A new homework policy has been implemented this year in Middle School and consists of students working only on essential skills, which will provide them with more free time.

The Middle School Administration is aware that students have many extracurricular activities and duties to attend to, so they created a policy that prevents an overload in the amount of work. Directives are following Finland’s no-homework concept because they believe kids should do other things rather than school work.

“We want students to practice and develop essential skills for life, but we also want them to have time to explore, be kids and be with their families,” Ms. Bianca Vega, MS Vice-principal, said.

Only Math, Spanish and English can send extra homework, and it´s supposed to be independent homework that deals with universal skills and helps students in life. Students are given a lot of class time to get their work done and if they don´t use it wisely, then that’s when homework is assigned.

“I don’t really like homework, but if they don’t get it done during class they have to finish at home,”  Ms. Clara Quintero, 8th grade English teacher, said.

The way classes work has changed now; teachers take a few minutes explaining what to do and the rest of the class is work time. Increased work time in class has decreased the amount of homework students receive, as a result, classes that used to send a lot of work home do not have to anymore.  

“It’s good because now we get less amount of work and more free time,”  Jose Jaramillo, 8th grader, said.

A similar homework policy is used in Finland, in which they receive no homework and have only one standardized test at the end of the year. Finland´s graduation rate is 93% compared to United States 82%.

According to Danny Ashton, a reasearcher at Linkdex, an educational think tank,  there is actually no homework in Finland and it’s having a surprising knock-on effect for their students.

Homework is something that can be very stressful and overwhelming for students, and it leads to high levels of anxiety, depression and anger. Homework deprives children of a different variety of activities in their life in order to make it balanced and joyful. Despite years of experiments and tests, there is no research that confirms that homework has an academic benefit.

According to  Dr. Justin Coulson, Australia´s leading parenting expert and researcher, homework offers no academic advantage. Instead, it overwhelms struggling children and is boring for high achievers.