It’s ridiculous, homework is an important part of early independent education, without it you lose that early reinforcement of the importance of studying outside of the classroom
Its long overdue. Homework is unnecessary and puts a huge strain on family time and kids ability to explore things outside of school.
I assume this was during the interview by kids for News2day? In which case I would have taken it as a tongue-in-cheek remark, not a serious proposal.
Down with homework- Bart Simpsons T-shirt
Wasn’t this posted here a couple hours ago?
I think its a good idea. We shouldn’t be teaching kids to take work home with them so to speak.
Pointless. Homework is pointless.
The average Joe/Mary is being far too enlightened, can’t be having that!
I’ve been living in the states for a good while. My child has been going to a school that doesn’t give out homework. The curriculum is heavy stem-based, with a focus on project and group work. I’ve seen very little ‘learning by rote’, most essays and assignment seem to encourage critical thinking. There is time assigned during the week to finish assignments during school hours.
The kids even run their own parent-teacher meetings. Identifying where they need to improve and how.
We took a leap of faith putting her in there a few years ago ( the school was a new concept ), but she was consistently bored at, and disliked going to, her old school. We figured we couldn’t do much damage at that age to try it for a year. She’s flourishing in this one and the school tests pretty high across equivalent schools academically.
She will soon be heading to high school, and will likely have a heavier workload, but academically she’s right where she should be for her age, and still looks forward to school every day.
I was extremely skeptical of the ‘No homework’ thing, but I’m a convert, at least in primary ages. I will say it’s not the only thing that could be looked at – repetitiveness is hell for kids at that age.
I’m just here trying to click next on this static image like an ejit.
To me, there’s a difference between homework and study.
Homework is such an old fashioned idea imo. It’s one of many things I think needs to be reformed in Irish schools.
Is this for primary or secondary?
I think this might actually work against some kids, and I’d include myself when I was in school. Some kids just don’t learn much in the classroom compared to others, but will learn plenty at home on their own.
I can’t really remember for primary but in secondary I learned far more in the couple of hours at my desk in the evening than I did in school. That was partly due to some teachers being crap (most were good) but more so due to me just not being able to concentrate on what they were saying or being distracted by others around.
There’s a book about Introversion by Susan Cain where she talks about some studies done on introverts vs extroverted kids, and it seems the classroom is often a complete waste on introverts, who just can’t learn in a room full of people. But often do very well on their own at home.
I found this in college as well, I learned so much less in lectures than I did on my own
Down with homework
Such decisions should be informed by science not by an opinion.
I agree with him.
It’s probably not a good idea to get rid of homework and leave everything else as it is now, but ABSOLUTELY agree that homework is a very bad idea and should be banned.
I went to a Steiner primary school in the Netherlands where we never had homework – and this is 30 years ago. It’s not a new idea. I loved it.
I would occasionally mess with math problems (I mean… primary school level math problems, I’m no prodigy) at home because I was genuinely interested, but would spend most of my primary school time just playing.
I think the idea that the more time kids under ~14 spend in school the better, is just fundamentally wrong. But that seems to be the norm for now.
100 % agree with him ..Especially in primary school
I’d be happy if all they had to do was reading, spellings and tables. The written work can be done in school before they come home.
In most cases, too little thought goes into the type of homework given and the desired effect. It ends up often being ‘busy work’ that ultimately won’t lead to learning and can even have a negative effect on a student’s motivation in school and attitude towards school. For this reason alone, I’d be inclined to get rid of homework; certainly for primary school aged children.
That being said, as a teacher, I also know that those students who regularly complete homework regularly and to a good standard will generally do better academically over the course of their school lives. It’s likely this is a correlation rather than causation, however, as parents who are more invested in their children’s schooling (please read to your children and talk to them every day about a range of topics and interests) is almost certainly a bigger factor than homework completion.
