It might be half-term but that doesn’t mean parents are safe from their favourite love-to-hate pastime: homework.
A new survey of 2,000 parents in the UK has lifted the lid on how much time parents are devoting to helping their kids with homework – and it’s not pretty.
The poll found parents are spending two hours per week supporting with extra curricular school work. While this might sound pretty insignificant – after all, what’s two hours between friends? – it adds up to 104 hours a year.
That’s the equivalent of 13 days of unpaid work.
There’s been much debate about homework of late after TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp urged parents to skip doing homework tasks with their children in January.
Irish president Michael D Higgins also suggested homework should be scrapped, saying work should “get finished at the school and people should be able to use their time for other creative things”.
At the time HuffPost UK asked parents what they thought of homework. While some agreed it was beneficial, others were strictly against it – with one parent even implementing a homework ban in their home.
The latest survey on homework, by retailer Next, found almost a quarter (23%) of UK parents believe their children receive too much homework.
One quarter of parents (25%) said homework had caused a family disagreement, while 13% of parents had covered for their child by making an excuse to the school or teacher as to why their homework wasn’t completed.
Topics that seem to be the most mind-boggling for parents including maths, languages (such as French, Spanish or German) and science.
If you’re struggling to navigate a hideous homework assignment this half-term, Claudia Greenwood, a primary school teacher, has shared some helpful advice.
“For young children, smaller pieces of information are easier to take in. I recommend that parents spend no longer than 15 minutes a day on homework tasks. Little and often works best,” she says.
YouTube and other online resources such as BBC Bitesize are great for guiding parents and kids through homework topics.
“Role reversal is also a great technique, getting your child to teach the subject to you – you may even learn something yourself,” she adds.
Nearly one in five (15%) parents say they don’t understand their child’s homework themselves. If you can relate, Greenwood recommends asking the teacher about it.
“Even just a quick two-minute chat at the school gates can calm many parents’ nerves, and we can recommend any materials to help study,” she adds.