girls and 4-H clubs offer volunteer tutors as well as access to computer technology that students may not have at home. Many schools provide homework clubs or integrate homework into the afterschool program.

Home-school partnerships have succeeded in engaging parents with homework and significantly improving their children’s academic achievement. For example, Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins University has developed the TIPS model (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork), which embraces homework as an integral part of family time. TIPS is a teacher-designed interactive program in which children and a parent or family member each have a specific role in the homework scenario. For example, children might show the parent how to do a mathematics task on fractions, explaining their reasoning along the way and reviewing their thinking aloud if they are unsure.

Evaluations show that elementary and middle-school students in classrooms that have adopted TIPS complete more of their homework than do students in other classrooms. Both students and parent participants show more positive beliefs about learning mathematics, and TIPS students show significant gains in writing skills and report-card science grades, as well as higher mathematics scores on standardized tests.

Another study found that asking teachers to send text messages to parents about their children’s missing homework resulted in increased parental monitoring of homework, consequences for missed assignments, and greater participation in parent-child conferences. Teachers reported fewer missed assignments and greater student effort in coursework, and math grades and GPA significantly improved.

Homework Quality Matters

Teachers favor homework for a number of reasons. They believe it fosters a sense of responsibility and promotes academic achievement. They note that homework provides valuable review and practice for students while giving teachers feedback on areas where students may need more support. Finally, teachers value homework as a way to keep parents connected to the school and their children’s educational experiences.

While students, to say the least, may not always relish the idea of doing homework, by high school most come to believe there is a positive relationship between doing homework and doing well in school. Both higher and lower achievers lament “busywork” that doesn’t promote learning. They crave high-quality, challenging assignments—and it is this kind of homework that has been associated with higher achievement.

What constitutes high-quality homework? Assignments that are developmentally appropriate and meaningful and that promote self-efficacy and self-regulation. Meaningful homework is authentic, allowing students to engage in solving problems with real-world relevance. More specifically, homework tasks should make efficient use of student time and have a clear purpose connected to what they are learning. An artistic rendition of a period in history that would take hours to complete can become instead a diary entry in the voice of an individual from that era. By allowing a measure of choice and autonomy in homework, teachers foster in their students a sense of ownership, which bolsters their investment in the work.

High-quality homework also fosters students’ perceptions of their own competence by 1) focusing them on tasks they can accomplish without help; 2) differentiating tasks so as to allow struggling students to experience success; 3) providing suggested time frames rather than a fixed period of time in which a task should be completed; 4) delivering clearly and carefully explained directions; and 5) carefully modeling methods for attacking lengthy or complex tasks. Students whose teachers have trained them to adopt strategies such as goal setting, self-monitoring, and planning develop a number of personal assets—improved time management, increased self-efficacy, greater effort and interest, a desire for mastery, and a decrease in helplessness.

Excellence with Equity

Currently, the United States has the second-highest disparity between time spent on homework by students of low socioeconomic status and time spent by their more-affluent peers out of the 34 OECD-member nations participating in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (see Figure 2). Noting that PISA studies have consistently found that spending more time on math homework strongly correlates with higher academic achievement, the report’s authors suggest that the homework disparity may reflect lower teacher expectations for low-income students. If so, this is truly unfortunate. In and of itself, low socioeconomic status is not an impediment to academic achievement when appropriate parental, school, and community supports are deployed. As research makes clear, low-income parents support their children’s learning in varied ways, not all of which involve direct assistance with schoolwork. Teachers can orient students and parents toward beliefs that foster positive attitudes toward learning. Indeed, where homework is concerned, a commitment to excellence with equity is both worthwhile and attainable.

In affluent communities, parents, teachers, and school districts might consider reexamining the meaning of academic excellence and placing more emphasis on leading a balanced and well-rounded life. The homework debate in the United States has been dominated by concerns over the health and well-being of such advantaged students. As legitimate as these worries are, it’s important to avoid generalizing these children’s experiences to those with fewer family resources. Reducing or eliminating homework, though it may be desirable in some advantaged communities, would deprive poorer children of a crucial and empowering learning experience. It would also eradicate a fertile opportunity to help close the achievement gap.

Janine Bempechat is clinical professor of human development at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.

An unabridged version of this article is available here .

For more, please see “ The Top 20 Education Next Articles of 2023 .”

This article appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Education Next . Suggested citation format:

Bempechat, J. (2019). The Case for (Quality) Homework: Why it improves learning, and how parents can help . Education Next, 19 (1), 36-43.

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The power of a good homework policy

Published 18th March 2019 by Frog Education

With the homework debate continuing to rage and be fuelled by all parties involved, could publishing a robust homework policy help take some of the headache out of home learning?

What is a homework policy.

The idea of a homework policy is for the school to officially document and communicate their process for homework. The policy should outline what is expected of teachers when setting homework and from students in completing home learning tasks. It is a constructive document through which the school can communicate to parents, teachers, governors and students the learning objectives for homework.

Do schools have to have a homework policy?

It is a common misconception that schools are required by the government to set homework. Historically the government provided guidelines on the amount of time students should spend on home learning. This was withdrawn in 2012 and autonomy was handed to headteachers and school leaders to determine what and how much homework is set. Therefore, schools are not required by Ofsted or the DfE to have a homework policy in place.

The removal of official guidelines, however, does not give pupils the freedom to decide if they complete homework or not. Damian Hinds , Education Secretary, clarified that although schools are not obliged to set homework, when they do, children need to complete it in line with their school’s homework policy; “we trust individual school head teachers to decide what their policy on homework will be, and what happens if pupils don’t do what’s set.”

The majority of primary and secondary schools do set homework. Regardless of the different views on the topic, the schools that do incorporate homework into their learning processes, must see value in it.

Clearly communicating that value will demonstrate clarity and create alliance for everyone involved – both in and outside of school. This is where the publication of a good homework policy can help. 5 Benefits of publishing a good homework policy

#1 Manages students' workload

Studies have shown a correlation between student anxiety and demanding amounts of homework. One study found that in more affluent areas, school children are spending three hours per evening on homework. This is excessive. Secondary school students’ study between eight and ten subjects, which means they will have day-to-day contact with a number of teachers. If there is no clear homework policy to provide a guide, it would be feasible for an excessive amount of homework to be set.

A homework policy that sets out the expected amount of time students should spend on homework will help prevent an overload. This makes it more realistic for children to complete homework tasks and minimise the detrimental effect it could have on family time, out-of-school activities or students’ overall health and well-being.

#2 Creates opportunity for feedback and review

The simple act of having an official document in place will instigate opportunities for regular reviews. We often consider the impact of homework on students but teachers are also working out-of-hours and often work overtime . One reason is the need to set quality homework tasks, mark them and provide valuable feedback. No-one, therefore, wants home learning to become about setting homework for homework’s sake.

A regular review of the policy will invite feedback which the school can use to make appropriate changes and ensure the policy is working for both teachers and students, and serves the school’s homework learning objectives.

#3 Connects parents with education

Parents’ engagement in children’s education has a beneficial impact on a child’s success in school. Homework provides a great way for parents to become involved and have visibility of learning topics, offer support where needed and understand their child’s progress.

A good homework policy creates transparency for parents. It helps them to understand the value the school places on homework and what the learning objectives are. If parents understand this, it will help set a foundation for them to be engaged in their child’s education.

#4 Gives students a routine and creates good habits

Whether children are going into the workplace or furthering their education at university, many aspects of a student’s future life will require, at times, work to be completed outside of traditional 9-5 hours as well as independently. This is expected at university (students do not research and write essays in the lecture theatre or their seminars) and will perhaps become more important in the future workplace with the growth of the gig economy (freelancing) and the rise of remote working .

A homework policy encourages a consistency for out-of-school learning and helps students develop productive working practices and habits for continued learning and independent working.

#5 Helps students retain information they have learned

A carefully considered and well-constructed home learning policy will help teachers set homework that is most effective for reinforcing what has been taught.

A good homework policy will indicate how to set productive homework tasks and should limit the risk of less effective homework being set, such as just finishing-off work from a lesson and repetition or memorisation tasks. What makes a good homework policy?

A good homework policy will determine how much homework is appropriate and what type is most effective for achieving a school’s learning objectives. Publishing the homework policy – although it might not unify everyone’s views on the matter – fosters good communication across the school, sets out expectations for teachers and pupils, and makes that significant connection between parents and their children’s education. But most importantly, if the policy is regularly reviewed and evaluated, it can ensure home learning remains beneficial to pupils’ progress, is of value to teachers and, ultimately, is worth the time and effort that everyone puts into it.

