Should Homework be Banned?

Aaaahh, homework: one of the great dividers between students, teachers, parents and policymakers.

Does homework still have a place in education? Has it ever had a place? Do we need to redress how we approach homework, or is it time to simply eradicate it?

Poland hit the headlines in April of this year, banning compulsory homework for children aged seven to nine, declaring that homework for 9 to 14 year olds is optional and won’t count towards a grade [1].

These strict limits on homework have been set as a way to improve the education system in the country. Barbara Nowacka, Education Minister, commented: "When I read research regarding the mental health of children, their overload with learning, the reasons of depression, of tensions, stress, or loss of interest in learning, one of the factors, the one that could be removed fastest, was the burden of homework." 

With politicians in California having voted through a bill to reduce after-school assignments ‘in an attempt to combat stress among pupils and parents’, the debate around homework is gaining fresh momentum.

What is homework actually for? 

Very simply put, homework is primarily intended to improve the academic attainment of students, though approaches and expectations for homework differ significantly both within the UK and around the world.​ In China, for example, students are set an average of 14 hours of homework per week, yet in the UK that figure is closer to 5 hours.

Worthy of note is that UK schools are not legally required to set homework, with school leaders responsible for their own homework policies, and as such homework is no longer mentioned in Ofsted’s new inspection framework.

However, many UK schools do follow the Department of Education (DfE) guidelines for how homework should be conducted which include logical and sensible suggestions such as emphasising quality over quantity, the need for relevance, that feedback should be regular and of high quality and that students ‘should not spend too much time on homework’.

With no legal stipulation, however, homework at KS4/5 can therefore range from zero hours per week (the exception) to between 60 and 120 minutes per day - or in some cases even more. 

The benefits of homework

Mastery takes dedication and lots of practice. Some argue that homework helps students develop good habits, routines, motivation and self-discipline and that - if set correctly - can provide teachers with valuable insights to direct their teaching. 

A 2015 research paper for the American Psychology Association [2] concluded that students performed significantly better when they were set regular homework by their teacher, compared to those who only had homework set occasionally, and that students who spent 90 - 110 minutes a day doing homework got the highest grades on average. Homework, it suggests, can therefore be a useful part of students' and teachers' lives, improving the depth and breadth of comprehension of studies.

The charity Education Endowment Foundation also states that homework in primary school can help children learn important skills, help get ready for tests and improve the connection between home and school [3]. It is also suggested that homework can be an excellent tool with which to provide opportunities for students to extend their research and learning, practice skills and further explore ideas that the syllabus and physical constraints of the classroom don’t always allow.

The article goes on to cite that the positive correlation of homework and knowledge continue to be proven in stats, with ‘the principle conclusion being that the frequency of homework assignments has statistical significance both in mathematics and science’. So far, so good.

The drawbacks of homework

In a society that is perhaps more aware of mental health than any other that has gone before, great consideration must be given to the impact of homework on children; stress, sleep deprivation and a lack of healthy work-life balance - including quality time alone just ‘being’, or time with friends and family - have all been cited as valid anti-homework arguments, and indeed form much of Poland’s reasoning to abolish homework.

Often taking hours of focus at the end of a tiring day, the danger is that the joy of an evening or weekend is significantly tainted - or perhaps even entirely eroded - with the prospect of having to complete homework.

This consideration becomes even more significant when we consider that older students, the likes of which we tutor here on the Sherpa platform, are of an age in which they may well have part-time jobs, or perhaps their own entrepreneurial side-hustle, as they put money aside for driving lessons, socialising, paying rent or for upcoming University fees, to name but a few.

To make matters more complex, the expectation for all students to complete homework can be unrealistic given their varied home environments and access to resources. Many schools try to mitigate against this by offering after-school homework clubs, but to many, this can feel like nothing more than a painful extension to an already long school day.

Parents have also expressed their overwhelm as they juggle between different children on different devices, often being asked to assist with topics they are not able to help with. 

Is time to play more important than time to work?

“While not always easy to do, finding the time to take a break from the pressures of everyday life can help to lift our mood, by boosting our confidence and making us feel more engaged and resilient.” [4]

Within this homework debate, it is of vital importance to remember that children need the time, space and energy to be children: this includes socialising, exploring and being out in nature, time for sports, arts and crafts, exercise and hobbies and time to do nothing and to simply ‘be’: with constant distractions of screens and seemingly endless demands on their time, being a teenager is difficult enough to navigate at the best of times.

