#languagepaper2

Hometime Means Hometime

Just like Brexit, we need to take a hardline with homework- and vote to leave! 

You just finish your 25th lesson of the week, five days of five demanding hours of non-stop learning. Constant reminders of your upcoming exams. You look forward to the weekend stretching out in front of you...but no. Inside that heavy bag upon your back are your assignments: book reports, practice exam questions, revision resources. Hours upon hours of extra work. Hometime no longer means hometime to students in 2017.

1,170 hours. That is the length of time an average student, regardless of ability or school, taking into account holidays and days off, allowing for the odd forgotten piece or hungry dog, spends on their homework, according to the latest report by the Department of Education. That is the average- so how much time are the students at the top of the scale spending? Then consider at what cost does that time expunge? Socialisation, family time, relaxation- all things that children need when faced with a heavy academic timetable. When do we expect our would be medics to fit in their necessary work experience? How will our poets permit time for crucial reading for pleasure? How will our aspiring athletes allocate hours required to hone their skills? The short answer is, they won't.

This is why our teenagers are so unhappy. Cramming in endless exercises to drill in knowledge to their young and fragile minds will only result in mental overload. In Europe our teenagers are the most unhappy; their unhappiness manifests itself in a number of bleak ways. We see record levels of self harm, attempted suicide, and eating disorders amongst British teens. These are league tables we do not wish to be topping.

Those all important league tables, so crucial, so imperative to our analysis of school performance. We use them to decide where to send our children; to rate and compare and apply value to qualifications gained by fifteen and sixteen year old children. Such pressure! Is this what pushes the need for homework? The fear of slipping down the league tables?

Literacy and numeracy standards have fallen, claim experts. Britain is falling behind other countries, and children are now leaving school unequipped for the working world, say employers. We cannot afford to abolish homework when we clearly have so much work to do. Yet, what is the evidence for this? Year on year the GCSEs become more challenging and rigorous. Year on year the results go up. It is simply a fallacy to insist that standards have fallen, when in fact the opposite is true.

Abolish homework, unless there is an urgent need for a task to be done at home- alter the requirement from 'regular' to 'occasional' and perhaps our children will have their childhoods back. Demands for fewer pieces should see a rise in quality (although, we can never guarantee the dog will stay away) and it should always be able to be completed on school premises. The disparity in equipment from home to home should not disadvantage students unfairly.