Dear Parents/Guardians,
If you haven't already filled out our Homework Survey please click here.
http://ballymittyns.ie/Forms/Homework-Survey--May-2023/368407/Index.html
If you want to get the background information please read on here:
On Friday May 5th we invited parents to join our meeting about Homework. A few parents turned up and we had some input from others who could not make the meeting. We also asked some members of different pupil committees to meet with us as well as two teachers. It was a productive meeting, an honest and robust discussion and gave good insight into what pupils, parents and teachers feel about homework:
Overall, everyone agreed that there has to be a certain amount of homework but that it has to be of benefit, rather than just be a box-ticking exercise.
The tensions and frustrations of family life arose many times - this was from all perspectives:
- The pupils who want to sometimes relax after school or have to eat a quick dinner to get out to their hobbies, interests and activities and who are often too tired to either want to do homework OR to do it to their best ability.
- The parents who are trying to manage their own jobs, after-school activities, dinner, looking after other younger and older family members etc.
- The teachers who prepare, correct, organise and manage homework well after the school day and into their own family times and that the correction of homework in class takes precious time away which could be better spent teaching.
We discussed workbooks such as English in Practice and Mental Maths - many pupils appear to be fed up with these workbooks!
We discussed the need for communication skills to be developed and that perhaps a focus could be put on these - being able to greet people, talk about something, debate a topic etc.
We discussed Maths work - that Mental Maths often asks questions that haven't yet been covered and that having some Maths homework to reinforce the more difficult concepts would be more beneficial.
We discussed the importance of reading - but that sometimes pupils don't do reading because they want to do written work first and never actually get around to doing the reading! Or that because it can't be checked, as such, that pupils don't always do reading.
At the end of the meeting, we looked at European schools and what kind of homework our European peers do! Having been to Spanish, French and Italian schools it is evident that there is some homework and that it varies at different times depending on the time of year, age, subject etc.
Over the past few weeks, some of our teachers have also gone out to secondary school teachers to ask their opinions about homework and how best we can prepare our senior pupils for secondary school. Across a range of secondary schools (vocational, comprehensive, all girls/all boys and mixed etc) the following areas were highlighted as problematic:
Reading, Tables, Communication Skills, Certain Maths skills such as Measurement etc.
These discussions were brought to the staff meeting two weeks ago whereby homework in all subjects was discussed. We decided on the following process:
In September 2023, we will begin implementing this new Policy.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Please fill out our Homework Survey here: http://ballymittyns.ie/Forms/Homework-Survey--May-2023/368407/Index.html