What homework should be;

• revision

• the practice of skills learnt in school

• fun

• productive use of students time

What homework should not be;

• new learning

• take longer than one hour a night to complete

• needing adult supervision to complete

• work that has not been covered in class, is it not the job of the parents to teach it at home

Things to consider for homework;

• more schooling does not necessarily mean more results

• homework can result in fatigue and disengagement and cause issues during family time

• giving your students their homework of a Friday with them returning it the following Thursday allows for students to complete their homework over the weekend especially those who have sporting, musical or other commitments during the week.

• use the same template or format each week so students become familiar with it

• try to cover spelling words, some home reading, English and Mathematics

• time it takes you to mark - you do not want to make it too time consuming for yourself

• will you mark it as a class or as the teacher?

• what will students put their homework in - glue it in a scrap book? place it in a plastic display folder?

How you can make homework interesting;

• provide an options list - where you allow students to choose at least five of the ten activities to do

• ensure it is relevant to what you are learning or teaching

• avoid the typical look, cover, write, check

• use the spelling city app to upload your weekly spelling words and children can complete fun games related to their list words

• when marking; leave a comment which students can reply to the following week

• set optional challenges that don’t relate to school work - e.g. helpful human challenges - re organise you book shelf, set the table, write out the grocery list or even STEAM challenges

• set reading challenges instead of a book log - photo evidence of something

How do you make homework interesting for your students? We would love it if you joined the conversation and left a comment below.