Dublin primary school stops giving homework to reduce children’s stress and increase productivity

A Dublin primary school has stopped giving children homework in a bid to make the pupils more productive.

Loreto Primary School in Rathfarnham, South Dublin has been trialling the idea for the past six months.

It comes after teachers acknowledged that homework can cause added stress to pupils.

The school hopes it will help the children to concentrate more while they are in class and, in turn, increase their productivity.

Some parents have expressed concern over the idea and the school has continued to give homework to sixth year students as they prepare for secondary school.

The school has also said that there are benefits that they believe outweigh the negatives.

Principal Sr Maria Hyland said: “Teachers find they have more time during the day for more contact time with the children instead of trying to organise homework and get it corrected, give it back and talk to the child about it.

“It’s going quite well as expected and feedback from parents has been quite positive and maybe some parents are a little nervous about it.

“They like the structure of written homework but so far it’s going well for us and we’re happy.”

As well as having more time to interact directly with the teacher in the classroom, the pupils will have more chance to be children while at home, which could bring all sorts of benefits, such as an increased level of fitness, creativity and overall confidence.

Sr Hyland added: “We have been talking about it for some time and the quality of homework and the stress around homework seems to be getting worse.

“What we want children to do when they are at home is different things like listening to the RTE children’s news to discuss with parents. Children are worried about homework, parents trying to do it and maybe police getting it done.

“That’s not really the focus for parents, they should be more of a sounding board for children instead of saying will we get this done.

“They are doing a little bit of oral work which is their spellings and a little bit of their table work and time to play and be creative at home.”

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