Unhomework: How to get the most out of homework without really setting it

By Mark Creasy

In a dynamic and ever changing education climate it is important to re-evaluate practice in schools on a regular basis in order to ensure that we are doing the right thing for our children. With questions being raised over the value of homework, Mark Creasy advises teachers and parents on how to get the most out of homework without letting it get in the way of their lives. This book questions the necessity of homework while recognising that most teachers have a statutory duty to provide it. The author provides suggestions for how teachers can make homework more effective, applicable and less pointless; organising classroom learning to allow children to set their own homework and creating opportunities for learning out of everyday situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Release date: Feb 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781781351550

Mark Creasy

Mark Creasy is a dedicated father and teacher at an independent school in Buckinghamshire. His contemporary and down-to-earth style of teaching has allowed him to view learning as a tool, not a rule, to ensure that his pupils are given the right to an education that suits their needs and maximises their potential for future success.

Book preview

This book began life as an idea that grew out of a chance conversation and follow-up email discussion with Ian Gilbert following the Independent Thinking ‘Big Day Out’ in Nottingham. Two years later, this book is the expression of over ten years’ practical work in classrooms across four schools. During this time I have achieved the position of head teacher and have taught a range of subjects to children from Year 4 to Year 13. This will hopefully continue for a long time to come.

I qualified as a physical education teacher at Exeter in the late 1990s. Then, as now, PE didn’t require homework as such, so in the earlier days of my teaching career I didn’t need to worry about it. However, as I moved away from the gym and into the classroom, initially teaching my second subject of English, I realised more and more that homework was pretty much a waste of time – not just the children’s time, but the teacher’s time as well. Apart from the hours, effort and paper which went into such work, most of the homework I set until that time simply confirmed what I already knew: that it didn’t really take the children any further or deeper into their understanding. It was just homework for homework’s sake. I have to admit that I just copied the pattern I saw colleagues using, arguing that I was simply ‘following the scheme’. But this was not how I taught. Simply following a lesson scheme wasn’t how I worked inside the classroom and it wasn’t how I wanted my classes to perform outside of it either. Yes, I was one of those (annoying) colleagues who could set the work and the children would bring it in, which was something that my homework-chasing colleagues would often complain about. They either had to ask repeatedly, or they didn’t get it in at all.

I couldn’t help thinking that traditional homework was putting us on some sort of educational hamster’s wheel. I used to put a lot of time and effort into preparing the copies of the work for each child, which they went away and completed for me to mark, but neither of us were really enjoying the process. This kind of learning was neither exciting nor rewarding – for me or for them. However, as a ‘maverick in the classroom’ (as one of my head teachers put it), following the same ritual as everyone else didn’t sit comfortably. I spoke to other colleagues, but at that time none of us felt empowered enough to challenge the status quo, and sadly, as the children expected or knew no different, so it continued.

Ironically, given the perspective some people have about certain types of schools, it was when I was working in a Special Measures school in Luton in 2003 that my homework epiphany came. Although many people believe Special Measures to be constraining and about box ticking, one of the wonderful things about Special Measures is the freedom it gives you if you’re prepared to take it. The clue is in the name: you’re working together on doing something different, because whatever it was before, it didn’t work. It was Dale who was instrumental in my change of mind. Dale, a Year 10 boy, would have been described as a loveable rogue by those who knew him. The middle child of a large family, he had the charm and smile to compensate for his usual lack of work and effort and was one of those children whom you just wished would recognise how talented he really was. However, football and girls were more his focus! I was teaching him GCSE English when he burst one of the great educational myths. He said, ‘So, I have to spend at least an hour every night doing my homework, yet I’m supposed to be developing myself into a rounded young man – whatever that means.’ He continued, ‘Then, you spend even longer marking it all. But you have a family you must want to be with. Surely there’s a better way than all this, isn’t there? Why do we both put ourselves through this, when we could be doing other, more enjoyable and fun things instead?’

I thought about what he’d said and realised that Dale was right: it was time to break the pattern. There really was no point to homework; well, certainly not in the ritualistic way in which I had been setting it up to then. In fact, for the first time ever I began to look at the very nature of homework in a more holistic manner, in terms of how it was getting in the way of having a good life for me and my classes. This was with special regard to the buzz phrase ‘lifelong learning’ with which I was being bombarded at work, in the TES and at every course I went on at that time. I had to reconsider whether I was truly doing my bit to ensure and cement this philosophy. I came to the conclusion that, unfortunately and somewhat depressingly, I wasn’t. It was at that moment that I resolved to do something different. However, despite my personal revelation, I worked in a school with a clear homework policy and expectations.

It was from this discussion with Dale – coupled with the need to be able to provide evidence that my children did ‘complete homework’ – that the idea of ‘Unhomework’ began to form in my mind. I had never given what I did a proper name, always referring to how I set homework as ‘not really doing it’ or ‘getting homework in without setting it’. However, these aren’t catchy names, nor do they sum up the essence of what I have learned to do as a classroom teacher over the past decade, so I now use the term coined by Ian Gilbert – Unhomework.

During this time Unhomework has become an integral part of my educational philosophy and an ingrained process for ensuring that my children – regardless of the age or phase I was teaching – completed work outside of the classroom which was relevant, purposeful and engaging for them, as well as being aligned with the ideals they encounter within the classroom. Unhomework allows the children to lead their learning, as I encourage them to do in the class. My aim is to achieve the position of the ‘guide at the side’. In this role, I find they need me less and less as the year progresses.

As you might expect, the Unhomework idea did not come fully formed, but developed gradually, with plenty of learning from my experience of working with over 1,500 children in the classroom. I have benefited greatly from the comments made by my colleagues, the parents and, more importantly, the children who have passed through my classes during the last decade who were tolerant of the mistakes and explorations I was making along the way. In retrospect, I can see now that I was providing them with a good role model for getting on in life.

These days, Unhomework is an essential part of my entire classroom experience. The model I have developed builds on the creative curriculum and project-based learning ideals of establishing an enquiry within a context. From this, the children then develop and answer their enquiries, before elaborating them as they decide appropriate, creating greater breadth, depth or both, or even opening up a new enquiry sparked by their learning. In this way, children are freed from the shackles of being set standardised homework. Unhomework provides greater autonomy for them and, when done properly, eases the teacher’s burden too.

I estimate that I have now used this approach with well over 1,500 children personally, as well as indirectly with countless others, thanks to colleagues adopting the practice. This autumn I have just introduced another class of children to Unhomework. As I currently work in primary education, I have come to realise that this process is best begun there, as it allows children to grow and develop with it as they progress through education.

To answer some recent government criticisms, specifically from Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd: it helps develop ‘grit, resilience and independence’ in their learning – though it was doing this long before it was today’s stick to beat schools with. I can honestly say that it works for children at any age and it doesn’t detract from exams or from anything else. On the contrary, it enhances them, and when introduced and explained properly, it does provide them – as Dale challenged me all that time ago – with opportunities to become more rounded human beings.

Homework

Benjamin Franklin famously said, ‘Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.’ In my experience, and from the feedback of children I have spoken to during my teaching career across six schools, this is not how children view homework. Unfortunately, the following scene is more