Traditional homework set by primary schools should be scrapped because there is little evidence it helps children learn and it can increase stress in families, according to a government body.
The Teaching Schools Council, which oversees training of teachers, said schools should ensure that homework is handed out only “when there is clear justification for it and there are evident benefits for pupils, including school data to back this up”.
Its report adds that, if homework is set, it should not be too difficult, allowing pupils to succeed “without too much struggle and without needing to lean heavily on their parents”.
Schools could set time limits for homework tasks, and pupils should not be expected finish the work if it takes longer – “to minimise the load and family stress”.
The report also says children could get classmates to mark their work if teachers do not have time.
The controversial recommendations bolster the growing movement against formal homework among some schools and parents.
Teachers increasingly complain they do not have time to mark it, and some parents resent having to force their children do it.
But many experts have defended homework as a means to reinforce in children’s minds what they have learnt in class that day.
Dr Helen Abadzi, an expert in cognitive psychology and neuroscience with the World Bank, told a Cambridge University conference last month, “Schools are sending out letters saying we have decided not to set homework. Homework might be hassle for parents, but homework is the time when children reconsolidate what happened in class. When children practise a task, it becomes automatic and unconscious, freeing up space in the working memory for more complex calculations.”
Under guidelines introduced in 1998, primary schools were told to set an hour of homework a week for children aged five to seven, rising to half an hour a night for seven- to 11-year-olds. But former Education Secretary Michael Gove scrapped the guidelines to give schools more freedom.
The report’s author, former head Dame Reena Keeble, said, “We are not saying homework shouldn’t be set, but if a school is setting it, it should be clear about the outcomes and aware of teacher workloads.”