Things are different in secondary school. Terminal examinations have such huge implications across all aspects of teaching and learning and narrow, prescribed content lends itself to study, homework, rote learning etc. The system is very slow to change and it will take a lot of willingness to think outside the box on the part of universities and the admissions process for any real and meaningful change to occur.
I have no kids but i see homework like Adults working a full day and then going home in the evening to do more work. Let them enjoy their childhood surely there’s enough time in school to do what is needed. Except on exam years you would probably need to put more effort in during the evening.
I can’t remember the stats but the probably of remembering something goes up hugely if you go over it twice with a gap of a few hours in between. I think it’s over double. Homework is probably the most effective use of time you can have for learning. You’d be much better off cutting an hour off school than you would cutting out homework
Opinions are best left to people educated properly on the matters of childhood development and education.
Is there merit in it? Probably, if he’s asking for it, he tends not to be flippant, he reads up before he talks
Realistically, If I didn’t have the homework I’d definitely have just come home and played 6 hours of PlayStation and gone to bed. I always had to do my homework and I think looking back it was a net positive. (My opinion)
I definitely agree that some change is necessary. My memory of homework is something that I had to wearily face into in the evenings after a long day of school and maybe training as well. I went through phases of being pretty wrecked all the time and ended up not really paying full attention in school.
I do think reinforcement is an important part of the learning process so just taking our current system minus homework would be tricky. Personally I think a broader choice of subjects but with students studying fewer subjects concurrently is the direction to go. It would hopefully prevent that situation of students sitting in a class that they have absolutely no interest in and will never use in the future. It would also free up some time in the schedule so kids could do more traditional class in the morning and then practical work and exercises in the early afternoon.
It’s actually an ongoing discussion now within the board of education. The current ‘answer’ is to drop all homework, and extend the school day by one hour.
Hooray for Micky D!
A secondary school equivalent teacher in either Switzerland or Sweden (might be wrong about the country) taught history, stopped giving homework to students and saw massive improvements in the students performances in exams and how happy and attentive they were. I’ll try find the article. But I remember we got very very little homework in Business and the dumb fuckers like me actually got B’s and A’s in the leaving cert.
I’m a primary teacher and I say ban it. We have to give it as it’s school policy and the parents give out when there’s not enough homework. They seem to equate lots of homework=good teacher.
I think a project every two weeks for the senior classes and reading for the juniors would be more than enough and probably enjoyable for them.
I think homework is just an essential part of the learning process unfortunately
My own 2 cents’ worth: just getting rid of homework for children, without changing anything else, will lead to a dumber adult population. The entire rote learning approach should be reviewed.
What they do in areas where they’ve stopped giving homework, is they still give after school work, but they run programs in the school where the teachers can help kids with their work.
It helps level the playing field as some kids are coming home to a parent who helps with homework, while others come back to an empty house and/or other issues.
Tbh I was way ahead of the curve. I didn’t do any homework anyway.
I agree. It’s nothing but a burden for kids, it’s one thing to study outside school for exams, but I remember carrying entire fucking library on my back going home. It’s cruel expecting kids to spend all day in school and come home and do more school work. Not to mention kids like myself and many others also had chores. These are the most important years of your life in terms of learning, growing, socialising etc. My anxiety about failing school is probably why I’m so fucked up with social anxiety now. I spent too much time of my youth missing out on socialising and forming friendships, because I was panicking about failing school or doing bad in school.
And the worst part is it was all for nothing, I couldn’t afford university in the end, so end up doing a PLC course instead that I flunked out and now like most millennials, I’m stuck in a dead end job just to be able to survive and pay the bills.
I wholeheartedly agree, for primary school anyway
Great idea. Way too much pressure on kids. Should be more focus on being active.
For primary schools, yes please ban it! Homework is a huge cause of stress in our house because it interrupts play and creativity time. It does help me to gauge where the struggles are, but there could be other ways to do that. Kids are so full of energy, I believe it’s far healthier for them to be outside playing after school rather than grudgingly counting buttons.
Based as fuck
Scrap exams deciding futures at 17 next.
