Pupils will return to school on Sunday with new hopes and new challenges. Among the latter for many students will be the homework they are assigned to complete overnight and on weekends.
But is homework a good idea – especially for younger children? American second-grade teacher Brandy Young decided to cancel homework for her class and encourage parents to spend more leisure time with their children. At a Meet the Teacher night, she passed out a letter to every parent urging them to “eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get the child to bed early”.
Experts say that while parents’ involvement in school homework is a factor in academic success, the time shared between parents and their children alone can contribute to children’s overall psychological wellbeing, and therefore improve their performance at school. Education is about more than learning how to remember a date or solve an equation.
