0:00 – Intro
0:10 – Past homework
7:10 – Benefits of homework
10:20 – Routine
21:15 – Top student pattern
25:50 – 10-minute rule
26:30 – Organisation
40:22 – When is the best time to do Homework?
51:14 – The negatives of homework
54:05 – Conclusion

Intro

[Music] The Education Lounge Podcast

Intro/Past homework

I’ve had very strange homework but I didn’t understand at the time and then when I look backI get it so like this teacher fromin Primary School and he just made us um go home and measure loads aroundthings like cylindrical things just the circumference but he didn’t sayhow to do oh it is like comparing thecircumference to like actually how long it is in real life like when it’s straightened outum yeah exactly well no it was um I think he was getting us to spot arelationship between circumference and diameter but at the time you just kind of measure inthings and I was like why am I measuring all of these things and then I measuredyou’ve measured the diameter too which was quite challenging because you then where’s the middle where’s the midpointso he just set this really open-ended task at Primary School just create atable and then you write the objects and you say what the circumference isand the diameter and I remember thinking all right how how do I measure thisround thing because at that time we didn’t have a superflex or anything like that like nouh ruler that could be bent it was solid rulers sothat was the first thing how do I measure the circumference so I foundthis piece of string and then I when around these different objects and thenstretched out and found the circumference and then measured the diameter and then he saidonce you do that take your circumference and divide it by your diameterso we use the calculator to do that what year was this year sixokay so I didn’t know what I was doing really at the time but then you started to notice that the numbers were all sortof grouping around three at the time I was really confused by this homework and then as when I got old I was like oh Isee I see what I was doing at the time that’s quite interesting an interesting way of teaching the topic it’s betterthan just like here’s a worksheet with 20 questions and then they give you the figures andyou’re like okay yeah 3.14 yeah because you get to see it in in like a real life situation it’scalled like guided Discovery so the teacher sort of facilitates yeah the students learning and thenum we explore the idea and then come to some kind of conclusion I didn’t reallyyou didn’t necessarily teach us anything about this idea of Play It Was just tospot the relationship between the circumference and the diameter so that was quitedifferent from most other homeworks I’ve ever had but I thought it was one of theI always remember it I don’t know you remember any homeworkI don’t actually I don’t know nothing I don’t remember a lot like I’m sure the stuff I did made a difference to to nowyou didn’t do anything back like it’s all weird and out about that I think I did in primary school but Ican’t like I can’t remember the specific thing I had one though actually I had one formusic where it was like make your own musical instrument cool um oh yeah we’ve yeah you do that inprimary school then yeah and you get like uh well I’ve got like a like a like aPringles can and you put stuff through and you fill it with rice and it becomes like a rain Shaker type thing and that was quite coolyeah I don’t know how it’s applicable to like now but yeah I mean it’s creativeyou get to make stuff you get to hear how how things work kind of kind of physicsrelated I guess if you if you pushed it no but that was you I brought up thatexample just because it was so related to something that you learned later and yeah it’s a really good example of justsomething that I I didn’t it was a really good idea for homework yeah because you don’t actually knowwhat you’re supposed to be looking for yeah so I even do that a bit now so we I was gonna say yeah like I integratedsome of that into my own teaching right yeah he’s a really good teacher right usually the one the ones I would do interms of Maths for here is demonstrating give the circumference so versus what it looks like in a straightline uh and measuring the diagonal as opposed tothe perpendicular you know when you’re doing like area of a triangleum and a lot of people go for the perpendicular height they go for the diagonal where you’re supposed to go forthat so I demonstrate with like a piece of string or something like how much bigger what they’re measuring is compared towhat they should be measuring um and then for the younger one it’s like when you’re doing moneyyou say to the parent when you go to the shop yeah let them work out the change and yeah I always used to do that for mymum so yeah that probably you’d be surprised though a lot of people now don’t don’t do that they don’t no yeahthey don’t put the kids in that sort of situation whereas yeah that’s what you would learn the most probably yeah likebecause because I remember just my mom would get me to pay for something and say like okaynow no one even uses money yeah what about did you ever gethomework in in school for subjects are you really weren’t interested in yesoh okay I think we know the story but yeah no no in terms of strange homeworkthe one that sort of sticks out is is my art homework uh any sort of art homeworkany sort of DT homework I just did not enjoy at all I I found it quitequite strange quite sort of uh alien alien abstracts uh been asked to draw acan of Coke was quite sort of alien to me um [Laughter]such a mass teacher yeah so umin in terms of sort of homework I I would say I found not particularlyuseful or enjoyable like I couldn’t really see the benefit of oh I I justdidn’t yeah I I justI in terms of the in terms of the homework no I just didn’t see the Ben I couldn’tsee anything behind it I was like right I don’t really know what I’m doing itwas something that I didn’t enjoy but in terms of all every virtually every single other subject

