PRIMARY school-aged children should be spared homework to “prevent negative attitudes towards learning.”

The call from the Scottish Greens came during a Holyrood debate on the report that resulted from the National Discussion on Scottish education. 

“School can be a place of joy if it doesn’t follow children home,” the party’s education spokesman, Ross Greer told MSPs. 

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He pointed to research which showed homework can have a detrimental impact on motivation and can help exacerbate inequality as it disadvantages children whose home environment makes completing it difficult.

“If we want happy children and young people we need a good balance of schoolwork with the rest of their lives,” he said. 

The Green added: “There's growing recognition that adults have a right to disconnect from their work out of hours, so we need to ask if our current levels of homework are necessary and seriously consider, I think, ending homework in primary schools. 

“If children need to get through that work we need to question the curriculum itself. 

“And if there's issues of clutter in the curriculum, which is certainly the case in primary school, we need to resolve those and that is compatible with giving teachers professional autonomy in the classroom.”

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The independent report was produced by Professors Carol Campbell and Alma Harris, following a large scale listening exercise which took place between September 21 and December 5 2022. 

More than 38,000 people, including 26,000 pupils and students, shared their views. 

The academics produced a “call to action” based on the responses. They said the “most powerful message emanating from the National Discussion” was the need to “educate all learners in Scotland for an uncertain and unpredictable future.” 

Their report said there was a “need to start from the here and now building upon the many strengths that are already present in Scottish Education.” 

However, it added that “some radical changes are needed to deliver the transformation required for the future.”

“These changes can only take place if the education system in Scotland becomes a learning system that is willing to take risks and to push the boundaries of what already exists for the benefit of all learners in Scotland.”

One of the key issues dominating the debate in parliament was over additional support needs.

The report said that while there was broad support for the importance of diversity and inclusivity, there were “mixed views specifically on the presumption of mainstreaming for inclusion of pupils in schools.” 

Conservative education spokesman Stephen Kerr said there was clear evidence in the report that “what we have currently is not working.” 

“The report recounts concerning and troubling experiences from parents about their child ‘not receiving timely and necessary support and sometimes inappropriate use of exclusions and other sanctions.” 

“The need for appropriate as and provision is now urgent. In large classes, pupils with additional support needs struggle to learn, their classmates struggle with their sometimes distressing behaviour. It is high time we addressed this.”

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Scottish Lib Dem Education spokesman Willie Rennie said he was “in favour of the presumption of mainstreaming”.

“I think it's the right thing to do, doesn't mean it's always appropriate but it should be the presumption in favour of doing that.” 

He said that that presumption needed to be backed up by resources.

“I think the government does need to understand that it's almost impossible in some occasions when there are so many people with such a variety of needs in the one class,” Mr Rennie added later. 

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said she accepted that point: “I think we also need to reflect the reality that we do currently have the highest recorded level of support staff and additional support needs on record in our schools. 

“That is directly a result of the government providing an additional £15 million per year to help support those additional staff in our schools. 

“But I do accept that the wider point there is more we will need to look at.”