Homework is excruciating for most parents but it must be endlessly irritating for children too.
School is well and truly back. With it has come an avalanche of homework under which my children and their long suffering parents may well and truly sink.
I am reliably told that 45 minutes is the average length of time primary school children should spend doing homework, but what happens when you have a distracted and tired child who struggles to focus after a long day in school? What happens when you have three of them?
Forty five minutes are all well and good, but multiplied by the number of children each with homework in maths, English and Irish spelling, writing, reading, colouring and various projects, it is a recipe for a stressful evening.
I can multi-task with the best of them but why is it that each child seems to look for my attention at precisely the same time? I have tried sitting them all together but that was a disaster.
I put them in different rooms but quickly got fed up with running from child to child endlessly. Staggering the times each sits down to homework is impossible as there simply arenít enough hours in the evening.
Excruciating
Homework is excruciating for most parents but it must be endlessly irritating for children too. This year it has taken quite some time for my children to acclimatise to their new classes, particularly for my youngest son who has decided his last teacher was his favourite to date. He has been equally unenthusiastic about the increase in the volume of homework, as last yearís teacher obligingly allowed speedy workers to use their spare time and get a head start on homework.
When we met his teacher last year, he told us that our son was giving 110% effort in class and diligently completed every piece of work quickly and correctly. No wonder! He had it all figured out. More work in school meant less work at home, it suited him well and his grades were great.
Not surprisingly, homework this year has come as a bit of a shock to all of us. Of course, each child is different. My eldest son expends maximum effort in school and then plods resolutely through homework.
For him, all the effort of school results in a very understandable reluctance to do more of the same at home. I agree with the need to reinforce what is learned in school, and there are convincing arguments for maximum retention of information when revised within a 24 hour timeframe, but some of this revision could legitimately occur in school.
I fully agree with the need for parents to be active participants in their childrenís learning ñ there is a limit to what any teacher can accomplish with large classes of mixed abilities, But Iím not fully convinced of the need to spend so much time at home doing school work, particularly for children who put in a full day of work in school. I want my children to enjoy their schooling but they work hard in school and I want them to enjoy their free time, too.
We have just 24 hours each day so the solution, for us, is to use them more effectively. Timetables pinned to the wall at home show the ëhave-to-dosí in each day and the chunks of ëwant-to-dosí in the free time when tasks are finished promptly.
Itís not a spontaneous system, itís inflexible, non-stop and regimented, but it works like a dream. It also means we reach the weekend, exhausted but intact and, most importantly, free from the scourge of homework.