Last updated 16:28, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

School and homework go together like jelly and ice cream. But it’s not essential that you have one with the other – and for many parents of young children, school and homework just don’t mix.

Susan Hallam, a professor of Education at the University of London’s Institute of Education, says the type of homework set is key, and for young children it needs to be as enjoyable as possible.

That said, it altogether depends on the type of homework – and, indeed, what you class as homework in the first place.

Research by parenting website Mumsnet found that nearly three-quarters of parents (73 per cent) thought four to seven-year-olds shouldn’t be given anything more than reading, spelling or times tables homework.

And 27 per cent thought that homework, apart from spelling, reading or times tables, should be banned for all primary school children.

“What a lot of parents seem to object to are the holiday and weekend projects that mean their Sunday nights are spent colouring in Roman fortresses and the like,” says Mumsnet co-founder Justine Roberts.

“Most mums think children should have homework from the start of primary school, though they would prefer it to focus on the basics of reading, spelling and tables.”

However, certain schools and teachers think homework should be scrapped entirely. Last month staff from Nottingham East Academy, which is set to educate children from nursery age to 19 when it opens next year, said it plans to replace homework with an extra lesson and after-school activities.

The Academy, which will be the biggest school in the country, is making the move due to the amount of tension homework causes.

And certainly the Mumsnet survey found that homework was one of the most contentious issues between primary school children and parents, with 65 per cent of parents saying they argued with their children over homework, and four out of 10 saying it caused arguments often or “all the time”.

Earlier this year the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) called for a ban on compulsory homework for primary school children, saying a lot of it was “a waste of time”.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, says that young children spend a lot of time in school, and should be able to enjoy their time out of it.

“When they’re outside school they should have time to enjoy family life and do other things, which will also help them learn, but not in a formal way.

“It’s about learning social skills, how to play games, get involved in domestic life, and having time to go out and play with friends and family.

“It’s very important that children should have that time.”

She says that parents put a lot of pressure on schools to issue homework, and points out that more than 50 per cent of teachers in UK schools say parents expect pupils to be set homework.

But she asks: “When it comes to it, who’s actually doing the homework – the parent or the child?

“Many parents think there ought to be something set on a piece of paper, and that if it’s not formal then it doesn’t count as homework or learning.

“But teachers are saying that there are lots of things that children are learning at home – it might not be in an official-looking folder, but it’s still learning.”

Bousted says many teachers give children worksheets to take home with them, but she stresses: “It’s almost as if there’s a formulaic process being gone through – there’s the expectation that the teachers set homework and spend time drawing worksheets up and sending them home, and then the kids do it.

“But it’s almost a tick box exercise, and not, in the view of teachers, the most valuable use of children’s time outside school.

“There’s a place for studying, but that’s not 24 hours a day – they should have time to enjoy being children.”

“What schools actually set is a big question mark,” she says, “and my opinion is that if the Mumsnet survey says parents of children aged four to seven feel they should be reading, doing the odd learning of tables and spelling, then that’s absolutely right.

“We don’t have much evidence about the effectiveness of homework at that age, but really you want it to be fun and enjoyable activities that parents and kids can do together.”

Hallam stresses that homework for young children doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down and getting serious – chanting tables in the car, taking the kids to the museum, collecting leaves or simply bedtime reading are all valuable activities that could be classed as homework.

“What I think isn’t very productive is trying to get kids to do lots of written work at home when they’re that young, and I suspect that’s what parents don’t like either,” she says.

Although the Department for Children, Schools and Families sets guidelines for the amount of time children should spend on homework – one hour a week for Years 1 and 2, 1.5 hours a week for Years 3 and 4, and 30 minutes per day for Years 5 and 6 – Hallam points out that it’s up to individual schools to decide exactly what the homework is.

“There’s no definitive policy for what form homework actually takes,” she says.

“And one of the issues is whether we want to call reading with your child, for example, homework. But for young children, whatever you call it, fun activities are what should be promoted within families, and not sitting down and having to do worksheets.”

Whatever form the homework takes, the younger the child the more likely it is that their parents will have to help. In fact, a survey by the ATL earlier this year found that more than 70 per cent of teachers said their pupils got some or a lot of help to do homework, with more support given to primary pupils than those at secondary school.

And that support is critical, with nearly 93 per cent of primary teachers saying a lack of parental help with pupils’ homework was the main reason for it not being done.

“The time element can be a problem – parents often have long working hours, they’re tired when they get home from work and so on,” Hallam says.

“But one of the really important things is that parents spend time with their children, sharing an activity that’s enjoyable and interesting – that’s how their children will learn.”