Page Contents

• Purpose, Score

• What classes have Home Learning and what have Homework?

• Why Introduce Homework @ Pre VCE Level?

• Recommended amount of Home Learning

• Conclusion

• Communication

• Further Information and Resources

Purpose

To outline to our school community the Department’s and Templestowe College policy requirements relating to homework and home learning.

Scope

This policy applies to students in all year levels and staff responsible for setting and monitoring homework and home learning at Templestowe College.

Policy

Templestowe College has developed this Home Learning and Homework Policy in consultation with members of the school community to support student learning and wellbeing by:

• providing opportunities for students to review, revise and reinforce newly acquired skills

• providing opportunities for students to apply new knowledge

• providing opportunities for students to prepare for future lessons

• encouraging students to enrich or extend knowledge individually, collectively and imaginatively

• fostering good lifelong learning and study habits

• supporting learning partnerships with parents/carers.

At TC our aim is to develop great thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, writers, craftspeople, critical thinkers and questioners, not just workers. Thus for student not studying VCE subjects we do not set homework which serves only to take up time, creates tension at home and can extinguish a student’s curiosity, sense of autonomy and natural love of learning. Counter to what might seem logical, research consistently shows that highly structured homework produces little or no academic benefit before the senior secondary years and instead can actually have some significantly negative consequences.  

Instead, we wish to support families in fostering a love of learning in their children that extends beyond the school day by suggesting a range of academic and extra-curricular activities, which based on current research is far more likely to produce positive outcomes for students both behaviourally and academically.  

Our homework policy aligns with our school values exemplified in our Empowered Learner Framework. 

• Agency: Students should be able to have control over their Home Learning and follow their own passions and interests. 

• Authenticity: Home Learning should be a core part of every student’s life, not something that is added on without purpose. 

• Relationships: Home Learning should allow for students to develop strong relationships with their family and community by engaging in meaningful activities together. 

• Understanding: Home Learning can be shared and celebrated but all members of the community. 

• Success: Home learning should support students to succeed in their academic and broader goals. 

For those students moving onto VCE (where there is homework), the skills learnt through self-directed Home Learning have been invaluable in helping to form productive study habits. We have also introduced structures at Pre VCE level that support students transition into the VCE Pathway.  

Our aim is for Home Learning to represent the environment outside of school, where students are able to follow their interests and passions to experience the deeper learning that comes from this, rather than to see learning outside of school as a matter of compliance that they cannot wait to leave behind.