Summary of the case: – Sagvåg school in Stord has cut homework for the pupils, which has led to less arguing and stress at home for many. – Instead of homework, the school has extended the school day by 20 minutes. During that time, the pupils work on what used to be homework, with the help of the teachers. – Parents get homework, which can be read to the children, ask them about what they have learned or do practical tasks together. – Headmaster Lars Bakka believes that they are able to provide a better teaching offer after they changed the homework arrangement, and that both the teachers, parents and pupils are satisfied. – Researcher Per Egil Mjaavatn at NTNU believes that traditional homework should be removed, especially in primary school, and that it works best with arrangements there pupils have homework at school under pedagogical supervision. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – Skipping homework is like night and day, says Vårin Lie, who is the mother of three boys aged ten, eight and seven. The encounter with homework was brutal when the eldest son started 1st grade. – He hid under a table, and there was howling and screaming. It was absolutely terrible and very painful. Now, fortunately, there is no more arguing and yelling about homework. Minstemann Olav, seven years old, listens when mum Vårin does her homework, which is to read aloud, and asks him about what he is learning at school. Photo: Eli Bjelland / news Ten-year-old Åsmund has ADHD. His brother Oskar, eight, is being investigated for the same diagnosis. – They are tired when they get home. And they should be allowed to sit down and eat and talk about what they have done at school. Parents get homework Sagvåg school in Stord is a homework-conscious school. Here they give the homework to the parents, not the students. Parents can be given the task of reading to the children, ask them about what they have learned or do practical tasks together. Sagvåg school in Stord has cut regular homework for the pupils. Photo: Eli Bjelland / news The pupils themselves do not have homework, but their school day is extended by 20 minutes. This is time they spend on what used to be homework. But at school it is the teacher and not a supervisor who helps. – Before, I had to do my homework straight after school, if I had to play football. If not, I go to bed quite late, because I had to do my homework, says sixth grader Emma Sofie Nytræ Hansen. – I think it’s nice to skip homework at home, says Jone Sælevik Fjose. Now he does his homework during school, and gets help from teacher Linda Elisabeth Berg. 12-year-old Kaja Gravdal goes to gymnastics, football and art school in her spare time. – I think it was quite stressful to also do homework every evening. – It is positive that those who give the homework are actually present when the homework is done, says headmaster Lars Bakka. – The youngest children can come at quarter past seven and be picked up at school at quarter past four. There are probably not many employees who only dream of being able to continue their work when they get home after such a long day. Principal Lars Bakka believes they are able to provide a better teaching offer after they changed the homework system. – The teachers, parents and pupils are satisfied. Photo: Eli Bjelland / news – Motivated pupils The teachers also embrace the scheme. Before, they also had lessons with the pupils during the lunch break. Now there are professional workers who are one with the pupils, and the time for the teachers is used to work on homework. – I notice that the pupils are motivated to do their homework, says Ingelin Ida Marie Petterteig, who is the teacher’s representative for the Education Association. – It will also equalize social differences. Here, all students get the same good help from the teachers who have gone through the subject matter and who have the education precisely to do it. Teacher Ingelin Ida Marie Petterteig says she and her colleagues are happy with the homework system at Sagvåg school. Photo: Eli Bjelland / news Nine out of ten schools give homework Homework or no homework? This is a recurring theme in the debate about Norwegian schools. The law lays down no guidelines. Schools can give homework, but they don’t have to. Nevertheless, nine out of ten primary schools give homework, shows a survey carried out by the Nordic Institute for the Study of Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) on behalf of the Norwegian Directorate of Education. Around half of the schools have made decisions on the extent of the homework. Main findings from research on homework: The time pupils spend on homework and school work in their free time has been reduced since 2015. Homework is often repetition and training in basic skills. Pupils learn best when they are given homework that arouses their interest and they know what to learn, how they learn best and can assess their own learning. Social support from tutors contributes to better homework habits, while support in methods in subjects from tutors, especially in mathematics, can lead to conflicts between pupils and tutors. Homework contributes to slightly better learning for pupils at secondary level and in secondary school, but there are other academic factors that contribute more to learning. Pupils from a low socio-economic background do not learn as much through homework as other pupils. Feedback from teachers on homework to pupils varies in both scope and quality. Immigrants participated to a greater extent in homework help in primary school than other pupils. Immigrants spend more time on homework in secondary school than other students. Source: Directorate of Education (2021) Wants to get rid of homework A project in Trondheim made researcher Per Egil Mjaavatn at NTNU change his mind about homework. He was a fan of homework. He is not now. Four schools are testing different schemes with no homework in 2019/2020. Two out of three pupils at these schools said they argued less with the adults at home without homework, are among the findings in a report that evaluated the experiment. Per Egil Mjaavatn is a researcher at the Department of Pedagogy and Lifelong Learning at NTNU. He has changed his mind about homework, and thinks the traditional homework should be scrapped. Photo: NTNU – Almost all the students say that they become demotivated. Homework makes them not happy to go to school, says Mjaavatn, who is one of the authors of the report. Research into the effect of homework spreads in all directions, but for the youngest pupils there is agreement that homework has no effect, according to Mjaavatn. – I think very few schools have a conscious homework policy. It is an old habit that is the basis. And I believe that traditional homework should be removed. At least in kindergarten. Mjaavatn clarifies that it works best with arrangements where students have homework at school under pedagogical guidance. Like at Sagvåg school, which he believes has found a sensible arrangement. In 2022, Moss became the first homework-free municipality in the country. From this autumn, they have changed the system to “homework aware”, and are open for schools to give homework again. The Education Association trusts the schools The Education Association does not decide whether homework is good or not. – We think that the vast majority of schools have a good and reflective practice in the use of homework, says the head of the Norwegian Education Association, Geir Røsvoll. – Homework is part of the educational toolbox and should support learning. The homework must be at a level that enables the student to master the tasks without help, and they should be adapted to the students’ everyday life, he believes. Should pupils in primary school have homework? At home with his family in Sagvåg, seven-year-old Olav is getting ready to go to handball training. He has heard mum Vårin read his homework to him, and has no tasks waiting after training. She works half the week in Stavanger, and appreciates skipping the homework when she has time at home with her sons. – Our weekdays are better and prettier because the school has managed to rethink and create this arrangement. Vårin Lie says she and her son Åsmund have a much better relationship after school because his homework is done. Photo: Eli Bjelland / news Published 29.08.2024, at 13.34
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The school cut regular homework and extended the school day with great success – news Vestland