Teacher here. It’s absolutely pointless. Total waste of family time.
And for the Arkenstone to be given back to the dwarfs
Based. Homework is pointless and a huge waste of time. The school day is long enough
Where was he when I was in school :O AWOOOGAH
I think banning homework over a certain amount of time, but it’s really important to practice maths, I was bad at maths and practicing helped.
However, I remember being 9 years of age and having hours and hours of homework and crying because it was too much and when we collectively told the teacher it took us hours she gave us more
I think kids should have homework that’s manageable and productive.
IF WE HAD TO SUFFER SO MUST THE CHILDER!!!
I can see the reasoning, but personally, I didn’t understand complex math problems until I broke them down and understood them via homework. There often wasn’t enough time in class to let things sink in. This is also down to concentration levels at school. When you put a little bit of pressure on yourself to understand something in your own time, then I think it is more rewarding and more intuitive thereafter.
As a teacher and I’ll mirror some of the points mentioned below, this would be a good idea but the whole system would have to change. There is too much pressure put on end of year exams and secondary level and so much so rote learning is the best method to achieve success in that system.
They tried to add continuous assessment into the junior cert with each subject having two official classroom based assessments but ultimately the effort was half assed and the focus still lies on the exam.
On a side note, on top of half assing the continious assessment they made evey exam common level getting rid of higher and ordinary level at junior cycle. Sounds good in principal but is ultimately a failure. Common level is higher level in disguise which means students who would have achieved success at ordinary level are left at a severe disadvantage.
No amount of rote learning will help these students as the reading, numeracy and comprehension level required in the exam is just too high for ordinary level students to show what they know. The system needs to be adjusted majorly but the reforms they have put in place have been lacking and future reforms will likely follow the same path.
Make school an hour longer and have individual work for that hour.
Problem solved.
I do think having to know how to do the work without anyone else there is an important part of learning and many wont do optional study at home.
I belive that primary school level that it’s a great idea to let the students be kids.
48 comments
It’s ridiculous, homework is an important part of early independent education, without it you lose that early reinforcement of the importance of studying outside of the classroom
Its long overdue. Homework is unnecessary and puts a huge strain on family time and kids ability to explore things outside of school.
I assume this was during the interview by kids for News2day? In which case I would have taken it as a tongue-in-cheek remark, not a serious proposal.
Down with homework- Bart Simpsons T-shirt
Wasn’t this posted here a couple hours ago?
I think its a good idea. We shouldn’t be teaching kids to take work home with them so to speak.
Pointless. Homework is pointless.
The average Joe/Mary is being far too enlightened, can’t be having that!
I’ve been living in the states for a good while. My child has been going to a school that doesn’t give out homework. The curriculum is heavy stem-based, with a focus on project and group work. I’ve seen very little ‘learning by rote’, most essays and assignment seem to encourage critical thinking. There is time assigned during the week to finish assignments during school hours.
The kids even run their own parent-teacher meetings. Identifying where they need to improve and how.
We took a leap of faith putting her in there a few years ago ( the school was a new concept ), but she was consistently bored at, and disliked going to, her old school. We figured we couldn’t do much damage at that age to try it for a year. She’s flourishing in this one and the school tests pretty high across equivalent schools academically.
She will soon be heading to high school, and will likely have a heavier workload, but academically she’s right where she should be for her age, and still looks forward to school every day.
I was extremely skeptical of the ‘No homework’ thing, but I’m a convert, at least in primary ages. I will say it’s not the only thing that could be looked at – repetitiveness is hell for kids at that age.
I’m just here trying to click next on this static image like an ejit.
To me, there’s a difference between homework and study.
Homework is such an old fashioned idea imo. It’s one of many things I think needs to be reformed in Irish schools.
Is this for primary or secondary?
I think this might actually work against some kids, and I’d include myself when I was in school. Some kids just don’t learn much in the classroom compared to others, but will learn plenty at home on their own.
