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Homework for secondary pupils is eminently sensible and can help pupils develop their skills as independent learners. But homework for primary school children is almost entirely useless. It often creates a battle ground between parents and children and the evidence that it contributes to children's educational needs is unconvincing. But none of that has put the Government off telling us we need to do more of it. Indeed a succession of education minsters including Margaret Hodge, Andrew Adonis and Ed Balls have now declared that all parents need to do it. Refusal may mean a spell on the naughty step.

The Government's campaign to get more of us doing homework with our kids is part of a broader goal of expanding the role of parents in education. It is rooted in the seemingly uncontentious view that children who have more parental support are far likelier to achieve educationally. But this correlation has now developed into a belief that a child's performance at school is a direct result of the level and quality of support they get for their education in the home. All of a sudden the lines between school and home have been blurred. Education is now a joint effort.

Most of us over-40s struggle to remember ever doing homework in junior school and I haven't met a single person who remembers their parents sitting with them to do it. That's because in those days the school was the public space where children were educated and the home was the private place where children were raised according to the values and rules chosen by their parents. I can only imagine the reaction of my disciplinarian West Belfast father if he had been at the receiving end of some of the leaflets that now come home in the school bag. Not only do the authorities extol the importance of parents doing homework with their under 12s but they even stress the need for fathers in particular to do so – the subject of a major government campaign in the past year. This is clearly about much more than helping children with schoolwork.

But does any of this matter? Whatever the drivers, surely it can only be a good thing for children to have their parents reinforcing the school's educational efforts at home. I think there are numerous reasons why it's very far from a good idea. Of course there are loads of pushy middle class parents who want to hot-house their kids in the hope it will eventually pay off with a place in Oxford. That is fine with me – it was ever thus. But what happens to those parents who fail to share the Government's belief that education is our job? What if some hard-working parents believe that the limited and valuable time they have with their young child at the end of the day is better spent having fun than fractious rows over homework. The answer? There is no opt-out – believe me I've tried.

And there are other side-effects of the new national enthusiasm for parents doing homework. Not least the obvious fact that the glaring inequalities in our education system are unlikely to be diminished. While well-off middle class families find it easy to incorporate the homework culture into their lives, what happens to the hard-pressed single mums holding down several jobs? Perhaps more and better resources for over- stretched parents may be better for their children's education than more demands for homework. A less obvious side-effect is that, in most households, the parents' desire to get their kids’ homework finished in time and to a high quality often ends up with the parents doing it themselves. Primary school teachers who have to set homework are entirely unconvinced that their pupils are really doing it. Government policies may do little to enhance children's education but it could well create a nation of cheats.

If the Government could prove to me that homework for 5-11 years olds was the key to improving children's education I would put aside my objections and do it with gusto – who wouldn't? However no such evidence exists. Until it does I for one will be leaving the school to tackle the Three Rs while I introduce my son to his broader education – generally while lying on our couch watching Celtic TV.

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Kevin Rooney is the head of social science at Queen's School in Bushey, Hertfordshire. He writes on education and citizenship