In St Ignatius’ we strive to provide the best educational experience for all of our pupils. As such, we feel that in light of much recent research, that some of our current practices are now in need of modification. For many schools, a growing concern in the past few years has been how we ensure that your children are given appropriate homework to help further the learning taking place in school, and whether or not this learning is in fact resulting in greater attainment.

We have made a number of changes in the past few school sessions and unfortunately we have found that for many of our pupils homework has not provided enjoyable learning experiences. Rather, many of our parents and pupils now feel that homework has begun to have a detrimental effect. It is also worth mentioning that around 50% of our pupils do not return their homework each week for a variety of reasons, many unavoidable. Many of our parents and pupils are now reporting that the experience is stressful and that time constraints for busy families means that homework is low down in their family priorities. We, as parents ourselves, wholly understand these issues and recognise that our time with our children is better spent engaged in family activities rather than additional schoolwork, which for the most part is having no additional benefit to your children. Our children are tired when they come home from a busy day and homework is for many a stressful and unhappy ‘duty’ to be fulfilled each evening.

It is our strong belief that children should be out playing of an evening, spending time with their families and experiencing a range of hobbies and clubs. The benefits of these experiences have been proven to allow our young people to develop into more confident, nurturing and social young adults.

In discussion with our staff and a number of educational figures we have found that staff believe that managing homework, chasing incomplete work and devising more inclusive activities has become almost unmanageable. We also find as a staff, that the benefits of additional work being sent home is almost unquantifiable. This is very much supported by research across a number of countries. Research very much indicates that pupils of Primary age are not benefitting from spending time in the evening on formal, written school work.

Thus, in response to discussions with pupils, parents and staff, and in light of our research we have decided as a school to no longer set homework tasks in the traditional sense.

We have included a number of links and research articles supporting our decision and would welcome any feedback that you may have.

In future, we envision that pupils and their families will undertake tasks through choice based on a Home Learning sheet that will be sent home once a month, based on learning that is taking place in class.   P1-3 will continue to take home a formal reading book and we would continue to encourage families to read together. Once again, I would stress that this should be a calm and enjoyable experience for you and your child.

Some families may request homework packs that support class learning and we will provide resources for your child to use. However, we would not expect this work to be returned to school and such activities would be set by parents as and when they see fit.