Benefits of homework

I could um especially now you know I get the importance ofdoing and completing those those pieces of homework for be it geography history math science whateveryou know I I can I can understand the value behind itI think I learned the most from homework competitors actually being in school I learned morefrom homework than actually being at all because um like for instance independent studyright you’re yeah because I think that works well for me but I think some people yeah I’m thecomplete opposite yeah I would learn more actually in a crossthen yeah than homework for me like ironwork is about reinforcing what you’ve already learned rather thanactually learning it for the first time or I did a lot of learning from the first time from homework because Iused to not really listen in class and then I used to just go home and then look atthe homeworks be like how do I do this and then I just read the explanation and then I’d do it butyeah that’s how I that’s how I learn maths basically no I I get that because I would say I’m definitely someonethat’s a bit more of an independent learner I like to pick up books and read and learnlearned all of myself so in that regards homework helped a lot[Music] um you know especially with sort of subjects like math physics scienceum because the way you learn or one way to learn is you know you go through some examples right you go through severalexamples and then you try and spot some sort of pattern right so you can see okay right I can see this patterndeveloping so it means this is how I do this particular thing um so in terms ofyou know the value of homework I I definitely saw I definitely saw thatyeah in primary school we didn’t really I’ve got to be honest in my school I didn’t really get homework like apartfrom there was a few T there was that teacher in the S6 who we had for a briefperiod of time probably the best teacher that we had but then he leftum it’s kind of a showing that but he he left and uhI remember first time I got homework I think my mum said that I cried I was like I was likeI was just very upset that I’ve been given extra work but I was I was inconsolable for hoursand then and then I started to realize and it happened for like weeks as well like because then I just wouldn’t wantto do it and then I I finally realized that I was wasting more time cryingabout it than actually doing it and then I started doing homework andthen I went to Forest and it was ridiculous because we got so much homework like it went because I went from againbasically no homework so like it was like three to three hours a day orsomething like that it was and and the days are quite long as well because you end up four and then you