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5 Keys to Successful Homework Assignments During Remote Learning

While students and their families are coping with so much, teachers should be mindful to assign only homework that’s truly meaningful. 

How can homework be reimagined during remote or hybrid learning? Are students already spending too much time on their screen—why assign more screen time? What is the purpose of the assignment?

As a middle school instructional coach, I often work with teachers who are unsure of how much to give and what to give. They’re also inevitably worried about finding the time to grade it. As a parent, I know how stressful it can be to balance your own work while also helping your own children with homework.

Since remote learning began in March, some schools have banned homework or modified homework policies, but if you’re a teacher who’s allowed to assign homework or an administrator who sets homework policy, the following suggestions may help.

5 Keys to Making Homework More Meaningful

1. Off-screen reading:  Books, books, books. Whether your students are reading books they chose or assigned novels, quiet reading time (or time listening to audiobooks) is a welcome assignment in most homes—I say this as a mom myself. Students can be held accountable for their reading through Harkness discussions in class or on Zoom, journal entries (written or in Flipgrid-style video), or old-fashioned sticky-note annotations in the book itself.

2. Less is more: Unfortunately, math teachers have the reputation of assigning something like “problems 1 through 45” (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating). Do students need to repeat the same skill over and over? Consider how much time you have in class the next day to actually review several problems. Instead, can you choose four or five rich multistep problems that provide practice and application of the skills? Or, alternatively, offer student choice: “Choose five out of these 10 problems.”

In a humanities or science class, can students answer one extended compare-and-contrast question rather than the chapter review in the textbook?

3. Personalized homework: Many students (and adults alike) love to talk about themselves. If students can make the assignment personal to them, they might feel more motivated to complete it. An example might be to compare the protagonist of the assigned reading with themselves in a Venn diagram. In a language class, they can describe a fictitious superhero using descriptive vocabulary in the language they’re studying. Or assign students to make a Flipgrid-style dance or song describing the scientific method (this example was inspired by TikTok).

4. Family involvement: Use this option carefully, especially now when many parents and guardians are stretched thin. Before making family assignments, be sure to get a feel for your students’ family situations to avoid putting anyone at a disadvantage. Give families a heads-up and plenty of time for such assignments.

If you feel it’s appropriate to proceed, ask students to take a video of themselves teaching a new concept to a family member. To practice operations with fractions, students can bring in a favorite family recipe with the measurements adjusted for fewer servings or multiple servings. Assign a riddle or math puzzle for students to discuss with the family, and ask them to write down the various answers they hear.

Whatever you assign, keep it light, low-stakes, and infrequent.

5. Flipped homework: In my experience, students get tired of watching instructional videos, but a few short, well-planned videos can be useful to assign the night before to spark discussion the next day in class. Follow the video with a short Google Form to ask the student to reflect and/or ask initial questions about what they watched. Use flipped learning sparingly to keep it novel and unique.

What about the grading? With shared docs, older students can easily share their work with their peers for review. Take some time to educate students on how to constructively comment on each other’s work. If a student’s assignment is missing, their partner will let them know, which takes some of the burden off of the teacher. This method should not be used for graded summative assessments and should be monitored by the teacher. Peer review can also serve as a differentiation strategy by grouping students by readiness and ability when applicable.

If your school’s homework policies allow, be creative with your assignments. As you create your assignments, consider the following:

• What will a student learn or gain from this work?
• Is it worth their time?
• Is it creating more home stress?

If we reimagine homework, students might actually cheer instead of groan when it’s assigned. OK, that’s wishful thinking, but they should definitely get more out of their assignments. 

How a Teacher Can Improve Students’ Homework Performance

One of the great struggles of modern education is getting students to finish their homework. Even worse, when homework does get completed, students often lack the understanding of the subject matter to perform well. So, teachers have two issues to face when it comes to homework.

On the one hand, teachers do want their students to turn in their homework. However, they also don’t want to send homework home that students don’t know ho to complete. There’s no point in assigning homework that students don’t understand and just guess their way through.

So, what can teachers do to improve the situation? Each of these issues can be tackled by adopting different strategies.

Increasing Homework Completion

Getting students to finish their homework may be a bit easier than getting people to complete their homework well, so it makes a good first topic to tackle. Here are a few strategies that teachers can adopt to make sure students want to get their homework done.

Integrate Students’ Interests into Your Methods

The first and easiest approach to improving students’ desire to complete their homework is to integrate what they’re interested in to your approach. When students’ interests are part of the curriculum, they’re more likely to get it done.

In one research study, conducted by Michelle Hinton and Lee Kern, homework completion went from only 60% to more than 95%. The trick, then, is to find out where your students’ interests lie and finding ways to mix them into homework assignments.

An easy way to do this is by looking to technology. Now, more than ever, kids are connected to the internet. When they’re not playing games online, they’re surfing the internet on their computers or using social media over their mobile phones. It’s not unusual for kids to use tablets these days. So, how can teachers take advantage of this? In this example, teachers could create an online portal where students have access to their work and can engage with each other.

An online social media site, like a Facebook page, gives students the chance to interact with one another. Homework could be assigned through the portal and online discussions used to connect students, who can help one another with the work. Technology is among the easiest ways for teachers to integrate student interests in a time of unparalleled connection.

Create Completion Tools

One way that teachers can help ensure that students get their homework done, particularly if they themselves have trouble sticking to schedules, is by creating tools that they can use to help their students keep track of what’s due. The easiest way to do this is by creating a homework calendar.

A physical version of this might be kept in the classroom on a large display, allowing students to regularly review what’s due and when. A blank copy of this calendar can be given to students so that they can fill in dates and remove them based on how the class is moving along.

However, an even better way of creating a calendar for students is by making an online one. As noted, social media sites are great ways of keeping students up to date on what is due and when. An online calendar can be maintained on a class website or social media sites where students can easily review changes to the calendar. The power of the internet has made it much easier for teachers to keep students up to date on changes happening in the course.

Establish a Routine

Very often, teachers fall into the trap of getting behind in their work and assigning homework on days they don’t intend to. Maybe they mean to assign it one a Monday but, because they fall behind in their lessons, they instead assign it on a Tuesday. This is actually a really easy way of hurting the chances that your students will turn in their work.

Kids, like adults, benefit from having a routine. They don’t like having to guess what days they’ll need to turn in homework. Because their lives are already so hectic, it’s not uncommon for them to get confused about what work is due on what days By having a regular routine, you’ll help improve the chances that the homework gets turned in. If homework is assigned every Monday and due every Wednesday, make sure that you stick to that routine.

Week to week, students are regularly having to balance their personal lives with their academic ones. They also have to integrate extracurricular activities. In all of the chaos, it’s not uncommon for students to mix up days when homework is due for certain classes. A regular routine will help ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Improving Homework Completion and Performance

Some strategies for improving homework completion are also well suited for improving performance. Here are just two approaches you can consider to help you not only ensure students not only turn in homework more regularly but perform better on the work they do.

Adjusting Difficulty

Sometimes, students don’t finish homework not because they lose track of what’s due, but because they simply struggle with the material. In class, teachers are taught to differentiate their instructions.

Each student learns at a different pace, and teachers are most effective when they understand how to assign work that’s of different levels of difficulty. However, this isn’t a lesson that should stay restricted to the classroom. Teachers should also take the time to develop differentiated homework. By adjusting the difficulty, teachers make it all the more likely that homework will get done.

This strategy may best be used by adopting testing that’s not so much designed to grade students as much as to simply gauge which students need the most support. Teachers need to have a firm grasp on what their students are capable of and what they know and do not know.

Unfortunately, students can sometimes feel pressured under test conditions. For struggling students, this can make it all the more likely that they’ll underperform. It may be useful to consider tests that are non-graded but still provide insight into how students are performing. This sort of low stakes assessment may help provide an accurate picture of what students need the greatest adjustment to the homework you give them.

Provide Additional Resources

Another way that teachers can help guarantee that teachers will complete their work is by providing additional resources that students can use when getting their work done. Sometimes, this might mean pointing to resources that students can find in the library. At other times, this might mean pointing to websites that can help get students through their lessons.

For instance, YouTube has become a wildly popular resource for teachers. Now, more than ever, YouTube is filled with instructional videos that can help guide students through particularly difficult problems. There are also countless videos that discuss the plots of books or take students through science and math problems.

However, with the modern internet, teachers can also provide their own additional resources. Websites and social media sites can be used to make posts and host files that students can access. These files might provide additional context about a historic event or guides through particularly hard math problems.

