Sunday 28 October 2012

Homework...

Homework in our school is becoming a bit of an issue / debate.  Whether we set too much or too little, whether it is actually useful and whether it gets marked at all.  One of my PM objectives that I have set this year is to evaluate our faculties use of homework and to develop a new policy which both enables students to continue to learn outside the classroom but allows for differentiation and no adverse affect on teachers workloads! Maybe an impossible dream.

Anyway, this post is more about my initial thoughts about homework and why we set it at all.

If asked now, whether I think homework is useful I would probably say no. It is percieved negatively by students, I get fed up trying to chase homework not done and trying to set homework that is useful for say the next lesson is always dangerous qs you can guarantee that some wont have done it.  I think to often it is seen by both staff and students as a bolt on, not an essential part of learning - esp at ks3 and ks4. So, do we need it?

Increasingly I am thinking yes. If only to foster some independent learning skills and commitment that is needed at ks5.  However, it does, at least in my experience and use at the moment need a change. And that is my main reason for focussing on this for a PM target.  My aim next term is to assess what students think and to also trial some ideas from the ukedchat on thursday.  Specifically I am going to try and get kids to choose thier own homework from a list - see if letting them choose an area might encourage them to actually do it.

I am also going to investigate the idea of a learning log for students to encourage them to think about what they are doing and why.  Hopefully this will have a positive effect and try to change the perception of homework being a negative part of school.  We shall see

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