A LOCAL education expert has backed the findings of a Victorian Parliament report which states that homework has almost no academic benefits for primary school students.
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The report called for schools to scale back on homework to allow young children more time to focus on other extra-curricular activities and interests.
Bathurst’s Kip McGrath Education Centre head teacher Louise Lonergan agreed that the time spent on homework would be better spent on free play and unstructured activities which develop a child’s imagination and creativity.
“It helps them unwind after a day of instruction and structure,” she said. “There is definitely a need for little bits of homework, but teachers have to think about what they want to achieve through homework. Five or 10 minutes will enforce learning.”
Ms Lonergan said she saw children who were faced with homework on topics they hadn’t tackled in class.
“I think that defeats the purpose,” she said. “We get a lot of kids who can’t do the homework because they haven’t done the work at school.
“Some students bring their homework in. We do work with some of them because we can see it is causing them so much anxiety, however, with others we try not to because our job is to catch them up with their schoolwork. We try not to be a homework centre,” she said.
However, Ms Lonergan said she really feels for parents because of the time required to supervise homework. She said parents worked hard all day and had to take their children to after school activities.
“By the time they have done all that and had dinner both kids and parents are exhausted,” she said.
Ms Lonergan said it is recommended that kids do no more than two after school activities per term.
“Anything beyond that completely exhausts the child,” she said.
Associate professor Dr Jane Mitchell from Charles Sturt University’s School of Teacher Education said she found the report really interesting.
“My view is that a student is at school for five hours a day. That’s quite a lot of time,” she said.
“If class time is used productively, I must question whether homework can be of use when there are a whole raft of other activities students can do. If younger students are learning effectively in school, that can be sufficient.”
Dr Mitchell said without feedback, the benefits could be lost.
“Teachers need to review any homework done and see whether it is understood,” she said. “The nature of the homework is really important.”