This can be a more time-consuming effort if teachers want to put together their own resources from scratch. However, it’s also not difficult for teachers to find resources that they can host online. Using this approach can reduce the associated with putting together a teacher’s own original materials.

Improving Homework Performance

Finally, there are also approaches that are tailored toward improving homework performance. These strategies make it more likely that your students will do better on the homework that you assign.

Get Parents Involved

This is time consuming, but it can have one of the best payoffs if you’re trying to improve outcomes in student homework. Parent involvement is linked to numerous benefits among students. When parents get involved in their child’s education, it leads to better performance and a higher level of engagement. Those benefits carry over to homework.

One study conducted among sixth and seventh graders revealed that when parents helped their children with their homework, it led to better outcomes. This study was interesting not only because it benefited students in general, but specifically because it helped at-risk students.

These students are often those who are most likely to underachieve. Due to various circumstances, ranging from a lower socioeconomic background to violence in the community, at-risk students often perform more poorly than students who are not at risk.

Despite the chance that these students will perform more poorly on homework, researchers discovered that their performance jumped when parents became involved. This intervention did require effort and time. Parents had to be trained in how to help their children. However, the results were clear.

Over the course of a 10w-eek homework program, students saw improved marks in mathematics. This showed that with help from appropriately trained parents, even students who were at the greatest risk of failing saw improvement in their performance.

Flip Your Classroom

Now this is another radical idea that some teachers may want to consider if they’re ready to really make significant changes to how they approach in-class versus homework.

The idea of the flipped classroom is fairly simple. Using this model, teachers take homework and, instead of having students do it at home, have their students do it in the classroom. This approach is beneficial because it lets teachers, who have all the knowledge and experience necessary to guide their students, assist their class with the completion of the work.

If the students are doing their ‘homework’ in the classroom though, then what are they doing at home? Well, the flipped classroom also means flipping instruction so that it happens at home instead of the class. In a flipped classroom, teachers do some teaching in the class and introduce lessons. However, they leave the majority of text reading to be done at home.

Teachers may put additional videos and resources online, but the majority of instruction occurs at the student’s house, not the classroom. When students arrive in class, they’re expected to have learned the basics of their lessons. Teachers review these lessons briefly and go through some introductory instruction. Then, teachers guide them through more difficult work.

The most active part of the lesson is left for the classroom, where students can engage with one another and their teacher. The most passive part of the lesson, on the other hand, is left at home. Learn more about the flipped classroom .

Homework Clubs

At some point, it’s up to educators and administrators to come together to find ways of improving academic performance together. Many students who struggle on homework at home may benefit from a more community-oriented approach. For this reason, schools should focus on putting together an environment where students can do homework together under the supervision of adults.

Study halls should serve this purpose, but they often do not. Instead, students tend to complete most of their homework independently when in a study hall. This is often because students from many different classes find themselves together with a single adult who specializes in a limited number of topics. Instead of depending on study halls to help students get their work done, schools can put together homework clubs that will help students perform better on their work.

Homework clubs bring together students to work together under the supervision of parents and teachers. Homework clubs are structured. They meet together at regular times and often involve groups of parents or teachers that oversee the club. Just like any other club, like chess or drama clubs, they require adult supervision. This supervision is particularly important for homework clubs though, where students need the help and support of adults to help them improve their scores.

The best part about homework clubs is that they take the negative feelings off of homework and help students enjoy their academics more. Students get to work outside the classroom alongside friends. These clubs don’t have to be held in a school. They can also be held in a library, for instance.

Homework clubs typically happen right after school though, so these clubs should be held somewhere near the school. Homework clubs provide a positive environment where friends can be together and work on their homework as a group. Overseeing them are trained individuals who can help them in a variety of topics, almost like a tutoring center.

There are countless ways that homework performance can be addressed. For some teachers, the emphasis may be on simply improving homework completion. The steps for doing this are often easier than the steps required of improving homework performance. Teachers can help students complete their work more frequently simply by being consistent, providing calendars, or making the homework more engaging.

Improving academic performance is a bit trickier, but there are many ways to get this done as well. There are steps teachers can take independently, like flipping their classroom or providing additional resources to students. However, larger changes require a commitment from teachers, administrators, and parents. Homework clubs can be a fun approach to getting homework done, but it requires having the proper venue, the appropriate number of supervisors, and the commitment to helping students day in and day out.

Regardless of what approach teachers take, this list of interventions includes many ways that homework completion and performance can be improved. Which approach is best depends on the teacher and their own assessment of the needs of their classroom.

Similar Posts:

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• The Flipped Classroom: The Definitive Guide

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Smart Classroom Management

A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1

So for the next two weeks I’m going to outline a homework plan–four strategies this week, four the next–aimed at making homework a simple yet effective process.

Let’s get started.

Homework Strategies 1-4

The key to homework success is to eliminate all the obstacles—and excuses—that get in the way of students getting it done.

Add leverage and some delicately placed peer pressure to the mix, and not getting homework back from every student will be a rare occurrence.

Here is how to do it.

1. Assign what students already know.

Most teachers struggle with homework because they misunderstand the narrow purpose of homework, which is to practice what has already been learned. Meaning, you should only assign homework your students fully understand and are able to do by themselves.

Therefore, the skills needed to complete the evening’s homework must be thoroughly taught during the school day. If your students can’t prove to you that they’re able to do the work without assistance, then you shouldn’t assign it.

It isn’t fair to your students—or their parents—to have to sit at the dinner table trying to figure out what you should have taught them during the day.

2. Don’t involve parents.

Homework is an agreement between you and your students. Parents shouldn’t be involved. If parents want to sit with their child while he or she does the homework, great. But it shouldn’t be an expectation or a requirement of them. Otherwise, you hand students a ready-made excuse for not doing it.

You should tell parents at back-to-school night, “I got it covered. If ever your child doesn’t understand the homework, it’s on me. Just send me a note and I’ll take care of it.”

Holding yourself accountable is not only a reminder that your lessons need to be spot on, but parents will love you for it and be more likely to make sure homework gets done every night. And for negligent parents? It’s best for their children in particular to make homework a teacher/student-only agreement.

3. Review and then ask one important question.

Set aside a few minutes before the end of the school day to review the assigned homework. Have your students pull out the work, allow them to ask final clarifying questions, and have them check to make sure they have the materials they need.

And then ask one important question: “Is there anyone, for any reason, who will not be able to turn in their homework in the morning? I want to know now rather than find out about it in the morning.”

There are two reasons for this question.

First, the more leverage you have with students, and the more they admire and respect you , the more they’ll hate disappointing you. This alone can be a powerful incentive for students to complete homework.

Second, it’s important to eliminate every excuse so that the only answer students can give for not doing it is that they just didn’t care. This sets up the confrontation strategy you’ll be using the next morning.

4. Confront students on the spot.

One of your key routines should be entering the classroom in the morning.

As part of this routine, ask your students to place their homework in the top left-hand (or right-hand) corner of their desk before beginning a daily independent assignment—reading, bellwork , whatever it may be.

During the next five to ten minutes, walk around the room and check homework–don’t collect it. Have a copy of the answers (if applicable) with you and glance at every assignment.

You don’t have to check every answer or read every portion of the assignment. Just enough to know that it was completed as expected. If it’s math, I like to pick out three or four problems that represent the main thrust of the lesson from the day before.

It should take just seconds to check most students.

Remember, homework is the practice of something they already know how to do. Therefore, you shouldn’t find more than a small percentage of wrong answers–if any. If you see more than this, then you know your lesson was less than effective, and you’ll have to reteach

If you find an assignment that is incomplete or not completed at all, confront that student on the spot .

Call them on it.

The day before, you presented a first-class lesson and gave your students every opportunity to buzz through their homework confidently that evening. You did your part, but they didn’t do theirs. It’s an affront to the excellence you strive for as a class, and you deserve an explanation.

It doesn’t matter what he or she says in response to your pointed questions, and there is no reason to humiliate or give the student the third degree. What is important is that you make your students accountable to you, to themselves, and to their classmates.

A gentle explanation of why they don’t have their homework is a strong motivator for even the most jaded students to get their homework completed.

The personal leverage you carry–that critical trusting rapport you have with your students–combined with the always lurking peer pressure is a powerful force. Not using it is like teaching with your hands tied behind your back.

Homework Strategies 5-8

Next week we’ll cover the final four homework strategies . They’re critical to getting homework back every day in a way that is painless for you and meaningful for your students.

