Written by: James Biddulph • January 1, 2013• Educational Excellence

Home Learning: The Avanti Court Way – Part 1

At Avanti Court, we aim for children to experience learning that is relevant to their lives, to develop learning and questioning skills and to deepen motivation, understanding and personal insight, through a curriculum that is engaging, broad, flexible and challenging so that they can build on their own talents, aptitudes and skills.

We want children to be:

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Questioners
Debaters
Critical thinkers
Compassionate listeners
Thoughtful and responsible leaders
Interested and engaged readers
Confident performers
Keen lifelong learners

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We have drawn on research about how best to instil a love of learning in children so that they are positive and reflective, with an attitude that learning requires effort and that through effort you can achieve. Traditional ‘worksheet’ homework does not raise standards. Two large works on homework are from Professor Susan Hallam (Institute of Education, Univeristy of London) and The Sutton Trust Research Group. We looked at the research to see what homework – which we call ‘Home Learning’ – achieves… or not.

Research questions the benefit of homework

(Excerpt from a Guardian article)

Homework can cause family friction, particularly when middle-class parents pressure their children to succeed, according to a report published by London University’s Institute of Education. And the benefits of homework are often negligible, concludes Susan Hallam in her review of 75 years’ worth of studies into homework. The issue has been causing controversy for generations in the US, Europe, Australia, the Far and Middle East, as well as the UK. [quote float=”left”]At home, rows about homework can damage the parent-child relationship and outweigh any educational advantage[/quote] Dr Hallam urges schools to focus on the purpose and quality of homework, not the amount, and makes a case for homework being done in out-of-hours school clubs rather than at home. At home, rows about homework can damage the parent-child relationship and outweigh any educational advantage, she says.

“Homework can also create anxiety, boredom, fatigue and emotional exhaustion in children, who resent the encroachment on their free-time, even though they think homework helps them do well at school,” believes Dr Hallam.

Her book, Homework: the Evidence, finds that family rows can lead to homework being deliberately not completed. “Parental help may also develop dependency or helplessness in the child.”

She adds: “Parents have the most positive influence when they offer moral support, make appropriate resources available and discuss general issues. They should only actually help with homework when their children specifically ask them to.”

[quote float=”right”]Homework can boost achievement, but only when set in moderate amounts[/quote]

Dr Hallam feels the evidence points to the effectiveness of homework clubs, which give children the benefits without the rows at home: “Children feel [clubs] make homework more enjoyable and give them a better chance of passing exams.

“They provide a suitable learning environment with appropriate resources and adult help if necessary, and they take the pressure off the parents. They may assist in raising standards for those who need extra support or who find it difficult to do homework at home. As such they help to bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots,” she says.

Homework can boost achievement, but only when set in moderate amounts, argues Dr Hallam. She says the government’s guidance of one hour a week for five to seven-year-olds, rising to two and a half hours a day for GCSE students, is untested. Dr Hallam asserts that the overall contribution that homework makes to school achievement is small compared with prior knowledge, the time spent on task, good attendance at school, motivation and self-confidence.