Moreover, in an education system that continues to place emphasis on core subjects - English, Maths and Science - not only in the school day but also very often with greater homework assigned to these subjects - the arts find themselves falling by the wayside. Yet expression and creativity are of utmost importance.

Research consolidated by Health in Mind found that ‘Expressive arts, such as writing, music, dance, drama and other visual arts, promote deep individual and social development, lowering stress hormones while raising endorphin and dopamine levels in the brain’ [5]. I often wonder just how many opportunities we do give young people to ‘take a break’ and enjoy their precious yet fleeting childhood…

Do we need to think differently about homework?

 To quote Simon Lewis, Primary school principal, podcaster and poet:

“Research and lots of educational experts are pointing towards a need for homework that is more tailored to individual kids - something that sparks their interest and meets their learning needs. Perhaps it’s not about scrapping homework completely, but rather making it something that really contributes to their learning” [6]

Shifting the emphasis of homework away from screens and textbooks to one of practical application and contextualised individual experience certainly sounds great. However, this in itself would need to be carefully managed so as to avoid it becoming overly complex and time-consuming for teachers to both set and meaningfully evaluate. As a teacher of over two decades, I know only too well that tightrope of wanting to give my all for my students, whilst also needing to look after my health and energy: I can understand the temptation to give generic homework that can be peer-marked by the students the following day... 

I do, however, believe there to be a happy medium in all of this: I suggest a non-compulsory homework approach that doesn't count towards grades and that the student will not be penalized for not submitting. Adopting such an approach to homework places the responsibility to do - or to not do - in the hands of the students. The benefits of this approach could include:

• Flexibility for the student to opt in and out of homework depending upon other demands and commitments, this having greater autonomy over their well-being and time management
• Flexibility to attend to the homework that they feel is of most relevance to them
• The ability for the student to discern through lived experience the impact that their homework (or lack of) is having 
• Greater work-life balance
• Energy to explore more diverse hobbies or areas of interest 
• Reduced stress
• Improved engagement with education as the student has greater accountability of the process

Let us not forget the importance of a great teacher

Research continues to demonstrate that the role of the teacher is the single most significant factor in improving the academic attainment of students, more so than any amount of homework.

A great teacher is a master of their craft, they’re passionate and engaging and actively take responsibility for elevating their own learning and that of their students; they know when to intervene and when to allow the student to endure the challenge independently; they have a deep understanding and love for their subject; they have high expectations of the student; they create meaningful relationships with them and provide excellent feedback and guidance; they contextualise the learning to real-world scenarios; they care for the student as an individual, and continue to positively impact upon the student even when learning is not occurring.

Is private tutoring the best of both worlds?

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room here: online tutors (such as that provided by the expert teachers here at Sherpa) aren’t free and therefore not the magic wand for all cases. However, for those able to invest in a private tutor, one-to-one tuition is proven to be the best use of one’s resources in the pursuit of academic excellence.

Extensive research conducted by Sherpa [7] reveals that just one term of tuition results in an average improvement of two grades: that is just one session per week over ten weeks. 

So…what exactly are we saying, here?

“The topic of whether homework is needed or not will always contradict; it will be a continuous cycle of arguments that won’t conclude” [9]

Where has this taken us? Everywhere and nowhere and somewhere in between, perhaps! One of the most significant challenges in reaching a conclusion as to whether homework should be banned or not is the almost endless variables in any research and in any real-world classroom scenario from which we glean our data.

Variables for homework (how it is set; why it is set; who sets it; when it is set; how it is marked and fed back to the students, and so on) combined with the variables for the student (age; gender; subject and their enjoyment of it; how they best learn; what they consider to be their priorities; their home environment; their health; parental support, and so on) all play their part.

As such, I don’t believe that a universally agreed conclusion based purely on statistics can ever be reached. However, I do passionately believe that we should do everything within our power to protect the wonder and beauty of childhood, and a non-compulsory system in which students can opt out of homework as and when they best see fit feels to be one step closer to achieving that all-important, self-motivated objective. 

[1] Poland’s children rejoice as homework is banned. The rest of the world watches on

[2] Adolescents' Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices

[3] Homework | EEF

[4&5] Health in Mind | The importance of arts to our wellbeing

[6] Poland Bans Homework in Primary Schools | by Simon Lewis

[7] Our 2023 Impact Report and Year in Review

[8] 7 Most Important Benefits of Tuition

[9] Homework: A Controversial Topic – Denmark Unleashed