I hope you’ll tune in.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

What to read next:

• A Powerful Way To Relieve Stress: Part One
• A Simple Exercise Program For Teachers
• The Best Time To Review Your Classroom Management Plan
• Why Your New Classroom Management Plan Isn't Working
• 27 Things That Make Your Classroom Management Plan Work

21 thoughts on “A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1”

Good stuff, Michael. A lot of teachers I train and coach are surprised (and skeptical) at first when I make the same point you make about NOT involving parents. But it’s right on based on my experience as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator the past 17 years. More important, it’s validated by Martin Haberman’s 40 years of research on what separates “star” teachers from “quitter/failure” teachers ( http://www.habermanfoundation.org/Book.aspx?sm=c1 )

I love the articles about “homework”. in the past I feel that it is difficuty for collecting homework. I will try your plan next year.

I think you’ll be happy with it, Sendy!

How do you confront students who do not have their homework completed?

You state in your book to let consequences do their job and to never confront students, only tell them the rule broken and consequence.

I want to make sure I do not go against that rule, but also hold students accountable for not completing their work. What should I say to them?

They are two different things. Homework is not part of your classroom management plan.

Hi Michael,

I’m a first-year middle school teacher at a private school with very small class sizes (eight to fourteen students per class). While I love this homework policy, I feel discouraged about confronting middle schoolers publicly regarding incomplete homework. My motive would never be to humiliate my students, yet I can name a few who would go home thinking their lives were over if I did confront them in front of their peers. Do you have any ideas of how to best go about incomplete homework confrontation with middle school students?

The idea isn’t in any way to humiliate students, but to hold them accountable for doing their homework. Parts one and two represent my best recommendation.:)

I believe that Homework is a vital part of students learning.

I’m still a student–in a classroom management class. So I have no experience with this, but I’m having to plan a procedure for my class. What about teacher sitting at desk and calling student one at a time to bring folder while everyone is doing bellwork or whatever their procedure is? That way 1) it would be a long walk for the ones who didn’t do the work :), and 2) it would be more private. What are your thoughts on that? Thanks. 🙂

I’m not sure I understand your question. Would you mind emailing me with more detail? I’m happy to help.

I think what you talked about is great. How do you feel about flipping a lesson? My school is pretty big on it, though I haven’t done it yet. Basically, for homework, the teacher assigns a video or some other kind of media of brand new instruction. Students teach themselves and take a mini quiz at the end to show they understand the new topic. Then the next day in the classroom, the teacher reinforces the lesson and the class period is spent practicing with the teacher present for clarification. I haven’t tried it yet because as a first year teacher I haven’t had enough time to make or find instructional videos and quizzes, and because I’m afraid half of my students will not do their homework and the next day in class I will have to waste the time of the students who did their homework and just reteach what the video taught.

Anyway, this year, I’m trying the “Oops, I forgot my homework” form for students to fill out every time they forget their homework. It keeps them accountable and helps me keep better track of who is missing what. Once they complete it, I cut off the bottom portion of the form and staple it to their assignment. I keep the top copy for my records and for parent/teacher conferences.

Here is an instant digital download of the form. It’s editable in case you need different fields.

Thanks again for your blog. I love the balance you strike between rapport and respect.

Your site is a godsend for a newbie teacher! Thank you for your clear, step-by-step, approach!

I G+ your articles to my PLN all the time.

You’re welcome, TeachNich! And thank you for sharing the articles.

Hi Michael, I’m going into my first year and some people have told me to try and get parents involved as much as I can – even home visits and things like that. But my gut says that negligent parents cannot be influenced by me. Still, do you see any value in having parents initial their student’s planner every night so they stay up to date on homework assignments? I could also write them notes.

Personally, no. I’ll write about this in the future, but when you hold parents accountable for what are student responsibilities, you lighten their load and miss an opportunity to improve independence.

I am teaching at a school where students constantly don’t take work home. I rarely give homework in math but when I do it is usually something small and I still have to chase at least 7 kids down to get their homework. My way of holding them accountable is to record a homework completion grade as part of their overall grade. Is this wrong to do? Do you believe homework should never be graded for a grade and just be for practice?

No, I think marking a completion grade is a good idea.

I’ve been teaching since 2014 and we need to take special care when assigning homework. If the homework assignment is too hard, is perceived as busy work, or takes too long to complete, students might tune out and resist doing it. Never send home any assignment that students cannot do. Homework should be an extension of what students have learned in class. To ensure that homework is clear and appropriate, consider the following tips for assigning homework:

Assign homework in small units. Explain the assignment clearly. Establish a routine at the beginning of the year for how homework will be assigned. Remind students of due dates periodically. And Make sure students and parents have information regarding the policy on missed and late assignments, extra credit, and available adaptations. Establish a set routine at the beginning of the year.

Thanks Nancie L Beckett

Dear Michael,

I love your approach! Do you have any ideas for homework collection for lower grades? K-3 are not so ready for independent work first thing in the morning, so I do not necessarily have time to check then; but it is vitally important to me to teach the integrity of completing work on time.

Also, I used to want parents involved in homework but my thinking has really changed, and your comments confirm it!

Hi Meredith,

I’ll be sure and write about this topic in an upcoming article (or work it into an article). 🙂

Overall, this article provides valuable insights and strategies for teachers to implement in their classrooms. I look forward to reading Part 2 and learning more about how to make homework a simple and effective process. Thanks

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Teaching time savers: reviewing homework, by jane murphy wilburne.

The classroom practice of assigning homework is a necessity to reinforce the topic of the day's lesson, review skills and practice them in a variety of problems, or challenge students' thinking and application of the skills. Effective mathematics teachers know how to choose worthwhile assignments that can significantly impact students' learning and understanding of the mathematics. The challenge, however, is how to manage and review the assignments in a manner that will benefit students' learning, and use classroom time effectively.

Over the years, I have tried various approaches to reviewing and assessing students' homework. Collecting and grading every students' homework can be very time consuming, especially when you have large classes and no graduate assistants to help review students' work. On the other hand, while it is important to provide students with immediate feedback on their homework, it does not benefit them much to have the professor work out each problem in front of the class.

I believe it is important for college students to take responsibility for their learning. By promoting opportunities for them to communicate with and learn from each other, we can help students come to rely less on the professor to provide them with all the answers, and teach them to pose questions that enhance each others' understanding.

One technique that has been effective in my classes is to assign homework problems that vary in concept application and level of difficulty. The students were instructed to solve each problem and place a check (’) next to any problem they could not solve. As the students entered class the next day, they would list the page number and problem number of the problems they could not solve, on the front board in a designated area. If the problem was already listed, they placed a check (’) next to it. Once the class started, they were not allowed to record problem numbers at the board. Other students, who were successful in solving these problems, immediately went to the board when they entered the class, indicated that they would solve one of the listed problems, and worked it out in detail. When they finished they signed their name to the problem.

By the time I entered the classroom, students were busy solving problems at the board while others were checking their homework at their seats. If there were any questions about the problems, the student who solved the problem at the board would explain his work to the class. If there was a problem in which no one was able to solve, I would provide a few details about the problem and reassign it for the next class. In a short period of time, all homework was reviewed, and I recorded notes as to which students posted solutions on the board. Rather than collecting every student's homework, I noted the problems that gave most students difficulty and would assign similar problems in a future assignment. Students who listed the problems they had difficulty with were not penalized. Instead, those who solved the problems would receive a plus (+) in my grade book. A series of five pluses (+) would earn them a bonus point on a future exam.

My classroom quizzes would always include several homework problems to help keep students accountable for completing their assignments and motivate them to review problems they had difficulty with. Those who did typically received an A!

Time spent in class: approximately 5-12 minutes reviewing the homework. Time saved: about 30 minutes per class

Jane M. Wilburne is assistant professor of mathematics at Penn State Harrisburg.

Teaching Time Savers Archives

Teaching Time Savers are articles designed to share easy-to-implement activities for streamlining the day-to-day tasks of faculty members everywhere. If you would like to share your favorite time savers with the readers of FOCUS, then send a separate email description of each activity to Michael Orrison at [email protected] . Make sure to include a comment on "time spent" and "time saved" for each activity, and to include pictures and/or figures if at all possible.

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Zest for learning… into the rainforest of teaching.