Routine

might have well you would after school yeah you would end up four with normal stuff and then like we would go to likeOrchestra Orchestra or whatever else so Athletics or that kind of thing and it was like I I don’t end up working tilllike nine ten o’clock doing homework basically because I need my nap afterschool as well but I used to have a nap after school and then I’d have a shower then I’d sitdown and do a little bit of homework and by the time I got it was like once I’ve once I’ve switched off I’ve switched offoh I can’t like have food have a nap have a shower and then sit down and doyou you know that’s how are you surprised that I would have a nap flight it’s a very me thing to do I like tohave naps like after having a long day have a little nap then I get up do something else and then yeah well likeour day would usually Starlight six in the morning can you be at school early because yourparents had to go to work or whatever and then you’d have your whole day of school then your extracurricular yeahthen your homework and that’s a big thing if you’ve got a lot of elect extracurricular it’s reallyhard to fit in enough homework anyway I think for us it was I I noticed thatafter primary school I was a really really big reader I used to find readingour primary school at least like I’d read like all the time I get in trouble for reading honestly I’ll get troubletrouble yeah like I’d read that really bad times oh okay so like I just take a book out and then was it my parentswould just be like don’t don’t take the book back and stuff like that so I justchoose bad times to read um we’ve had completely opposite experiences and I was like why have younot got a book with you I mean in secondary school um because it’s just something amount ofhomework I found that in mind just reading went down a lot because I didn’thave time to read like I just felt like oh I’m studying so I’m kind of reading butit’s quite important to continue reading so I think there needs to be quite a fine balanceright there was literally not enough time to do everything yeahand then we’re gonna do a whole separate podcast on our way not next month but the one after yeah butlike reading and um what was um what was your homework loadslike at school uh well first of all I wouldn’t I I’ve got to behonest I wouldn’t always do it but yeah I think there’s many many in that manyin that boat now but um I I think it wasn’t to be honest it wasn’ttoo bad you know I think especially if you compare sort of the amount that we get with other countries you know itjust literally pales in comparison um is that true though because like youknow um so I was like looking at as I was researching this topic a bit like inAsia for instance in like South Korea um they’ve got some of the besteducational attainment levels in the world and they actually receive verylittle homework but then the reason why they receive very little homework is because their school day is so longso they have they have time before school where they’re doing work and then they’ve got time after school and thenthey’ve got all their private tuition things and stuff like that in the eveningand sometimes that can go on until like 11 o’clock I’ve I’ve had students whereit goes on until like 12 at night like they’re off extracurricular stuff and they don’t have time to fit inhomework like anywhere because it’s all built into their day already I mean umyeah I’ve been to India quite a lot you know even even as a as as a kid quite alot and seen my my cousins in the way and the way they work and I’ve seen theamount the amount of homework that that they’ve been given and I can my experience has been watching themthey’ve always had significantly more than what sort of given in in schools over here yeahum and like I said you know being being someonewho teaches now I definitely see I definitely see why it’s important thatyou do your homework complete your homework um you know for for several reasons youknow if when you’re completing your homework it gives you um an opportunity to go and speak toother people you know speak to your your colleagues your your friendsuh engage in a dialogue about you know what you’ve completed you know um I used to do it in school um and andat University you know you’d speak to your colleagues find out how they’ve done a particular questionum and what that does is it gets you it also gets you using the correct terminologyright so they’re correct whatever it may be science or maths and if you’re using the correct terminology when it comes tosort of your note making if you’re using it when you’re speaking you’re likely to be doing the same uh when you’re makingyour notes and so that aspect alone I find quiteuseful when it comes to when it comes to homework um I mean I mean what what do you thinkI was going to say is it is it you said it like several different reasons yeah so did you say the main reason is oneyeah would you say the main reason is like to reinforce what you’ve already done in school or to like I say you needlike ten thousand hours to master a topic do you think it’s mainly to getthe practice in or is it mainly reinforcing what you’ve learned or a combination of both or uh well yeahreinforcing what you’ve already learned but but to learn to learn something in Greater depth as well like I said youknow if it’s if it’s something like maths or physics right you know you go through a whole a whole load of examplesright with maybe the examples that there may be tweaks in in a question maybeslight slight differences like changes and then you start learning all right okay this is how I tackle this this iswhat I know about about this particular about this particular topic so it’s not just to reinforce what you’ve learned inschool it’s that it’s for you to actually study that thing in Greater depth is is my understanding because iswhen when you’ve what you should do is when you’re given homeworktry your best to complete it but then dig dig a Little Deeper as wellum is this what’s something it’s something that I used to do not just look at the questions I was given but then formulatesome of my own questions based on that right umso I I used to do this I used to do this in um in University too so I’d you knowI’d look at papers or questions I was given and then also try and solve those and then try andcome up with questions of my own so I said all right okay so I know how to tackle this so if I change the problem by this much or if I rephrase it andrestructure it so that it’s this how do I go about solving that um yeahI did that for you know like say English you know English essays and stuff likethat so just imagining what could come up yeah English is a good one as well yeah andand you just you just thought about characters and themes yeah and then you’ve made like aquestion and and you you swap out extracts and stuff like that and you you know what roughly could come up andyou’re just prepared for loads of different things again go going back to you know what I’m speaking aboutum discussing your your homework with with friends and and colleagues andum I think the same applies with English so I remember an English teacher of mine saying that it was it’s a good idea foryou for you guys to read each other’s work right because you can learn so you canlearn how somebody else has structured a story or a or a yeah description yeah yeah so that’s no I usethat I used to read yeah I used to read um specifically in English philosophy inhistory like other people’s Street other students essaysbut usually it would just make me feel oh God they’re so goodum but then you can take some of their ideas sort of use them in your own onesum so it was quite useful for that and then I had a friend you know Regina and heused to call up like pretty much it’s like constant as in like every day andjust be like John have you done the homework I don’t know I haven’t even looked at it I’ll just have on thatand then just Parts up a dinner and then he’d he’d force me so well essentially Ido it early so okay yeah so so I’d look at because he waslike can you do problem like three or whatever or question three so I’d I take my homework out of my bagand then I’ll be like oh okay okay I see why this is tricky and thenit will kind of get me to Crunch the problem over my dinner as it were because I Idon’t know one of those people I like having a problem knowing what it is going away chilling out for a bit andthen coming back to it so rather than just tackling it rightthere and then yeah I’m the oppositewell I go for one for the flight back um from uh because we just went to ZanteI gave her a problem on the flight back and she was like think about it trying to solve itso yeah like he’s still interested in our homework yeahum yeah like it’s yeah I mean I I like I’ve noticedgenerally that the students that do the homework and come back with it

