Giving homework to primary children is a source of family conflict that breeds resentment of school and should be scrapped for the benefit of pupils, according to a teaching union, backed by education experts.

It is counter-productive and the pressure to complete assignments makes pupils unhappy, said Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

“Everyone just accepts that homework has got to be done,” she said. “It puts a huge amount of stress, particularly on disadvantaged children from disadvantaged homes.”

For these poorer children, who do not have books, computers and well-educated parents to help, homework can lead them to resent school. “Middle-class children can go home and get help with their homework. Disadvantaged children can’t and then they get in trouble,” Dr Bousted added.

“It sets up a cycle of resistance to school because they don’t have access to the cultural and emotional and learning support which middle-class children can get.”

Dr Bousted’s comments add to a mounting body of evidence suggesting that homework does not work.

Research from the Institute of Education has found that homework can cause such friction between parents and children – especially in middle-class families, where concerns about a child’s future can lead to a climate of pressure to succeed – that any potential educational benefits are lost.

The study, by Dr Susan Hallam, also found that homework only boosts achievement when done in moderate amounts. There is an optimal level beyond which doing more brings no benefit at all.

Dylan William, deputy director of the Institute of Education, said last night that most homework set in school was “rubbish”. He added: “If teachers designed homework into their lesson plans better, it would have a bigger effect.

“The most effective homework is ‘prep’, where children are asked to prepare something for a forthcoming lesson. The least powerful is the most predominant form, where pupils are asked to finish off what they were doing in the lesson,” Professor William said.

The American educator, Alfie Kohn, agrees that too much of the wrong kind of homework puts children off learning, not least because of the family rows it causes.

Crucially, he noted in his book The Homework Myth, that studies showing a correlation between homework and improved test scores usually only find a very small difference. And even then, it is hard to prove that the the higher scores are attributable to homework.

Little wonder then that ATL, which counts many independent school teachers among its membership, plans to debate a motion at its forthcoming annual conference in Torquay, pressing ministers to “scrap compulsory homework for primary-aged children and to limit the amount of time allocated to compulsory homework at secondary level” Official government guidelines suggest that homework in state schools should last no more than an hour a week for seven-year-olds, rising to 2½ hours for 16-year-olds.

Parents are optimistically advised by ministers on the parentscentre.gov.uk website to “help your child to see the enjoyable aspects of homework”, but there are no suggestions as to how this might be done.

Independent schools on the other hand tend to have no illusions about parents’ and pupils’ lack of enthusiasm for homework, often lengthening the school day to 4pm or 5pm, so that pupils are forced to remain and complete their homework on site.

Under the Government’s plans for extended school hours, open from 8am to 6pm, more state schools are following this example and setting up after-school homework clubs.

Even this, however, has its problems. The schools inspectorate Ofsted noted that a “common weakness” of such clubs was that the people running them often “have little idea of the nature of the homework set and no routine for feeding back to the teachers who set it”.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families insisted last night that homework could be helpful, adding that teachers were legally entitled to set it.

“A good, well-organised homework programme helps children and young people to develop the skills and attitudes they will need for successful, independent, lifelong learning,” a spokesman said.

However, according to official documents, homework is about more than producing “independent learners”. Ministers also expect parents to be fully involved in their children’s homework, with guidance stating that one of its purposes is to “develop an effective partnership between the school and parents”.

Critics argue that stressing parental involvement, for example by telling parents to “encourage your child to discuss homework with you, including feedback from teachers” gives middle-class children of educated parents an inbuilt advantage.

Times table Government guidelines on how much time might be spent on homework:

Primary school
— Years 1 and 2: 1 hour per week
— Years 3 and 4: 1.5 hours per week
— Years 5 and 6: 30 minutes per day

Secondary school
— Years 7 and 8: 45 to 90 minutes per day
— Year 9: 1 to 2 hours per day
— Years 10 and 11: 1.5 to 2.5 hours per day

Source: parentscentre.gov.uk

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