Homework Matters: Great teachers set great homework

However, despite what I regard as the critical importance of homework, I regularly hear or read these objections:

• ‘there is no point of setting homework for the sake of it’,
• ‘children need to have a childhood, why rob them of their evenings’
• ‘research shows that homework doesn’t make much difference’.
• ‘I couldn’t possibly cope with all the marking if I set homework every week’
• ‘half the class won’t do it anyway, so what’s the point’

Well, I would argue with all of these points:

a) there is always a ‘sake’ because homework can and should always be an integral part of the learning process

b) it is perfectly possible to do lots of homework and have time to engage in all kinds of other activities and

c) the research doesn’t really deal fully with the nature of homework being set; we are not just talking about any old task – we are talking about great homework that feeds into lessons and provides exciting opportunities for student-led learning and creativity. (See the post about Hattie’s research , which he comments on himself.)

d) As I have described in my post about marking , the assumption that all homework needs to be teacher-marked is ludicrous and

e) the point about homework is to offer learning opportunities and generate a culture of high expectations; half the class will do it and they should not be held back because of the others.

Here are some of the key reasons why I think homework matters so much:

1) Bridging between teacher-led and student-led learning:

Most homework that I set (as I do religiously, every week for every class) is given on the basis that students will bring it to a lesson in the following week where we will discuss what they have done. 5 or more questions, tackled at home after an initial exploration in class, then form the basis of the next lesson: which questions did we find hard? What different kinds of answers did we get? Then I can help some who are struggling and push others on. This is simply not possible without the homework element. Most homework is, therefore, peer or self assessed. It has to be designed to facilitate that – which is reasonably straightforward. Along with research, note-taking and other pre-learning activities, most homework is about getting ready for the next lesson; this makes lessons much less teacher-centric.

(See this post:  Flipped out by Flipping? You may have missed the point. )

2) Extending learning time.

There are so many learning processes that do not fit neatly into lesson-long segments. There all kinds of tasks that students prefer to do in their own time, on their own terms – outside the confines of the school day. All students work at their own pace and homework allows them to get to grips with ideas or finish something properly, when they were rushed in class. This applies to writing essays, writing up science investigations, practicing maths problems, constructing a paragraph in French, producing some ideas in a sketchbook for Art or DT…etc. It applies to any number of exam preparation activities. It also applies to some tasks that students would never be set within school time like making videos or designing websites.

3 ) Creating Opportunities for Creativity and Choice.

Homework to my mind is about setting students free to try out different ideas; it is not about drudgery. Giving options for how they present information is a great way to do this: make a video, write a dialogue, write a standard essay or a booklet explaining the idea to younger children. Each of these is challenging in its own way – and students can choose their preferred response. I’ve had some extraordinary work from students with this kind of open ended homework task. The diagram shows a template for a half-term’s worth of homework that would be submitted at different times.

4) Developing the skills required for independent learning

How likely is it that Jimmy will have his moment of greatest clarity during the History lesson, period 4 on Tuesday? Or that Sandi will feel at her most creative during Art on Friday after lunch? It is unlikely. I think I made most of my own personal break-throughs in my room at home; the penny won’t drop just because the teacher is there. The goal is to empower students to engage in learning so they can learn anything anytime they want to… and homework is the vehicle for that. Year 13 students don’t just suddenly develop sophisticated independent learning skills; they have to be built up over years – and routine challenging homework throughout Years 7-12 is a good preparation. A good, standard part of homework is to pre-learn material and make notes from books or videos – as with the ‘flipped classroom’ idea and the Khan Academy concept. These things transfer ownership for core learning to students leaving lesson-time free to deal with students’ questions, their difficulties, misconceptions, interesting variations and so on.

5) Reducing the diverging effect of home support: ie it’s about equal opportunities.

The research by Hattie et al shows that homes make more difference to learning than schools. So, take away homework and what do we have? Essentially, homes with the greatest cultural capital, typically more affluent and middle class, will just fill the gap with their own family-education as they always have. They’ll be fine. Meanwhile, children from families where home-learning is scarce or simply doesn’t happen are left without structure or resources to fall back on. The same inequalities that give children such different learning orientations from pre-school persist. I’d argue that homework for all is a basic element of an educational entitlement; it is a leveller – provided that schools offer support for ‘homework’ to be done anytime, any place.

6) Communicating the values of the school and the teacher

I think that the quality of homework that comes from a teacher or a school says a lot about the values in that school or classroom. There is a definite link between the teachers regarded as ‘great teachers’ – those who have strongly positive reputations in the school community and model very high expectations – and the extent to which they provide students with a rich diet of challenge in and in between lessons. It is part of the job to involve and engage parents in the learning process; homework is a crucial part of this. As part of the diet of homework, it is lovely to include tasks that explore family history or include parents in some way. Teachers do share the responsibility for promoting their school in the ‘parental choice’ market place and, like it or not, a reputation for being soft or inconsistent on homework can be the kiss of death. This isn’t some superficial ‘pushy parent’ nonsense. I feel the same; taking learning seriously includes taking homework seriously and all the best teachers do!

So, to finish, in the routine flow of school life, I would urge teachers to put time and energy into setting great homeworks, mixed in with some more routine consolidation tasks. A balanced diet! Don’t get overly bogged down in setting detentions and so on; reserve sanctions for those who are very very persistent in not doing any work in between lessons. The greatest sanction of all is that they miss out on learning…. that message can’t be stressed too much. As soon as homework is associated directly with punitive sanctions, the battle has been lost – and you get a canteen full of students copying out last minute bits of work just to have something to hand in!  My most well-worn teacher-cliche, as I refuse to accept the scrappy, half-hearted, last-ditched effort: “you are not doing it for me, you are doing it for yourself!”

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44 comments.

Thanks for writing this post. It has helped me in my efforts to inform the parents of my 10yr old students. Every article and post that supports my Home Learning trial helps. So again, thank you. Great post.

Unfortunately all the research point in the other direction. Though of course you knew that… no?

Why do teachers just go on hunches and opinions so often? You seem to actively resent facts, research and evidence and just trot out your prejudices.

Dear Judge, thanks for your comment. Actually, the research on homework is more subtle and it doesn’t ‘all point in the other direction’ as you suggest. I will post something soon to show this. Hunches and opinions are key in education – education is all about values in the end so we need to be careful not to assume there is some scientific truth about learning that can be pinpointed; that will never happen. I don’t resent facts at all – but after teaching secondary age students for 25 years, the idea that homework is somehow superfluous is laughable to me. Most of my students’ work is done between the lessons; lessons and homework are part of one process.. anyway.. more to follow!

[…] have written about my views on homework under the heading ‘Homework Matters: Great Teachers set Great Homework’ . I’ve said that all my instincts as a teacher (and a parent) tell me that homework is a […]

Your headings mirror what we are finding schools doing as seen in their submissions for the 3rd Millennium Learning Award ( http://www.naace.co.uk/thirdmillenniumlearningaward ) – they are developing attitudes to learning amongst the pupils that are considerably raising their energy in learning. And using techniques such as choice and creativity to drive this.

[…] a massive advocate for homework but it needs to be re-defined and re-configured.  Pre-learning that helps ‘flipped […]

[…] a massive advocate for homework but it needs to be re-defined and re-configured.  Pre-learning that helps ‘flipped learning’ […]

[…] almost every lesson with every class.. because the learning never stops.  I’ve written that ‘Great Teachers set Great Homework‘ (see also here for the Hattie research, effective size etc)… I’m a big fan.  […]

I am really loving the theme/design of your site. Do you ever run into any browser compatibility issues? A handful of my blog visitors have complained about my website not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do you have any advice to help fix this problem?

I’ve never had any comments or issues reported. It looks the same on most browsers. My theme was the first I tried and it works well. I like the featured image which gives a bit of life to the front page. I find a lot of blogs are dominated by the most recent posting but this theme allows you to feature others quite prominently.

[…] superb vehicle for communicating expectations and values to parents, as I describe in this post: Homework matters: Great teachers set great homework.  Being a teacher who religiously sets homework in a variety of engaging forms, providing practice, […]

If your research is telling you that something self evidently true is not so then you probably need to review your research methods! I could not have achieved the grades I got at A-Level without a huge amount of homework. Almost all of my degree study was homework. Almost all the French vocab I know is due to homework I did 25 years ago. Almost all the English vocab I use is due to books I have read and conversations I have had outside school. I could not have developed my skill in algebra without the practice I did in homework. Surely it must dawn on the people who argue homework has no effect on learning that whatever their precious research says, it’s clearly baloney?