Top student pattern

and it’s all completed and they show you where they’ve messed up they tend to dovery well because they’re everyone they’re clearly able to manage their time well to do it and they’re alsoorganized enough to do it which is also I think quite important for academicsuccess and they’re also sort of diligent and hardworking enough to get it doneso I have noticed that the ones that get it I don’t know whether it’s correlation orcause there’s a thing so like I don’t know whether the homework makes them better as that’s the quitedifficult thing to work out whether it’s it’s correlation or causing so is thehomework making the better or they just stronger students academically and thusthey they do that I mean either way the results are same yeah so no I I I I dothink that the homework plays plays a big part I’ve seen it with theI’ve seen it with our our students um the other thing that homework canhelp too is it can help you learn how to structure an answer so for example ifI’m if I’m marking homework um I might even if a student’s gotsomething correct right I might write down okay look here’s a better way to do it right and I’ll write down mystructure and then go look at that and I’ve literally seen it with our students so they’ll look at my structure they’llcopy that template and then they’ll use it in in further examples and I think I think this isagain where completing your homework comes in comes into play because you start learning right better ways ofstructuring your answers umhow much homework would you say is too much or is there such a thing as too muchI think it also depends on the level right sothat’s what I was going to say that’s that’s why I asked because I’ve found a couple of Statistics to yeah it’s theage as well I want to see what you before I tell you what that says you’re gonna see what I come up withuh okay primary like year three year six year nine Jesus like what it depends onthe position of the student as well but because like I’ve had like for instance for mostfor most primary school students I don’t think they need tons and tonsand tons and tons and tons of Home homework it’s more about sort of homework that deals with specificproblems and so it’s very targeted and has point so there is pointless homework you canjust get so much that it’s like you’re drowning in homework and some of it’s pointless like yeah you canhave the opposite effect it could it could make you yeah switch off rightum but I’ll give you an example like when I Was preparing uh my wife’s cousin for11 plus okay because it was so late notice it was so late notice like as in he was hewas he only had like three months we would I was I was peppering him withhomework like it was a lot of homework a lot for a kid to do but I knew thathe’d need to do it you know this is get to the level so I had to I had todespite the fact that I wouldn’t usually level that much homework at a child ofthat age I knew that I had to do it in his case and then eventually he just like at first he did have resistancetowards it but he got used to it and to be honest now he’s at grammar school it’s quite normalto get a lot of homework I think it helped his trajectory and sort of gotgot him used to doing a lot of homework but whereas like with me because I didn’thave that much homework at Primary School it was such a shock going to Forest because I went from like zero to ahundred my parents were like kind of dismayed at how much I had as well because they were like there’s too muchhomework like he can’t do it all probably for me I was I was there in primary school as well probably used toit yeah yeah well the rule I found

10 minute rule

is a the 10 minute roll it’s called and uh it says students should receive10 minutes of homework per day in with Americans I said first gradewhich is year two and then as you go up a grade it has 10 minutes and then you add an additional 10 minutes every yearthat you go up to year three 20 minutes and by the time you get to grade 12which is a level you should be on 120. oh there we go we got that like in themiddle of secondary school yeah it depends how how long you take with

