Dublin primary school ditches written homework
A Dublin primary school has scrapped written homework to ease the pressure on students and parents.
Loreto in Rathfarnham still expects students to do spellings and tables though.
Teachers at the school said there has been an improvement in the abilities of students in these areas.
Principal, Sister Maria Hyland, said the move was in response to the demands faced by parents.
Sister Hyland said: "We asked what was it achieving? And I suppose we are being responsive and relative to present reality for parents who are very busy, maybe both parents are working and they are coming home late in the evening and children are tired.
"So we decided that what we would do is that the written homework, which seems to take forever for certain children, that we would leave the spellings and a little bit of oral work."
Marc O Cathasaigh, a primary school teacher in Waterford, said there is a time and place for some assignment work to be done at home.
Mr O Cathasaigh said: "I'm all for spellings to be done at home, reading to be done at home, reading is incredibly important to do at home, but unless I have a specific reason for assigning written homework, I'd probably prefer not to give it, to be honest.
"Then you get the pother side of the story, parents worry if there is not homework coming home, some people make the argument that it is a good way of having a home school communication, so that parents know what's going on within the classroom."