[…] http://headguruteacher.com/2012/09/02/homework-matters-great-teachers-set-great-homework/ […]

[…] http://headguruteacher.com/2012/09/02/homework-matters-great-teachers-set-great-homework […]

[…] involves rote learning, practice, or rehearsal of the subject matter.’ I also find that this post by @headguruteacher makes a compelling case for homework. (He also has a detailed post on Hattie […]

[…] lessons and homework and also links into a post I was on another blog I follow: Headteacherguru ( http://headguruteacher.com/2012/09/02/homework-matters-great-teachers-set-great-homework/ ) which talks about the purpose of homework and ways to make it more creative. This also gets the […]

It’s a great article, and in many ways I agree with some of his arguments; however, there does seem to be a culture in schools of “this is good so we must do it”, rather than “this is the MOST effective thing to do with the RESOURCES we have available”. We could make the same argument for lesson planning, marking policies, after school clubs, intervention. As for his suggestion that homework doesn’t need to be teacher marked, I investigated this in a piece of action research and found the amount of homeworks completed in a class was proportional to the amount of homeworks marked; in other words, if you want students to complete homework, you need to check they’ve done it and they need to know you will check it. I teach 150 students. Checking homework once a week at 5 minutes a go is 750 minutes or 12 hours. As I asked our Head when he said he wanted to see more marked homeworks in books: what do I stop doing so I can start doing this?

Thanks for the comment. You’ve expressed clearly a classic barrier to homework setting. Mainly you seem to be separating homework from classwork too much. When you mark books, you can only give a level of feedback that students can absorb. When I mark, I’m looking across all the recent work including tasks completed at home. It’s all a question of keeping things manageable. There are lots of ways to keep tabs on completion and major learning issues without feeling you need to mark every inch of every homework yourself. Meanwhile, if you do not set routine homework to provide opportunities for extension and consolidation, your credibility suffers… Keep it simple, regular and in perspective. See it as a set of opportunities, and be playful with it; focus on those that do it, not those that don’t. Make hwk feed naturally into lessons, not stuck on the side and separate.

Cheers! I will do; however, I think your experience of homework in schools may be a little different from my own! As my action researched showed, if you stop providing meaningful rewards (lollies) or meaningful punishments (detentions), homework doesn’t get done! I’ll try your suggestion your suggestion of marking everything together, and having a bit of peer assessment in class.

I did like this phrase: “Homework to my mind is about setting students free to try out different ideas; it is not about drudgery.” Sounds like “Arbeit Macht Frei” to me…!

Well, obviously a serious connotation there that misconstrues the genuine spirit of what I’m saying. !

Interestingly, your introductory comment:

“students who are successful at A level and at GCSE are those who have highly developed independent learning skills, have the capacity to lead the learning process through their questions and ideas and, crucially, are resilient and resourceful enough to get over the many humps along the way”

…could be used to describe students in Higher Education as well. Perhaps if students were more adept at independent study during their school years (using the methods you’ve described), they’d see the value of continuing the same practice at university?

Perhaps if we renamed it home-learning or pre-learning we might all start to view it in a different way. Homework all too often produces a knee jerk reaction from both parents and teachers who may see it as a stream of worksheets to be completed and marked. As a primary school teacher, children pre-viewing what is going to be taught next, or engaging in an independent, creative home-learning topic has significant value – for the child, the teacher and the parents who can then become more involved with their children’s learning. We introduced this style of home-learning years ago and we have had some amazing projects presented back at school – but we still fight the worksheet battle with many parents who don’t see it as ‘proper’ homework.

[…] was crucial. I was delighted to read Tom Sherrington‘s post in September 2012: ‘Why homework matters: Great teachers, set great homework’, which resonated with my own personal belief as I embarked on this quest: “that homework makes […]

[…] Homework Matters, Tom Sherrington: http://headguruteacher.com/2012/09/02/homework-matters-great-teachers-set-great-homework/ […]

[…] Great teachers set great homework […]

[…] Headguruteacher blog […]

[…] Head Teacher at Highbury Grove School in Islington and I thoroughly recommend reading his article Homework Matters: Great teachers set great homework. Also, read his article Homework: What does the Hattie research actually say? where he distills […]

Reblogged this on Geographisethis .

[…]  Up front, he makes his pro-homework views clear and shares a link to another piece of his, ‘Homework Matters: Great Teachers set Great Homework’.  The analysis that follows is, as I’ve said, pretty solid.  Until the […]

[…] http://headguruteacher.com/2012/09/02/homework-matters-great-teachers-set-great-homework/  […]

[…] specific factors are linked to better learning outcomes. Tom Sherrington, a teacher who is a firm advocate of homework, analyzed Hattie’s research and concluded that there is little benefit to homework for kids […]

[…] on his blog “great teachers set great homework”.  In fact, he dedicates an entire blogpost to it.  I thought I would do the same but with an MFL slant.  I’m sure I have set some […]

[…] performanţele școlare. Iar profesorul Tom Sherrington a analizat aceste studii, concluzionând ca beneficiile temelor sunt atât de mici, încât nimeni nu le-ar simţi […]

[…] and equally as much skill, and I think it would be fair to say that, with some notable exceptions (Sherrington, Allison), it has not been an imperative on the agenda of most schools. That may be controversial, […]

[…] Homework matters: great teachers set great homework […]

[…] it kills learning and widens the attainment gap, ask others and they say, romantically, that “Great teachers set great homework” and homework makes a massive difference to the learning […]

[…] is a great post on setting ‘great homework’ by Tom Sherrington here. It was this original post and seeing maths use the corbett maths idea that encouraged me to try a […]

[…] a great education and fostering independent learning, as I expressed in one of my earliest posts Homework matters: Great teachers set great homework.   In this post, I want to suggest what might constitute a sensible, effective diet of great […]

Hi Tom! Thank you so much for this, it really resonated with me when I first read it. I am compiling a few blog posts for teachers at my school to read, would you mind if I printed this and distributed it? Thank you so much!

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Please do! 🙏🏼

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7 Top Tips for Setting and Managing Homework

Homework is still considered an integral part of the learning process in schools. After all, it has benefits for both teachers and pupils. Students – while they may not always enjoy working outside of the classroom – always learn a valuable lesson about managing heavy workloads independently. Meanwhile, homework allows teachers to further assess their pupils based on their understanding of the subject, skills to succeed, and attitude towards education. If you are currently teaching in the UK, you can enjoy these benefits just by making sure that you have the right approach to setting and managing homework. Here are seven top tips that will help you get started.

1. Establish a firm routine

Homework shouldn’t be sporadic or random. Instead, your pupils should quickly learn that it’s part of their routine. This means that you should set it with some sort of consistency and work to establish a pattern. A great way to start would be to decide how many hours should be completed each week (a figure that will vary depending on the age group you’re teaching). In addition, the work should be spread across both evenings and weekends. Don’t forget, lack of a routine might cause pupils to struggle with managing their homework and lead to it remaining incomplete.

2. Gather parents’ support

Parents must be clued up when it comes to homework. You can accomplish this by letting mums and dads know – perhaps with a letter or an email – that you’ll be setting regular out-of-hours work and that you expect it to be completed to a high standard. The best way to gain parents’ support is by proposing an amount that everyone will deem reasonable. From this point onwards, you should keep mums and dads in the loop when their children are failing to complete the agreed amount of homework and let them know how they can help.

3. Avoid overnight homework

It’s best to steer clear of setting homework to be completed overnight. For starters, it doesn’t give pupils a chance to approach you for help in between if they are unsure about how to tackle the project. Secondly, you’ll be making a somewhat unrealistic assumption that your students have spare time during that night to devote to homework. Some pupils may have other commitments – such as a family occasion to attend or a dance lesson that’s already been paid for – that would mean they’re too stretched to complete the work in the space of just one evening.

4. Don’t dawdle with marking

Homework is a two-way street and the rules are quite clear: pupils complete it and teachers mark it. This is why it can be problematic if you dawdle on the marking and subsequently create the illusion that you’re not holding up your end of the bargain. Of course, teachers often find themselves pressed for time and forced with juggling different tasks. However, you should make every effort to ensure that homework doesn’t remain unmarked for days on end or else you could send the message that it doesn’t really matter.

5. Collect homework in the morning

You should try to collect homework promptly at the first opportunity you get. If you don’t, you could find that some of your pupils are completing it throughout the day – including at break time, during lunch hour and when you’re teaching at the front of the class. This won’t just mean that the students could fall behind with the syllabus, it can also be demoralising for others who have sacrificed their free time to complete the work and they could begin to ponder whether it’s worth holding off on their own homework in future.

6. Reward effort

Pupils who have clearly put in a lot of effort with their homework should be rewarded regularly. The individual doesn’t necessarily have to have done an amazing job as long as it’s clear that they have tried to work independently and devoted time to the project. Whichever avenue you go down – whether it’s giving out gold stars or sending letters of praise to parents – the reward should always encourage pupils to continue devoting the same amount of effort to their homework.