Organisation

homework because I was a real yeah because I was a real perfectionist like in year seven believe it or not like inyear seven and eight I used to like yeah basically four months in most things because I’d spend so long trying to getit right so I I did because I wanted to make it perfect andso I was like sure in school I was kind of doing quite I was doing quite well butour home my homework was really really good quality and then I started to realize that I’mliterally gonna like die or stress if I keep doing homework this way I need to be more timeefficient and sort of do the minimum required toget a decent Mark but not you know the the issue that I found wasyou can follow those sorts of rules and like most teachers probably do but none of the other teachers take intoaccount any of your other subjects I remember like we would be at school and there was a a big task for home I’dlike write this essay on whatever yeah and people in the class were like oh we’ve you know we’ve just come fromwe’re saying to the teacher like well we can’t do that by by two to three days time because we’ve just got this thiscoursework from physics so we need to do by then like they were like oh yeah Idon’t care this is this is what you’re doing for this class yeah deal with it but I literally just said that okay yeahlike sometimes because you don’t like five different homeworks and I was like well yeah these are like yeah each of these aresort of massive pieces of work I’d say like one to two hours and then and it’llbe towards your final grade or whatever as well so sometimes I he actually by a level I was able toI’ll say this like it made me really really fast so when I wasI used to have these like 20 markers in history like Tony Mark essays I used tobe able to knock one out of those out in 10 minutes like our whole West in 10 minutesand I got so faster doing it and I used to be able to I worked out roughly how to get like an abut yeah that’s that that’s that’s a good point so you what you’re basically saying is you you figured out a way tobe more efficient you’ve you’ve figured out a way to just still get it done so I don’t think that’s that yeah that’simportant it doesn’t sort of matter I I don’t think if you’re if you’re in school I don’t think it sort of mattershow much you’re given you will learn to fight or you should learn to find a way to get all of yourhomework done completed handed in on time um ityeah it’s partly to sort of help you become a sort of better organized person you’llneed it when you enter sort of working life umbeing more organized yeah so you’re saying that if we gave John more work more things would get done quicker Ithink that’s what we’re saying I think we’re going to give you some more workum I don’t know like because because you I do feel sometimes I I had to compromise in quality because I was likelike for instance with that history example I worked out how to get like 16 out of 20. well I knew thatit’s the sort of law of diminishing returns is if I I know that if I spendlike an extra like double the time I can probably get 20 or 19 or something like that but thenso I don’t what is 80 so I’ve worked out roughlyhow to sort of do well yeah you gotta maintain thatlevel go over the boundary without yeah without exceeding it yeah like stressing myself outum I think I’ve got I think I’ve got better at handling a massive workloadslike doing this yeah probably yeah like I didn’t for me my school thing was theother way around like in primary school I was really good and then when I hit yeah eight year nine as I’d like to go the other way whereasyou we crossed over in like yeah eight year nine I thoughtyou were going in different way different directions I felt like yeah key stage three at the end of year ninestarted things started to click like for me like year seven eight and nine I had to work so hard so see howwas the opposite like that that’s all of you those sorts of years I didn’t need to work that hard and I was doing fineyeah but I really really struggled I was like bottom of the class inin year seven I was born of course like most things because I just didn’t know how to do apart from English I wasreally good at English because I was kind of at the top of the class in English but bottom in everything elseit was really weird oh history I was quite good at too so like essay writing subjects probably because I just read Ispent most of my childhood reading yeah I mean I I dropped that same writing subjects as soon as I could yeah mathswas a total mystery for me like I was like what the hell is it why am I I didn’t I didn’t really know what I wasdoing in maths yeah see that’s the one I was a top at um that and I I gravitated towards all thegreatest of all the stuff you don’t like I gravitated towards DT yeah DT musicall that sort of stuff that’s why I gravitated towards and math because I did a lot oflike stuff when I was younger yeah yeahit does I mean I’ll say this about human like the people who do cream on are very uhstructured and logical um but then I feel like I mean I hated how much time it took and it was justlike boring it is repeating the same thing over and over again but like I would be I remember being like year fiveand we were just moving on to multiplication and then everyone else was learning twoby two and the teacher put on the board and I was like done and like the entire class just wentlike they just couldn’t believe that I did it in like the second yeah they butfrom that point going towards like a level yeah the other way I got more and more complicated I didn’t do enough workit’s weird the heart of the mascot the more I enjoyed it where it was like I hate I couldn’t I found calculationreally difficult I was like I could couldn’t do like really basic stuff and then like when Isaw like a worded problem something like that I’d you’re better you already got