A PRIMARY school has banned homework – without even telling parents.
King’s Road Primary in Rosyth, Fife, scrapped extra work at the start of the new term in August.
Parents at the council-run school only realised things had changed when their children came home week after week without their usual academic chores.
The benefits of homework are hotly debated within the education profession, but it is extremely rare for compulsory homework it to be banned altogether.
King’s Road headteacher Gordon Buchanan said staff wanted to look at the impact homework is having on children’s learning.
The 480 pupils are instead being encouraged to read at home, although there will be no punishment for failing to do so pick up a book once out of school.
Many parents of children at the school are angry at the school for taking such a drastic step without informing them, let alone consulting.
The mother of one nine-year-old, who asked not to be named, said: “Since my son started back at school we’ve asked every week, ‘Where is your homework?’
“He just kept saying he hasn’t been given any. At first we just thought he was being a chancer, trying to get out of doing it, but after chatting to other parents, across different years, it seemed to be the case for everyone.
“It would be nice to be consulted as we feel his homework gives us an opportunity to keep an eye on what and how he’s learning.”
Fife Council issued a statement, attributed to Mr Buchanan, in which he said: “We are revising our current homework policy, looking at the impact that homework has on children’s learning.
“Some aspects of homework are on hold while we are looking at a new approach and parents are being kept informed.”
“Meantime children are being encouraged to take reading books home and next term we will be taking up the First Minister’s Reading Challenge with all pupils.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article