The hallmarks of effective homework

In the final instalment of our 3-part blog series exploring independent study (formerly referred to as homework,) the round-table attempts to define what the key features are of effective independent study.

As before, we were joined by Sir Kevan Collins, education tsar and ex-England Education Recovery Commissioner; year 5/6 teacher and teacher-voice ambassador Sophie Barlett; and her colleague year 3 /4 teacher Rebecca Buckland. Heather Abela, parent and senior team member of Learning by Questions chaired the discussion.

“Start a conversation with the pupils about learning habits.”

Heather: Primary pupils need to start developing their independent study skills and methods so that they’re ready to make the most of secondary. Is this right?

Kevan: Yes, it’s not necessarily about doing it at home either. You’re just trying to build up the habit of independent work. You might give kids time at the beginning of a lesson to finish it. That’s a bit of a fudge, but you’re just building the habit, you’re setting the signal that this is work you were set to do on your own. It’s not to be done on the bus in the last five minutes. This matters.

Sophie: No 8.45 scribbling.

Kevan: Yeah, and technology can tell you when a child has done their independent work. We can start getting information back to teachers about when they’re doing it, how long they are spending on it. So you can start a conversation with the pupils about learning habits, ‘It looks like you learn much better when you’re quiet on your own’...which is much more important in a way than conversations about one bit of accuracy over another, which I think is really exciting.

“Children are really discerning, they’re quick to know what is a waste of time and what has no value.”

Sophie: I think it’s about the kind of activity you’re doing too. If you’re doing a similar activity in school then it gives that activity value.Then if you give children something completely different to do and you’re not doing it with them, it’s suggesting you don’t value this as much. It’s just a random, add-on activity. I think when we’re doing homework it will be, whatever we don’t finish in class, you’ll then continue independently and they know it’s valuable because they do it in lessons with me, they know it’s important to me.

Rebecca: When I did my maths fluency sheets, I bought nice red folders, rather than having a scruffy piece of paper they stuff in a tray and it’s all screwed up with a footprint on it. We had these red folders that matched our red jumpers and the red school logo, and they were brand new with their names on them. It’s just like the presentation added that value too.

Kevan: The thing is, children are really discerning, they’re very quick to know what is a waste of time and what has no value. Murray has a phrase ‘The child will attend to what the teacher attends to.’ So I think this sense of value is key.

“A lot of children now have ‘learned helplessness’… they literally don’t know where to begin.”

Kevan: One of the questions I love asking teachers after the lesson is ‘what will you do tomorrow as a result of that learning? What was all that for?’ And to the children ‘what do you think you’re learning this for?’

Heather: One of the things that becomes a cliche at secondary school is ‘I am never going to use this in real life’, so is this about connecting the learning in a purposeful way?

Kevan: Yeah. There’s also this thing about taking responsibility for your own learning that’s interesting. I think in classrooms it can be easy to outsource the responsibility to the teacher or the teaching assistant who’ll help you get through the work. Children can begin to become dependent on that if you’re not careful. Whereas with independent work, you have to take responsibility for yourself.

Sophie: A lot of children now have ‘learned helplessness’, as you say, and it becomes so ingrained in them that when they do have something independent, they literally don’t know where to begin.

Related content:

Perceptions of homework: Inside the Tick Box with Sir Kevan Collins & Sophie Bartlett

Logistics of homework: theory vs reality with Sir Kevan Collins & Sophie Bartlett

Heather: One of the things that I’ve really appreciated as a parent is if the independent task is flexible and children can do it in their own way, like do this as a poster, or a game, or a short story, it just gives different children different ways into the same learning objective.

Rebecca: We do things like Class Museum. So everybody gets to do their homework topic, then we create a Class Museum and all the other classes come and visit it. But it’s this big celebration, and it’s lovely. It creates a really nice atmosphere around the children’s contributions from home to school, really valuing what they’ve done.

Sophie: Yeah, everyone has done it differently but everyone gets the same value.

Independent learning is effective if…

• it’s building the skills and habits that children will need in exams, in secondary school, and into the future.

• it provides insights into pupil learning behaviours for teachers, so they can help guide children towards good learning habits.

• the children know that the task has real value and purpose to it. You and your class know why you’re setting it.

• it’s adaptive or offers variety, so pupils have the right access point to the learning objective for them.

• it weans children away from a ‘learned helplessness’ and towards children taking responsibility for themselves.

LbQ has flipped/reversed homework to be more ‘lessons without limits’. If homework continues to be a headache for you and your school, see it for yourself by booking a chat with us today Find out more.