Heads' Tips - homework

Tired of nagging your daughter about her homework? Confused by what she should be doing and how long it should take? How can you help your daughter manage the homework load without feeling overwhelmed and still find time for family activities and her busy social life?

Read our Heads’ advice to help you both manage this cross-over area between school and family life.

Timing

• Try to encourage a regular routine for homework that includes where your daughter does her homework as well as at what time (before tea, after tea etc). Having a rhythm to study is important.

• Wherever possible encourage your daughter to do her homework on the night it is set – especially for the younger ones. That way homework doesn’t build up and it is less easy to forget it!

• Young people can find it hard to settle to learn something on the night it is set when they know it won’t be tested for a few days. Hard though it is, encourage your daughter begin learning that night, and she will learn more effectively because the lesson was fresh in her mind.

• Don’t allow your daughter to spend too long on her homework. Find out approximately how long homework should take, as girls have a tendency to take too long in their quest to get everything right and as perfect as possible.

• If a piece of homework is causing real difficulty or taking too long, stop your daughter and write in her homework diary or on the piece of homework itself that she spent x minutes (or hours!) on it and that you have stopped her so she can go to bed.

• If your daughter routinely seems to be taking longer than the allocated time, agree with the teacher or tutor that she will change to another pen colour once she gets passed the allotted time so the teacher can see if there is a problem with processing, reading, organising herself etc.

• If the length of time taken on homework is causing stress and worry, try checking subtly to see if she is focusing just too much on how it is presented, rather than on the content. Whilst presentation is important, some girls can spend too long on illustrations, graphics and beautiful coloured print-outs.

• As girls move into senior school you may see your daughter struggling with juggling homeworks which are set one day for handing in the following week, rather than on the next day. Help her devise a schedule.

Organisation

• Be aware of your daughter’s homework timetable and make sure you both refer to it regularly.

• Suggest she has a wall planner. Encourage her to keep a record of work set and deadline dates (especially good for coursework/controlled assessment). To boost confidence she could also record good marks awarded. It’s also good to plan out of school activities as well!

• A key skill for secondary school pupils to master early on is the good management of books, equipment and personal belongings. Keep a watchful eye on the way your daughter cares for, and organises, these things, particularly if she tends to lose or forget to bring home the books or materials needed to complete the task set.

• For older children, buy them a set of brightly coloured box files and insist on a weekly bag sort to file away handouts and loose sheets. This avoids panic attacks when a key handout is missing just when it’s needed for a piece of homework. It’s quite staggering how many stray sheets will collect over the course of a month or two. All can then be safely hole-punched or Pritt-sticked away in the appropriate folder/exercise book. Encourage her to use the homework diary and coloured highlighters to annotate and distinguish homework for different subjects.

• Help/encourage your daughter to get the next day’s books ready the evening before, to prevent arriving at school without the book which should be handed in.

• If your daughter’s school uses homework diaries, look in it regularly to check she is using it correctly and to see what work your daughter is doing.

Environment

• Provide a good workspace – ideally away from distractions. Ensure good lighting, good desk and chair etc.

• Working on her own in a quiet bedroom may not work for all girls – your daughter may feel more part of the household at the kitchen table particularly when younger.

• Sometimes listening to music while working can aid concentration – better though if it is music without lyrics as the spoken voice is distracting. However, if your daughter routinely listens to music while working, remind her that, before sitting exams, she needs to “practise” working in silence: there is no music in the exam hall so her brain needs to be accustomed to working in silence.

• Discourage television and radio during homework times. It is not possible to complete work quickly or effectively while watching TV or listening to a radio programme. TV time may then be a reward for homework completed, perhaps a programme that was recorded while she was working. Much better that way round than ‘I’ll do it after ‘x’ programme’. Technology can really help here in managing things.

• Consider banning mobile phones/Facebook etc during home prep times.

• Students will all insist that they need a computer to do their homework, and frequently they do, but this should be in a communal area. You can then check what screen she is looking at from time-to-time to ensure that she does not log onto Facebook (or equivalent) until homework is finished. Even a bleep to alert them to a Facebook status update will cause distraction and, with the best will in the world, will take a good 10 minutes to get back to the concentration levels they had before.

How can you help?

• By all means help your daughter but don’t do it for her – and let school know if you are having to do so frequently as there may be an underlying problem that ought not to be disguised.

• Although your natural parental instinct is to intervene and assist, especially in younger years, this may be very counterproductive. It is important for teachers to know whether the pupil has understood a concept, and your well meaning assistance can muddy the waters. Girls need to understand the purpose of homework and realise that it is more important to ‘have a go’ and discover what you can do, than to get it all correct with help. We need to teach girls it is ok to take a risk at being wrong and fall short of perfection.

• Sometimes a teacher says ‘spend 20 minutes on this’ and the child insists that she will get into trouble if she does not complete the task. This should not be the case but remember that 20 minutes spent working in front of the TV is not the same as 20 minutes concentrated effort. Keep the channels of communication open with the child’s tutor/form teacher to share concerns.

• It is very hard to teach your own child however gifted a teacher of other people’s children you may be. It can set up huge tensions within the family and changes the dynamics. Better to get a friend to help and help their child in return!

• If your daughter’s school issues homework diaries or timetables, do check it regularly as it should detail what is expected of your daughter for her homework (provided she has used it effectively!) and checking it will reinforce to your daughter that it is a tool designed to help her organise herself. If used appropriately, it is a very efficient mode of communication between school and home.

• Take time to understand the mechanics of the homework system at your daughter’s school in terms of when it is set, when it is due and so on. You need information and sometimes ‘word-of-mouth’ information provided by your daughter might be confusing. The school is a better source of accurate information than the child.

• Keep an eye on the levels of weekday after-school commitments and activities during term time. The school will expect that your daughter will be able to do homework and if she has too many evening activities (or social events) she may become overwhelmed and fall behind.

• The best role you can play is helping her to make sure that this time is well spent: that she is “working clever” as well as “working hard”. By helping her to ensure concentration levels stay high and work is completed with minimum fuss and maximum impact, more time can be spent relaxing and enjoying life alongside achieving good academic outcomes.

With thanks to the Heads and staff at the following schools:
Abbot’s Hill School, City of London School for Girls, Dame Alice Harpur School, Hethersett Old Hall School, Norwich High School GDST, St Catherine’s School Bramley, St George’s School Ascot, St Margaret’s School Bushey, The Cheltenham Ladies College, The Mount School, York, The Red Maids’ School, Walthamstow Hall, Wimbledon High School GDST