7. Consequences for lack of effort

There should be consequences for those students who have failed to complete their homework or have clearly rushed through it. The best punishment is usually to issue an after-school detention in which the individual will be made to have a second attempt at the project. The best form of discipline will always make pupils think twice about whether it’s worth skipping their homework in future and instil in them that there are consequences for those who don’t try hard.

Now let’s set some homework

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How to... set successful homework

Homework is so often feared and loathed that we are constantly rebranding it. “Home learning”, “extended learning”, “independent study”…take your pick.

But our issue with homework stems from an unspoken truth: a lot of the time we just aren’t very good at setting it.

With teachers straining under the weight of a five-period day, homework is too often an afterthought; an irritating byproduct of an awkward school policy that we struggle to wrangle into something useful.

Still, let’s not write off the untapped potential of homework just yet. Instead, let’s draw from the well of best evidence and start setting homework with something like success.

• Consolidate and review, don’t tackle anything new We often expect our students to learn with varying degrees of independence, but perhaps ironically, homework isn’t the time to start learning something new. We should save new learning for our classroom and instead use homework to provide the time for consolidation and practice of material we have already taught.  
• The best-planned homework often goes awry Children (come to think of it, all of us) have lazy brains. As a consequence, they hate to plan, and when they do, they do it badly. They think they’ll do homework quicker and with more ease than they ever will in reality - and homework quality falls as a result. With these flaws in mind, walk through each step of students’ likely planning when you are setting homework. Give them timings and explicit steps to get it done successfully.  
• Don’t ‘give homework over to Google’ You’ve heard the claim “why do you need a teacher when you have Google?” Our students might be the spawn of Snapchat, but if you leave them researching unattended, they will get lost down the bottom of the Google garden. Procrastination and poor search skills will reign, with dubious sources and illiterate online essays besmirching their homework like coffee stains. If the homework requires tech research, this needs to be tightly structured. Give students specific sources; otherwise learning gains will be slashed by criminal cut-and-paste attempts.  
• Help students to strategise when stuck There is a Goldilocks principle for homework: not too easy, but not too hard. It needs to be tough enough to sometimes trip them up, but we need to plan with that in mind. With every piece of homework you set, supply your students with three potential strategies to use if they get stuck.  
• Avoid the homework afterthought Setting homework at the end of the lesson often means we’re squeezed for time, so that all the aforementioned principles go up in smoke. Instead, set homework at the start of the lesson so that students understand its importance, or at a planned-for moment that gives you the time to handle it with care.

Alex Quigley is an English teacher and director of the research school at Huntington School in York. He is the author of The Confident Teacher .

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What’s the point of homework?

Deputy Dean, School of Education, Western Sydney University

Disclosure statement

Katina Zammit does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Western Sydney University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Homework hasn’t changed much in the past few decades. Most children are still sent home with about an hour’s worth of homework each day, mostly practising what they were taught in class.

If we look internationally, homework is assigned in every country that participated in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012.

Across the participating countries, 15-year-old students reported spending almost five hours per week doing homework in 2012. Australian students spent six hours per week on average on homework. Students in Singapore spent seven hours on homework, and in Shanghai, China they did homework for about 14 hours per week on average.

Read more: Aussie students are a year behind students 10 years ago in science, maths and reading

Shanghai and Singapore routinely score higher than Australia in the PISA maths, science and reading tests. But homework could just be one of the factors leading to higher results. In Finland, which also scores higher than Australia, students spent less than three hours on homework per week.

So, what’s the purpose of homework and what does the evidence say about whether it fulfils its purpose?

Why do teachers set homework?

Each school in Australia has its own homework policy developed in consultation with teachers and parents or caregivers, under the guiding principles of state or regional education departments.

For instance, according to the New South Wales homework policy “… tasks should be assigned by teachers with a specific, explicit learning purpose”.

Homework in NSW should also be “purposeful and designed to meet specific learning goals”, and “built on knowledge, skills and understanding developed in class”. But there is limited, if any, guidance on how often homework should be set.

Research based on teacher interviews shows they set homework for a range of reasons. These include to:

establish and improve communication between parents and children about learning

help children be more responsible, confident and disciplined

practise or review material from class

determine children’s understanding of the lesson and/or skills

introduce new material to be presented in class

provide students with opportunities to apply and integrate skills to new situations or interest areas

get students to use their own skills to create work.

So, does homework achieve what teachers intend it to?

Do we know if it ‘works’?

Studies on homework are frequently quite general, and don’t consider specific types of homework tasks. So it isn’t easy to measure how effective homework could be, or to compare studies.

But there are several things we can say.

First, it’s better if every student gets the kind of homework task that benefits them personally, such as one that helps them answer questions they had, or understand a problem they couldn’t quite grasp in class. This promotes students’ confidence and control of their own learning.

Read more: Learning from home is testing students' online search skills. Here are 3 ways to improve them

Giving students repetitive tasks may not have much value . For instance, calculating the answer to 120 similar algorithms, such as adding two different numbers 120 times may make the student think maths is irrelevant and boring. In this case, children are not being encouraged to find solutions but simply applying a formula they learnt in school.

In primary schools, homework that aims to improve children’s confidence and learning discipline can be beneficial. For example, children can be asked to practise giving a presentation on a topic of their interest. This could help build their competence in speaking in front of a class.

Homework can also highlight equity issues. It can be particularly burdensome for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who may not have a space, the resources or as much time due to family and work commitments. Their parents may also not feel capable of supporting them or have their own work commitments.

According to the PISA studies mentioned earlier, socioeconomically disadvantaged 15 year olds spend nearly three hours less on homework each week than their advantaged peers.

Read more: 'I was astonished at how quickly they made gains': online tutoring helps struggling students catch up

What kind of homework is best?

Homework can be engaging and contribute to learning if it is more than just a sheet of maths or list of spelling words not linked to class learning. From summarising various studies’ findings, “good” homework should be:

personalised to each child rather than the same for all students in the class. This is more likely to make a difference to a child’s learning and performance

achievable, so the child can complete it independently, building skills in managing their time and behaviour

aligned to the learning in the classroom.

If you aren’t happy with the homework your child is given then approach the school. If your child is having difficulty with doing the homework, the teacher needs to know. It shouldn’t be burdensome for you or your children.

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Top 5 platforms to set students’ homework online

In 2015, Ofsted stated in their published handbook they were looking to judge schools on whether ‘ pupils are set challenging goals, given their starting points, and are making good progress towards meeting or exceeding these’.

Essentially this means teachers need to be able to not only help their class progress, but keep documentation of it, so they can show how their students are improving.

Interactive learning has become a large part of modern teaching – particularly with the rise of Apps being used in our daily lives. But Apps are not only for home life, they can also be used to benefit your teaching environment. These are five of the current programmes available to help teachers set homework for their students and monitor their progress.

The Firefly programme is centred on saving teachers time – time that would usually be spent copying and pasting information into documents and looking through documents to find everyone’s submitted homework. Organisation is one of the basic objectives to the App, aimed at making tasks such as setting homework and giving feedback as simple and effective as possible.

Devices include:

• Teachers choose whether to set paper or online homework
• Students can submit from any device e.g. android, laptop, imac etc.
• All documents are in one place rather than teachers having to search through their Inbox
• Feedback is all stored under one archive including – annotations – comments – audio or visual comment
• Homework can be shared with the parents online, as well as students to keep them in the loop

Firefly prides itself on developing its product based on the results of multiple case studies. These include both state and independent UK schools and international schools in Cairo and Bangkok.

2. eSchools

eSchools is an App for either primary or secondary schools, and differs between the two only when necessary. They focus on a variety of classroom features used in real time that can be translated to an App. No less than sixteen features and apps make up eSchools.

• Teachers can easily create projects online with a variety of content types. These can re-used year by year
• Homework can assigned to individuals groups or a whole class
• Teachers can come up with Quizzes for homework or in the classroom, and can monitor how quickly students answered the questions

Primary schools have logins for the students as a set of images, whilst the secondary school App can be accessed by students via their school login.

Secondary school teachers can also adjust their App to keep up to date with the timetable changes.

3. Google Classroom

The best key word associated with Google I believe is convenience. Google Classroom is extremely convenient, whilst also making the point of being compatible with other Google Apps. Oh, and the best part… it’s free!

