http://www.independent.co.uk/news/educa ... 12716.html

I can't even start about how ridiculous this idea is.

I don't see the point in homework. I spent four years teaching, and the wife has been teaching for fifteen years, give or take, and we both say that if you can't teach what is required during the lesson you're not doing it right.

Homework is utterly pointless by definition. If you could do the homework, you didn't need to. If you couldn't, you needed to.

Also, how come we're telling adults not to take their work home but are forcing children to do the same?

And then there are the children who simply cannot do homework at home, do the fact that their residence can in no way be accurately referred to as a "home"

I refused to do homework when I was at school and I refused to set any when I was a trainee. It's total bollocks.

I'm not convinced - at my employment we're facing a decline in teaching hours available to deliver the material in. This necessarily means a drop in the student's experience, being more dictatorial in your delivery and actually lessening the effectiveness of the education.
By setting tasks to be completed outside the class in preparation for the next session, well, it's a necessary evil. In fact, given that a lot of my stuff is necessarily impossible to achieve in the class room, I would expect my students to be working under their own steam at home.



It's 10pm, more or less, and I've got 6 students work in front of me waiting to be marked ready for the morning. I've been at work for 11.5 hours, and I don't really get the time or space to do it at work. This means I won't get to the rejigging of the scheme of work for the unit I'm delivering, due to having to hand over 2 out of the 3 hours class time I get with them to catch up sessions - because guess what?
Less teaching hours on the previous unit has meant that they've failed to meet outcomes.
Which means they need to catch up, because they're incapable/refuse/aren't motivated to do it outside of the class.

It'd be nice if the reality was that we're given the hours to deliver the material, but we're not. Just as the time we get in work means we have to work at home.
That's the reality.
If you don't the home work for my class, you'll probably fail.

i am going to get an ear bashing for this, but whatever ...

if homework has to be given as the amount of study time required for that subject can not be completed within the school day/week/term/year then the curriculum is wrong
and if teachers have to do a 12 hour + day and then still have to complete that work out of hours at home the system is wrong

i would never do that amount of hours for any employer, my own business yes and have done, but not for any employer regardless ...

They are throwing homework at primary school kids. It‘s not a teacher’s choice. There are requirements from higher up that homework is set (in 2012 the government lifted the requirement for homework to be set - it‘s up to the head’s and I guess governors’ discretion - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17250653). My wife’s school has what they call “homework club” - which means that a teacher has to spend lunch breaks watching over children doing homework instead of doing things like eating their lunch.

Homework is seen as “part of school life” - it’s more of a tradition buried in dogma than it is a necessity. As MrStevenRogers says - if it’s causing teachers to sacrifice down time to handle it, then the system is broken.

Er.. if they're doing it in school, by definition it's not "homework". It's just "more work".

Jon

i now start to see the relationship with performance based targets within the education system
"just anther brick in the wall"

it would look like that any individual that abided by their contract would be 'graded' as under performing
but those that embraced the 'new' system would be granted the right to continued employment

management at its best, get the most for the less, contracts don’t count ...

Yeah, because outsourcing call centres to India resulted in an increase in quality...... Oh wait....