acomplex stuff but really struggle with simple things and I’m good with simple things butstruggle with really complicated like mathssorry uh no no I wouldn’t say thatum what I was going to ask like have you ever gone into an examand been underprepared and done done relatively well oh yeah many timesmost of my gcses um university too likeuh I didn’t have any exams at Unis but but to be honest like some of it for me was General Knowledge because likethat’s the thing because because I I spent so much time reading so sometimes the stuff on the exam I knew justlike it was part of my knowledge base already so like things about like archeologythose things I remembered from reading about it and then when I went to UNIwe had this big module in like Greece and Rome and I was fine with it because I knew most of the stuff anyway so Ididn’t feel like I needed to to work so I got I got like one offer I got one offerFastener or one mark off and that’s pretty good considering doesn’t really do any work towards itthat’s where I’d say yes I think this whole thing about because we there’s always that I don’t I mean I don’t knowif you guys had it but there’s always that one kid who claims that right he hasn’t done a lot of work but they’renot gone you know when you come out of an examyeah yeah yeah and and they’re like right okay I’ve I’ve absolutely you knowsmash that exam and I haven’t done a lot of work but I I really think that that isI I think that’s a myth and and I think if you’ve I think if you’ve done wellin an exam and you you know you’ve been underprepared undercookedI don’t think that’s something to be I mean my personal opinion is that’s not something to sort of be proud of it’swhat I tell the um what I tell our students as well because we get so many that come in and they’re like oh yeah but sir you know this person next personwhy they never do any work and and they’re always coming out and doing really well in exams and then I stop andI ask them and I like did they tell you that and they’re like yeah and I’m like do you really believe themum because it’s just and like to give you an example soum I hadn’t had a University exam that I was very although I was veryunderprepared for didn’t really didn’t do a lot of work until the until the night before and I came out and I I diddo very well but I didn’t I didn’t feel good about it I I knew that it was I knew that I got I got a little bit luckythere um and so even after doing even after doing wellum I said to myself right okay that’s my studying habits need to change that’s that’s not happening that’s nothappening again and you know I think it was like 87 that I got but rather thangetting that you know you you stop I said tomorrow and this is not this is not me showing off but rightI mean you know you start um I said to myself no I I can do I can dobetter than this right and when I actually sat there studying preparing myself for for harderlike I’ve got I’ve got lower scores and exams before but I’m very proud of those because I know that I’ve had to workreally hard for those and those have been some tough exams and I’ve always noticed a big difference as when I gointo an exam under prepared compared to when I go into an exam prepared every single time it’s been a sort of100 hit record I’ve always done better and I always feel better coming out so I always I always tell students look don’ttake the risk prepare right and I and I think this is where completing homework regularlycomes into play if you are completing homework regularly it’s part of your preparation for examsum I don’t know what what what do you think we’ve got a friendum sorry yeah I know um umhe’s one of those people who who’s like he he can get basically hegot like all A’s for a little he he can coast and anddo very well but I think he just learns differently from others and I thinkthat’s the that’s the thing there are certain people who can appear very relaxed in their learning style or theyare actually they are they’re taking they are they they’re taking it all in and you youdon’t realize how much work is actually going on in that so for instance youknow maths is you you’re probably like okay it’s one of those things you sit down you’ve got to do some questions andthings like that but this guy would say in his chair why don’t you do some sunbathingand because I’ve sat with him and we were doing we were revising together and he just he just used to like read themath book I don’t know like for me I was I wasabout because I actually have to work on a problem so lots of working problems to actually getit but then he’ll just like read and I think he’s just so good at takingin information and processing it I think maybe at a very high level it would youknow if he did went on to do like math say University it probably would have caught up with him but like for like alevel and most of you know mo he he got he did his a level one year earlyfor maps as well and he was just able to take in so much information so easily and even when wewere because we a lot of we were doing the same subjects so you’d also use me to revisebecause I had writing ideas because he used to yeah he used to just bounce ideas off me andin that process he’d learn a lot so that was his form of learning and it wasn’t the most sortof it didn’t look it looked so effortless but for him it really worked so there I think there are some peoplewho can look like they’re not working hard but they they are because you justdon’t know what’s going on behind them yeah but yeah but you said some people there that’s that’s uh yeah it’s like asmall I’ve only met a minority he was weird because I most most scholarshipkids they’re not they’re quite hot they’re really hard working and you really see ityou can see how much work they do but he was a bit different just just different ondifferent mind like so just different from everyone else

