Homework 'won't improve performance'

Homework is little if any use for primary school pupils, say two Australian education academics trying to change the approach to after hours study across the Tasman.

"We're not saying homework should be abolished, just reformed and refined," Professor Mike Horsley from Central Queensland University said.


Horsley said homework had been found to improve academic achievement in the senior years of high school. In Australia that is years 10 to 12 where students are generally aged at least 15.

At that level homework benefited about 45 per cent of students, Horsley said.

"But research shows it won't improve the achievement of children in the early years of primary school, and that it has negligible benefits in the higher grades of primary school."

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