• Teachers have control of setting up an online class. From there they can invite co-teachers and students. All relevant information can be shared in the online classroom including announcements, assignments and questions from students.
• Work pages, class stream and the class calendar are platforms where the set work can appear.
• Teachers can instantly send out homework, and create class discussions.
• The App is compatible with all other Google programmes such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Drive

Google prides itself on offering useful and  free services and as the App is for educational services, it contains no ads and does not collect or use student content or data.

Moodle has had a good success rate across the education spectrum, and primary schools to universities make use of it. Moodle allows the ‘Administrator’ – the user who is in charge of maintaining the site – to manage all aspects of their Moodle site, although some tasks can be given to a ‘Manager’.

Moodle acts as educational online platform where everything from homework, helpful documents, and grading platforms can be created.

• Courses can be accessed by students once they have been authenticated by the Administrator
• Every course has   grade book which can record scores of homework, quizzes, activities, and peer assessments
• Tracking progress on Moodle allows teachers to keep track on when a course is completed – each activity comes with a checkbox that a student can tick upon completion. Once all boxes are ticked the Course marks itself as complete

Moodle is all about giving the teacher who creates the site – the Administrator – flexible control over the content and structure of their educational platform.

A useful tool is the ability to add or take away Restrictions, so that certain material on the site will be available to the student with the relevant ability.

Milk is a programme that focuses more than most on being a homework diary for teachers and students. Aspects are divided into four main sections: Homework, Dashboard, Messaging and Control.

• Homework can be set instantly and is accessible to students via their phones computers or tablets
• The Dashboard feature allows teachers to track progress attendance, as well as homework marks. This is especially useful for when teachers need to demonstrate class structure and progress
• Relevant newsletter need not be sent by post. These can be sent from wherever the teacher is and they are able to confirm which students have read them
• The programme imports student information from SIMS, creating an accurate account of the class to collect data from. This also means students can receive alerts when they have been set a new assignment

Milk puts emphasis on their Teacher Platform, where most of the features are available in one place. The Dashboard includes links to uploading worksheets and buttons for both the teacher and student to confirm work done.

Technology is advancing at such a pace that it is important the changes reflect in the classroom environment. Apps for setting homework cut down on paper wastage, and help keep each class’s workload in one accessible place for you the teacher.

Written by Josh at First Tutors

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Flexible learning showing promise preparing high school students for post-COVID, hybrid working world

Like most high school students her age, Sheridan Connelly struggles to balance the competing demands on her time.

The year 12 student plays weekend sport, works a part-time job, and lives on a rural property in the NSW Wollondilly region which means she travels up to an hour and a half to get to school.

"I was stressed about finding time to get all my homework done and then the extra work that you have to do in year 12," she said.

But she has found some reprieve in a new flexible program her school is trialling which allows her to do her school work at home on Mondays.

"I can spend that [time] either studying or catching up on sleep or just spending it in a way that works for me," she said.

"I think it's just a different way in which you can learn to be an independent learner. You can go at your own pace."

Catholic private school Chevalier College has just finished its first term of flexible learning.

So far, more than 100 senior students have opted in to the trial which gives students greater flexibility in their timetables.

The new schedule is also working for Sheridan's mother Laura.

"We have had a very good experience and Sheridan has actually really blossomed, in a way," she said.

"Isn't it great to have kids leaving the school that can already hit the ground running and can actually embrace hybrid working, or hybrid studying?"

Students not 'spoon-fed'

When the school announced the change last year,  parents were worried their child's education would suffer and some even pulled their kids out of the school. 

"It's not a four day week," Sheridan said.

"On the Monday you still get allocated work that you have to do. There's still set work."

Chevalier College assistant principal Rebecca Graham said part of the challenge has been explaining the goals of the program.

"Schools like ours often have quite a big dropout rate once kids get to university," she said.

"[Students] have been spoon fed, and they haven't had to be self-directed."

The school has been conducting surveys of students to learn how they are adapting to the new schedule.

The positive responses have helped win over some of the sceptical parents.

"The first survey results when we sat down and had a look at it were actually far more positive than what we anticipated," Ms Graham said.

"It is not perfect at the moment, but we certainly know that the balance that kids are finding in the day is a positive one.

"[Parents'] big question is 'why? Why are we doing this?' And I think once our students and our parents understand the why, they have really come on board."

The flexibility has also given teachers like Louise Glase more time to help her students and plan lessons.

"I have been able to, on my Mondays, co-plan with colleagues. I have been able to have time to myself to actually do core business," Ms Glase said.

"I think it's exciting to be part of a possible solution, to actually see that there are potential ways for us to use our time in a better way."

Face-to-face schooling not yielding results

Remote learning is not a new concept for Australian school students who were forced off campus during COVID lockdowns.

Education expert from the University of Melbourne, Pasi Sahlberg, said since then only a few schools have kept that flexibility.

"I think, unfortunately, most schools probably are returning back to where we were before COVID when it comes to the flexibility and how the school is organised, and what it looks like," he said.

It is difficult to say how many schools in the country have adopted flexibility into their curriculum, Professor Sahlberg said, as the data is not collected.

Australian kids spend more time in the classroom than kids in any other OECD country, but there is growing evidence this does not lead to better results.

"The research evidence is very clear that the instruction time — in other words how long children spend in schools — has very little to do with the actual quality of the learning outcomes," Professor Sahlberg said.

Professor Sahlberg has compared instruction time in Australian schools to the performance of students on international tests and found a negative correlation.

"It is evidence that not only does more face-to-face schooling not improve educational outcomes for students, it also actively might make them worse," he said.

Chevalier College is currently conducting its own research project on the trial and will decide whether to adopt flexible learning permanently at the end of the year.

The NSW Department of Education has no plans to introduce a four-day school week in public schools.

"Individual NSW public schools have flexibility to vary their starting and finishing times, in consultation with parents and carers," a spokesperson said.

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More School Workers Qualify for Overtime Under New Rule. Teachers Remain Exempt

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School districts will be required to offer overtime pay to more employees under a federal rule finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday, but teachers will remain exempt from the regulation.

The agency did not act on a request from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, to end exemptions for teachers, who are currently included in the categories of employees that do not qualify for mandatory overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Labor Department said that the request was outside of the scope of the current review.

Such a change “ would have been groundbreaking in terms of what it would mean to district budgets because we all know teachers work more than 40 hours,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng, the associate executive director of advocacy and governance at AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

The new rule raises the minimum salary threshold for non-teaching worker exemptions. Since 2019, eligible employees who earn less than $35,308 a year have qualified for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week. Effective July 1, the new rule will increase that salary maximum level to $43,888, and it will increase again to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. Salary thresholds will update every three years starting in July 2027, relying on new federal data on average wages, the Labor Department said.

“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” said Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in a statement.

While teachers and school administrators are exempt from the federal overtime rule, the change will lead to increased overtime costs for some district employees, like school nurses, athletic trainers, and librarians, school administrator groups previously warned. And it could increase the burden of recordkeeping and tracking hours for more employees, those organizations said.

AASA has been preparing district leaders for the shift for months, Ng said Tuesday. In some cases, districts will have to make the choice about whether to offer newly qualifying employees overtime or to hire additional employees to help lower their workloads, she said.

The Texas School Boards Association suggested in a September member advisory that it may be easier for school districts to avoid overtime by raising some employees’ pay to a level above the salary threshold if their current compensation falls slightly below the proposed cutoff.

“These are significant changes that will have a massive impact on the economy and millions of current and future workers,” said a September letter from 107 organizations representing a variety of industries, including AASA, the Association of School Business Officials International, the Association of Educational Service Agencies, and the National Association for Pupil Transportation.

The Labor Department estimates about 4 million employees will newly qualify for overtime after the rule fully takes effect.

Teachers not affected by new overtime rule

The Labor Department noted a flood of comments calling for the agency to remove the teacher exemption from the overtime rules. But the agency said it would require a separate rulemaking process to consider such a change.

The NEA argued for the change in a November letter to federal regulators.

“It no longer makes sense to treat teachers, 44 percent of whom are paid below the proposed salary threshold, the same as high-earning doctors and lawyers,” wrote Alice O’Brien, the general counsel for the NEA. “Instead, teachers, a heavily female profession that suffers from a large and growing wage gap compared with other similarly educated professionals, should be provided the same protections as other white-collar professionals whose exempt status depends not just on job duties, but also on salary.”

Doctors and lawyers are also among the employees exempt from mandatory overtime under the law, but tend to be much more highly paid than educators. Last year, the median salary for doctors was $229,300, and the median salary for lawyers was $135,740, the NEA’s letter noted. The median pay for teachers was $66,397.

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