When is the best time to do Homework?

when would you say the the best time to do homework like say you have a class on a Tuesday and you have to hand it inthe Tuesday after I I have my own thoughts again on this but yeah I I what I always suggest theydo is um so if it’s with if it’s if it’s with maths or physics I I tell themrather than so I might give them a lot right well what seems like a lot and Ialways I virtually always say I don’t want you to do it all on one day right break it up so if I’ve given you 50questions break it up do a little bit across five days or do a little bit across four days right becauseum I find that when they do it all in one day you know if it’s sort of the day before it’s duein a lot of the time they’ve forgotten that sort of topic or that content by thattime right if they do it too soon then when it comes to the followingclass and if I give them a warm-up question on what we’ve done the previous week yep even though they’ve done theirhomework again it’s sort of with a lot of students it’s sort of they’re a little rusty it’s sort of it’sit’s gone gone out of their minds so I always suggest do a little bit across four or five days or a little bit everyday if you want but the more days you saw especially with subjects like I think maths chemistry physics you knowyou you want to be doing a little bit every single yeah like every single day when when I’ve got like an 11 plus kidand they sometimes struggle to know how much to do on each day so sometimes I’lleven write what they do on each day so do this part this day do this for anotherday I know like with a class generally it’s quite hard to do that but if you’ve got like a small very small group solike two or three then I find it quite useful toState exactly what they’re doing on each day sometimes that’s what that workswell with one to one as well because I think there you’re you’re working so closely with the student you can specifyexactly what to do um on each day and yeah I space it out this is I think something about mathsum well every subject you a little bit every day is better than doing tons it’s like um practicing the piano doingviolin I used to do this thing where I used to squeeze in a lot of my practice like the day before the lessonrather than space it out and like now if I’m practicing for something soif I want to learn a piece or something like that I know that I’m I’ve got a specific plan for each each dayso I can Master the piece quickly um and Tackle in small sectionsI I tend to do similar like thought process but I haven’t I don’t really set it as a day by day thing are you it’sabout it’s about getting it from short-term memory into long-term memory and similarly if you if you do it theday you get get it set or the day after yeah it will remain in your short-term memory you’ll come back the week afterand you won’t remember because you have a lot of stuff going on within that week you won’t remember how to do it and ifyou do it the day before the day before it’s due in you will remember the process of like how totackle the question so I tend to say three daystwo to three days after your class so you’re still in your short-term memory just about and you can recall itand it will reinforce and it’ll start to push it into into long term so I don’t really set it asday by day which I mean it obviously works with repetition it’s like it’s like going to the gym like you’re goingto go yeah you have to you have to get reps in yeah for it uhbe retained in your memory so it’s about pushing it from short time into into long term especially with say GCSEstudents I I’d usually go okay well if you think about like a math topic there’staste salads you’ve got you’ve got ill no basicconcept level do you want to tell them why I’m laughing [Laughter] heyI’m sorry it sounds kind of like sideum so yeah like because because his Maps a particular skillum can get quite deep so Foundation level students they’re they’re doing fairly basic side stuffum and to start with you’re just looking at square roots and then um sort of writing them in the formsquare root a squared Times Square Root B and that kind of thing just just practicing the basic concepts of searchand then you get into rationalizing and then you start doing problem solving with search and then using it in othertypes of problem so I think like every a lot of topics are much deeperthan you think so what you tend to find is when students get to exam time if theyhaven’t had a lot of exam practice they’re like I understand the topic Iget the topic but then they can’t actually apply exam questions yeah they can’t apply it because they haven’t donethat final step the applications that and you can find that in you know in the nxl book or theum the one that has exam style questions yeah yeah once you sort of learn theconcept in detail then you need to start sort of practicing in a different wayand I think sometimes in schools I’ve noticed their homework they’re dealing with a concept into basic Amana for thestudents actually apply it so sometimes I feel like the homework has less valuewhen it’s just dealing with with a basic understanding of the topic and doesn’tpush them especially the ones who are going for like nines and eights and you know sort of the higher gradesuh for Joe from what from what I’ve seen I actually I think that literally thethe total opposite I’ve seen both a leveland GCSE some really really good um pieces of homework that have been given and you know I’ve had to like withsome of our a-level students you know I’ve sat down and explained like yeah okay this looks this looks like a difficult piece of homework but this iswhy you’ve been given this this piece and um yeah and no I think and then now thatwas some of your life into your a level math students quite quite good they go to very very goodcolleges but then I found this especially with Foundation students and maths theyreally really struggle with they a lot of them seem to be sort of hovering around a three like one to three ratherthan the four and five and achieving passing grades I think one of the reasons isyou do actually need to apply a lot of knowledge and foundation soI’ve sometimes found that their homework can be a little basic like a little too basic consideringthey’ve got their exams fairly soon it probably varies a lot and that’s thething with homework is you have you know different teachers different schoolswell I think it’s uh Jim we spoke about the zone of the zone of proximal developmentyeah your work should be if this is where you are your work should be slightly ahead yeah you’reconstantly reaching if you if you go the same level they get bored and switch off if you get too difficult they get boredand switched off so you have to do it slightly yeah higher than their capability in order to push them verydifferent button I think that’s a difficult balance to get right in a class like you know several differentpeople I mean I don’t know I I see I think if if youlook for Value you’ll find you’ll find it I I don’t think it’s uh I I sort of dis I sort of disagree tryand ask yourself you know what what can I learn from this right there there will be something you can learn from it Imean even if even if it is like you’re saying it’s a basic homework right it’s it’sprobably basic to make sure that your foundations are strong right and to make sure that okay if you get a questionlike that you can tackle that relatively quickly it gives you more time to focuson other on other questions in an exam yeah I think I’d like to sort of put trust in teachers and then say thatright okay they’re doing what they’re doing for a particular for a particular reasonright they give they’re setting that task for you for a particular reason and what I say is if if you are finding itbasic you know you’re getting everything right you’re finding it easy go back go back to him or her and and say look Ifound this quite easy do you recommend is there anything else you can give me that’s that’s that willtest my understanding of this particular we’ve had a few students that areactually sort of request more like they they getsome homework and they’re like push me Beyond yeah like yeah or I want to domore of this yeah it does happen but not all the time but but some students areactually they really really want to understand the concept and deeply andthey’re aiming for like really high grades and stuff like that so they they push themselves in that wayand they want more um not less the majority are eitherand I say quite a few students don’t do enough homeworkwhen I was younger myself included I was I was really good with Hunger Ithink I’ve never actually I think I’ve never missed the deadline intentionallyfor homework I mean I think as I I have done the wrong homeworklike like a mass teacher would be likeyeah and then sometimes I’m like I can’t do this but then that helped me learn because at least like at least I lookedat it and then I was like okay how do you do this why did she set this and then I really and then I come back andthen the teacher will be like oh uh John okay you’re not meant to have done this just did a final topic what