I can’t really remember for primary but in secondary I learned far more in the couple of hours at my desk in the evening than I did in school. That was partly due to some teachers being crap (most were good) but more so due to me just not being able to concentrate on what they were saying or being distracted by others around.
There’s a book about Introversion by Susan Cain where she talks about some studies done on introverts vs extroverted kids, and it seems the classroom is often a complete waste on introverts, who just can’t learn in a room full of people. But often do very well on their own at home.
I found this in college as well, I learned so much less in lectures than I did on my own
Down with homework
Such decisions should be informed by science not by an opinion.
I agree with him.
It’s probably not a good idea to get rid of homework and leave everything else as it is now, but ABSOLUTELY agree that homework is a very bad idea and should be banned.
I went to a Steiner primary school in the Netherlands where we never had homework – and this is 30 years ago. It’s not a new idea. I loved it.
I would occasionally mess with math problems (I mean… primary school level math problems, I’m no prodigy) at home because I was genuinely interested, but would spend most of my primary school time just playing.
I think the idea that the more time kids under ~14 spend in school the better, is just fundamentally wrong. But that seems to be the norm for now.
100 % agree with him ..Especially in primary school
I’d be happy if all they had to do was reading, spellings and tables. The written work can be done in school before they come home.
In most cases, too little thought goes into the type of homework given and the desired effect. It ends up often being ‘busy work’ that ultimately won’t lead to learning and can even have a negative effect on a student’s motivation in school and attitude towards school. For this reason alone, I’d be inclined to get rid of homework; certainly for primary school aged children.
That being said, as a teacher, I also know that those students who regularly complete homework regularly and to a good standard will generally do better academically over the course of their school lives. It’s likely this is a correlation rather than causation, however, as parents who are more invested in their children’s schooling (please read to your children and talk to them every day about a range of topics and interests) is almost certainly a bigger factor than homework completion.
Things are different in secondary school. Terminal examinations have such huge implications across all aspects of teaching and learning and narrow, prescribed content lends itself to study, homework, rote learning etc. The system is very slow to change and it will take a lot of willingness to think outside the box on the part of universities and the admissions process for any real and meaningful change to occur.
I have no kids but i see homework like Adults working a full day and then going home in the evening to do more work. Let them enjoy their childhood surely there’s enough time in school to do what is needed. Except on exam years you would probably need to put more effort in during the evening.
I can’t remember the stats but the probably of remembering something goes up hugely if you go over it twice with a gap of a few hours in between. I think it’s over double. Homework is probably the most effective use of time you can have for learning. You’d be much better off cutting an hour off school than you would cutting out homework
Opinions are best left to people educated properly on the matters of childhood development and education.
Is there merit in it? Probably, if he’s asking for it, he tends not to be flippant, he reads up before he talks
Realistically, If I didn’t have the homework I’d definitely have just come home and played 6 hours of PlayStation and gone to bed. I always had to do my homework and I think looking back it was a net positive. (My opinion)
I definitely agree that some change is necessary. My memory of homework is something that I had to wearily face into in the evenings after a long day of school and maybe training as well. I went through phases of being pretty wrecked all the time and ended up not really paying full attention in school.
I do think reinforcement is an important part of the learning process so just taking our current system minus homework would be tricky. Personally I think a broader choice of subjects but with students studying fewer subjects concurrently is the direction to go. It would hopefully prevent that situation of students sitting in a class that they have absolutely no interest in and will never use in the future. It would also free up some time in the schedule so kids could do more traditional class in the morning and then practical work and exercises in the early afternoon.
It’s actually an ongoing discussion now within the board of education. The current ‘answer’ is to drop all homework, and extend the school day by one hour.
Hooray for Micky D!
A secondary school equivalent teacher in either Switzerland or Sweden (might be wrong about the country) taught history, stopped giving homework to students and saw massive improvements in the students performances in exams and how happy and attentive they were. I’ll try find the article. But I remember we got very very little homework in Business and the dumb fuckers like me actually got B’s and A’s in the leaving cert.
