Homework is one area of school life where parents can play a very active and encouraging part in your child’s education. On a basic level, it can help kick-start conversations between parents and children, especially in families where busy work and extracurricular commitments may prevent regular mealtimes together. While research has shown that regular family mealtimes are an excellent way to boost academic performance, this isn’t always possible for families to achieve. Therefore, alternative times have to be created to promote conversation and for parents to demonstrate an interest in their child’s schooling. Homework can also help parents identify areas of strength and those for improvement, potentially more successfully than the classroom teachers. Homework is also a lesson in independence and time management, and pupils need support to manage these commitments – developing a schedule and helping them balance their homework with extracurricular activities and family commitments is important. So what can a parent do to support their children with homework, here are 5 tips on how you can support your child with homework:
- Create space. Set up a space for your child to do their homework. While making this space in their bedroom is sometimes the easiest option, this automatically makes homework a solitary activity. If there is an option for a space in a communal area of the house this helps promote discussions and it is easier to get involved without it feeling like an intrusion. Wherever the space is, give the learner some ownership over it and make it an inviting space to spend time in. New stationery, a comfy chair, and good lighting will also help.
- Make it positive. Make parental input a positive thing. If your child has a question about their work, help them, but try not to tell them the answer. Use questioning to help them get as close to the answer as they can. Starting these practices in younger years will mean that when homework becomes a bigger part of their learning outside of school, your child will be comfortable discussing it with you and will value your input.
- Let them make mistakes, It’s OK for answers to be wrong. Telling your child the right answer and getting them to just write it down means that the teacher is none the wiser about which bits they are struggling with and which they excel at. Help but not too much and leave the mistakes as they are for a teacher to see. Any errors are very revealing, and this helps teachers adjust their teaching to address these issues. The chances are, if your child doesn’t understand it, others in the class probably don’t either, and homework is a great way of highlighting this to the teacher.
- Be realistic. Give them time to complete the work set. While it is tempting to book weekends full of fun, non-school-related activities, children need some downtime. Allowing them some space in the family schedule means they will be able to start allocating their own time and gives them plenty of time to complete the work set. This will allow more time for discussion, a greater conversation between family members and the learner, and an altogether calmer approach.
- Insist work is finished to the best of the student’s ability, if they can’t complete the work themselves, encourage them to research, there are brilliant online resources available like BBC Bitesize. This encourages resilience and independent learning, skills that will benefit your child in the long run. Please do not excuse incomplete work. There are occasionally genuine reasons why homework isn’t completed and that’s ok. Trust the teacher’s professionalism – we don’t set homework because we enjoy it.
Most importantly be available– your children need your help. The rise in mental health issues in young people, the expectations they place on themselves fuelled by social media requirements, and the pressures placed on them by schools, all amount to feelings of stress and anxiety.
At the AC Coach, our online courses give students the extra help, support and structure to stay on top of the workload – and on track to getting the best results, wherever they are. Drop us an email for year 7 to year 13 availability.