School Gate: Why too much homework doesn't work

Some poems strike a chord. Others ring a bell. But Philip Larkin's Toads bongs like Big Ben inside my head. If I had my life again I would change nothing except the mental affliction that this sad, sardonic masterpiece describes so pithily and accurately. But changing that would change everything.

“Why should I let the toad work squat on my life?” Larkin asks. But, deep down, he already knows the answer - as all workaholics do:

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on.

The toad work has certainly squatted on my life. It has controlled, constrained and coloured (or discoloured) it. There aren't many waking hours when I'm not thinking about it. And of the 12,000-odd days that I've notched up as a theoretically free-willed adult, far too few have passed without me bowing to work's whims.

Like Larkin I am envious of those who can blithely murmur “easy come, easy go!” when demands for their labours intrude on more enjoyable activities. He suggests that the toad work has ganged up with a fellow amphibian burrowed in his soul, stopping him from breaking free. In my darker moments I can relate to that.

Only in one respect do I differ from Larkin. I don't think that it is fear - of losing my pension, upsetting the boss, or whatever - that keeps me in this work-addicted state. It's guilt. And I know exactly where and when that guilt originated. At school, 40 years ago.

The school was, and is, a fine institution. But as with most independent London day-schools, competing fiercely for kudos and Oxbridge places, it tended to instil a feeling that nothing could be achieved in life without hard slog - hours and hours of it, after school, every evening. At 14 I was doing two hours of homework a night; by 17 it was more like five. Consequently my A-level results were sparkling. But my social life was the opposite. Even at parties, the memory of quadratic equations still to be solved and irregular French verbs left unconjugated hung over me like a cloud. As for any interest in the world outside, how could I develop that? There weren't enough hours in the day.

What's worse, the nagging sense of guilt if I wasn't working persisted through university and into my adult life. It lingers even now, this feeling that time not spent doing the job is time wasted. The one saving grace is that, by chance, I fell into an occupation that takes me to fascinating places to report on fascinating people. Otherwise, I think my horizons would be as narrow as a Victorian alley.

Homework has a lot to answer for. It doesn't mess up every child. But the mental oppression of leaving school for the day, and then facing hours of slog, alienates many. And there's another sizeable minority in whom it triggers a cosmic conscientiousness, out of all proportion to the task at hand, that will blight the rest of their lives, impinging not just on social activities but on their responsibilities as parents too. Which is tragic, because those are the very people whose work ethic and intellectual capability could be so vital for society, if properly balanced by a healthy attitude to recreation and family life.

In the 40 years since I last wore a blazer, the culture of excessive homework, especially in “high-flying” schools, has become far worse. There is one obvious reason for that. Education is now controlled by a generation of politicians who, on the whole, have no cultural hinterlands themselves - no interests outside politics. So they find it almost impossible to understand the value of giving children the time and opportunities to discover the infinite richness and possibilities of life, whether that means striving to sing like Amy, cook like Jamie, or spin like Monty. The narrowing of the British educational curriculum over the past 30 years - pushing art, music, sport and drama to the margins or beyond - has been shocking.

At the same time the fetish with league tables has forced teachers to turn schools into fact-cramming, rote-learning factories in which narrowly focused lessons are reinforced by stacks of homework. Our education system is now as blinkered, as grindingly utilitarian, as in the era mocked by Dickens in Hard Times. Is it any wonder that so many school-leavers have no pastimes except shopping, watching telly and binge-drinking?

So the news that one leading state school has announced a huge reduction in its homework requirements, releasing five or more hours each week for a broader exploration of the world, brought joy to my heart. Especially as Tiffin's initiative seems to be part of a wider move among free-thinking schools to recognise - or rather, recognise again, after decades of denial - the importance of non-curricular activities in the nurturing of a rounded individual.

The question is whether this trend can be turned into a sea-change. Don't underestimate the difficulties of doing that. Thousands of playing fields have been sold. There are far fewer after-school groups such as scouts or youth clubs around. Many potential adult volunteers who could pass on skills and life-experiences are scared off by excessive red tape. Lots of parents are only too grateful if their kids get sacks of homework, because then they don't feel any obligation to devise activities themselves to stimulate their offspring's minds. And teachers have become so conditioned to following a narrow curriculum to the letter that many would feel terrified if asked to run “enrichment activities”.

But change the system we must. Piling mountains of homework on children is the surest way to turn education into drudgery. And once that happens, curiosity dies and a soulless, sullen, mechanistic compliance takes over. The lucky ones escape the system as soon as they can and start exploring the world properly. The unlucky ones never escape. Larkin's toad has got them in his clutches for life.

I know. I'm still there.

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