Do you struggle with the balance of Homework and afterschool activities?
Startling results from a recent study and school poll show that Carmel students are in fact feeling stressed and feel that some homework is not effective for their learning. Much of the Homework allocated to Carmel students is simply "busy work;" work that is set purely to take up time, rather to re-inforce the days learning. The aim of this website is to rally suport for this issue and either, reduce the amount of homework, or to increase the educational quality of the work.
At Carmel College students are expected to complete about 30 minutes of homework every night for years 9, 10 and 11. This adds up to a total of 3 hours of homework every night, not including subjects that a lot more time consuming, like Art and Materials. It is difficult for students doing afterschool activities to fit this work into their busy schedules and they find that they are penalised and behind in their work the next day.
Carmel College offers a wide variety of afterschool activities for its students to participate in. Carmel Students represent their school in sport, music groups and competitions. It seems unfair that they have to stay up to midnight after representing Carmel all afternoon to finish the 3 hours of homework that had been set to them in class. Students should be able to have dinner, maybe watch one episode of their favourite programme without being under the constant pressure of finishing everything on time.
Here is a video that gives good study tips and ideas on how to get through your Homework quickly and efficiently.
This is the results table for the survey we took at Carmel College. We surveyed 10 people from each of the years (years; 9, 10 & 11) with a total of 30 results.
From these results we got our statistics which can be seen here.
Is Homework good or bad for us? I went on a quest to find out the answer. Although there were opposing points in the thousands, mainly mathmeticians pointing out that re-inforced learning increases the chance of remembering things by 60%. However there are many people who believe that Homeowrk is bad for children.
Their main points were as follows;
1) Homework stops kids from being kids.
2) Homework is often just 'busy work' that does not enforce learning but keeps us busy.
3) Enforced Homework turns to a negative chore, which doesnt motivate students to study and learn at home.
4) Overloaded Homework is affecting family time, often involving arguments.
5) Emotional stress of making deadlines is being enforced onto younger and younger children.
6) The Homework being assigned is the wrong type of homework.
Many people are of the belief that Homework is quite unecessary. It is fair that any work that is not completed in class time should be finished after school, however work should not be assigned to students to complete.
Here are the results to the survey that was taken at Carmel College from 30 year 9-11 Students. These results support the issue that Carmel Students do feel the pressure of too much Homework and that reducing their workload would be highly appreciated.
Is it due tomorrow? Do you find there just aren’t enough hours in the day? Time management skills are very important to have to help you manage your time efficiently to get the best results you can in everything you do. Here are some tips that will improve your time management and make it easier to get all your homework completed to a high standard.
When you learn how to manage your time you gain control, instead of making slow progress and doing a bit of work here and there but not achieving anything. Time management skills are very important for anyone who wants to achieve.
1. Plan out your week
Try and put some time aside some time to plan out your week. Write down any projects, homework and afterschool activities that will require time out of your week. This will give you a better idea of what you need to do and how busy you will expect to be.
2. Prioritize your work load
Prioritizing involves putting your tasks in order of priority (importance.) By prioritizing all your homework you will get things done faster. This could be in order of when they are due, the most difficult, the most time consuming.
3. Managing Interruptions
Try to minimize any interruptions that will disturb you whilst doing your homework. Try to do your work in a quiet place where there are not people that to disturb you. By controlling these factors you will be able to work more efficiently and get things done faster.
4. Procrastination
Do it now! “I’ll get to it later” has led to the downfall of many people.
There is no better time than now.
5. Don’t be a perfectionist
Some tasks don’t require as much effort that you would put into it. Learn the difference between easy tasks and ones that take more effort. For example worksheet may only take 10 minutes yet a poster or essay will take alot longer and require more time.
6. Beware of “filler” tasks.
When you have a to-do list filled with important tasks, be careful not to get distracted by “filler” tasks. Things such as organizing your bookcase or filing papers can wait until you tackle the items that have the highest priority.
7. Say No!
Many people find that they over commit to things because they feel they have to. If you have an important exam tomorrow and your employer asks you to do a shift, dont feel you have to say yes. Education should take priority.
8. Identify bad habits
By identifying bad habits that would take up your precious time you can eliminate them and grow a good work ethic.
By following these steps you will find that you have more time and that your Homework will be done in little time to a high standard. These skills are important and will help you get through your workload and are important life skills.
A portrait of moi
Who am I?
My name is Gina and I am a year 11 student who currently attends Carmel College. I prefer movies to films, jeans to skirts, noodles to rice, LOTR/HP to anything else! I play badminton and I love singing Barbershop ^^
I do afterschool activities for the school and understand how hard it is to fit in all the allocated homework, and I find that I am doing science at maths at lunchtime or before school, so this topic was very relevant to me. I decided to make this website to put forward an idea to the school and provide students in my position some ideas as to how they can manage their time more suffiently.
This website is important because it offers students in this position access to skills they can use to help them. Eg, Time Management skills. This website plays host to alot of statistics thats show the view of students at Carmel. Its good to hear what pupils of the school have to say and see their opinion on this issue. This website shows different views from professionals and has information from recent studies.
What solutions does this website offer?
This website offers people information on the issue to help them get a better understanding. A solution offered is the suggestion that homework be reduced from 30 minutes per subject, to 15 minutes per subject. This solution may not however, be possible to achieve in the school so the website also offers people access to Time Management Skills. These skills are very important and, when attained, will make the homework load alot lighter and easier to complete.