The negatives of homework

would you say are the negatives stressum if now some stress is necessary fordevelopment I’d say yeah but then a certain point for meat forests I found it too much like it was just toomuch again it’s especially when you get homework from several different classes all all at once yeahum yeah there was just there was a there was there was times when I thought itwas is not feasible for me to complete it all yeah and that’s when you don’t had in some specific well I always triedbut it I I thought it was like it made me it meant that I had to create a better I won and that kind of thing so Ifelt that sacrifice wasn’t worth it because then like it will mess up my next day and that kind of thing and andthen sometimes just the fact that I think as specific students circumstancesmatter so for instance I had choir once and it ended at like 9 00 P.M and then Ihave to do homework so it’s like it was almost it was impossible for me to get it all done because I had was prettymuch booked out in terms of time yeah yeah so I had similar so stress whenwhen there’s too much but I think a little bit of stress is is good just toyou know practice being in let’s say for a little yeah um because it’s inevitable that you endup in a stressful situation so you need to practice being here yeah you you experienced it early on to kind of learnhow to deal with it sometimes when it’s some sometimes they can be homework that’s just very time consuming butdoesn’t deliver Optimum value like a homework task that isn’t World thought through like uh drawing a Coke can forexample well for sure it’s pointless you’re putting my heart yeah like they’reprobably I mean I wouldn’t say that put me off I I just didn’t I find it very difficult to like thatsome doesn’t put you off drinking the drink eitherum there’s also like like when you get to like the college ages and stuff like that I think at all ages they they needum they need socialization and stuff like that and I’ve noticed that some some kids are so so sort of wrapped upin books um doing homework and I mean they’re the type of shooting that like puts a lot ofpressure on themselves to learn a lot then they’re probably not spending a lot of time developing socially yeah youneed to be well-rounded you know again it’s a practice for work life work-life balance sorry it’s a bigthing yes so I’d say in conclusion homework is

Conclusion

definitely more beneficial than it is not for the you know for the reasonswe’ve mentioned in this in this video yeah I’d agree with that thanks for listening thanks for watchingas always and uh we’ll see you next monththank you [Music]