Sun Valley Primary School in Cape Town did away with homework and it has had incredible benefits for the children of the school.
Sun Valley Primary School in Cape Town has had a massively positive reaction to getting rid of homework. The principle of the school, Gavin Keller, was inspired to make the change after attending a conference that discussed the lack of innovation in the generations coming up.
Academic achievement is the main focus of schooling but Sun Valley Primary decided to rethink what education means and assess the importance of homework. Gavin discussed how children spend so much time at school and then have to take piles of homework home to their parents and work through that. There is no life balance and the homework is a stress on modern-day families.
Instead, they changed the academic structure within the school and worked to focus all efforts in maximising the 7-hour school day. By covering all schooling tasks in class, they have eliminated children going home and being taught differently by the parents. The school also wanted to avoid the stress on the child for not getting homework done.
“We made sure that the 7 hours they spend at school are so focused, so on task, so full of fun that after school there’s still time to play sport, have their friends around, and in the evening they can still go to bed and read.”
“We have been astounded [by the parents’ response]. The 21st century family is so stressed that they don’t need to deal with homework in the evening.”
By removing the task of homework, the school has seen a massive increase in academic results and the children have improved their reading skills because they have more time to sit and enjoy a good book. Gavin confirmed that the school library has never been more busy.
The department of education has been excited about the positive change and would like to meet up with Gavin to discuss how to impliment this in more schools.
What are your thoughts on homework?
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Excellent to stop homework and encourage reading. Tasks at school to be fun. When the children look forward to school it’s a winner for all.
Kudos for the courage to change a dated system Gavin Keller, and thanks for a great article Tyler Leigh Vivier. This problem becomes more marked at high-school, with teachers being under the impression that there are 35-hours in a day (with each passing the buck of teaching while at school to the students who have to labour away at Sisyphusian tasks to complete homework).
Thank you for your kind words Roy
It’s also really not about parents doing homework for their children – which essentially defeats the purpose; as the saying goes ‘if you spoon-feed children, all they learn is the shape of the spoon’.
The real problem is the current system’s outdated encouragement of rote learning to achieve certain standards, without actually entrenching learning skills and independent thought.
This is an excellent idea.
Why hasn’t this rolled out to the rest of South Africa?
If it is something that has worked surely the department of Education should look into this and implement it throughout all schools.
My daughter is struggling at the moment with the amount of homework given every day, week-end AND holidays!!! I don’t get to spend time with her, she is up late every night, up early – a vicious cycle that never ends!!! As a mom I feel so helpless!
Her bag weighs a ton!!!
I couldn’t even carry it and this is across the board with all the girls! What can I do to be heard???