I’m a primary teacher and I say ban it. We have to give it as it’s school policy and the parents give out when there’s not enough homework. They seem to equate lots of homework=good teacher.
I think a project every two weeks for the senior classes and reading for the juniors would be more than enough and probably enjoyable for them.
I think homework is just an essential part of the learning process unfortunately
My own 2 cents’ worth: just getting rid of homework for children, without changing anything else, will lead to a dumber adult population. The entire rote learning approach should be reviewed.
What they do in areas where they’ve stopped giving homework, is they still give after school work, but they run programs in the school where the teachers can help kids with their work.
It helps level the playing field as some kids are coming home to a parent who helps with homework, while others come back to an empty house and/or other issues.
Tbh I was way ahead of the curve. I didn’t do any homework anyway.
I agree. It’s nothing but a burden for kids, it’s one thing to study outside school for exams, but I remember carrying entire fucking library on my back going home. It’s cruel expecting kids to spend all day in school and come home and do more school work. Not to mention kids like myself and many others also had chores. These are the most important years of your life in terms of learning, growing, socialising etc. My anxiety about failing school is probably why I’m so fucked up with social anxiety now. I spent too much time of my youth missing out on socialising and forming friendships, because I was panicking about failing school or doing bad in school.
And the worst part is it was all for nothing, I couldn’t afford university in the end, so end up doing a PLC course instead that I flunked out and now like most millennials, I’m stuck in a dead end job just to be able to survive and pay the bills.
I wholeheartedly agree, for primary school anyway
Great idea. Way too much pressure on kids. Should be more focus on being active.
For primary schools, yes please ban it! Homework is a huge cause of stress in our house because it interrupts play and creativity time. It does help me to gauge where the struggles are, but there could be other ways to do that. Kids are so full of energy, I believe it’s far healthier for them to be outside playing after school rather than grudgingly counting buttons.
Based as fuck
Scrap exams deciding futures at 17 next.
Teacher here. It’s absolutely pointless. Total waste of family time.
And for the Arkenstone to be given back to the dwarfs
Based. Homework is pointless and a huge waste of time. The school day is long enough
Where was he when I was in school :O AWOOOGAH
I think banning homework over a certain amount of time, but it’s really important to practice maths, I was bad at maths and practicing helped.
However, I remember being 9 years of age and having hours and hours of homework and crying because it was too much and when we collectively told the teacher it took us hours she gave us more
I think kids should have homework that’s manageable and productive.
IF WE HAD TO SUFFER SO MUST THE CHILDER!!!
I can see the reasoning, but personally, I didn’t understand complex math problems until I broke them down and understood them via homework. There often wasn’t enough time in class to let things sink in. This is also down to concentration levels at school. When you put a little bit of pressure on yourself to understand something in your own time, then I think it is more rewarding and more intuitive thereafter.
As a teacher and I’ll mirror some of the points mentioned below, this would be a good idea but the whole system would have to change. There is too much pressure put on end of year exams and secondary level and so much so rote learning is the best method to achieve success in that system.
They tried to add continuous assessment into the junior cert with each subject having two official classroom based assessments but ultimately the effort was half assed and the focus still lies on the exam.
On a side note, on top of half assing the continious assessment they made evey exam common level getting rid of higher and ordinary level at junior cycle. Sounds good in principal but is ultimately a failure. Common level is higher level in disguise which means students who would have achieved success at ordinary level are left at a severe disadvantage.
No amount of rote learning will help these students as the reading, numeracy and comprehension level required in the exam is just too high for ordinary level students to show what they know. The system needs to be adjusted majorly but the reforms they have put in place have been lacking and future reforms will likely follow the same path.
Make school an hour longer and have individual work for that hour.
Problem solved.
I do think having to know how to do the work without anyone else there is an important part of learning and many wont do optional study at home.
I belive that primary school level that it’s a great idea to let the students be kids.