Effective maths homework made easier: tips for teachers

Effective maths homework can be a real headache. Often, it's the teachers who bear the weight of this burden more than their students. However, research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) reveals that well-crafted homework can propel student progress by up to five months each year, particularly among secondary students.

While the benefits are undeniable, the key to success lies in ensuring that homework serves as a valuable learning experience for your students, where the emphasis is firmly on the word 'effective.' With this in mind, we scoured the internet, delved into extensive research, sought insights from experienced maths teachers at the chalkface, and even consulted with Sir Kevan Collins, education tsar and former England Education Recovery Commissioner.

In this blog, you’ll be provided with actionable tips for approaching maths homework, so both you and your students can reap the progress rewards.

Effective maths homework needs to be relevant and meaningful

This might be an obvious point to make, but how do you ensure that every time you set homework, you (and your students) know that it is meaningful? Sue Heys, maths teacher of 20 years, says start with a question.

“Ask yourself, ‘why am I doing this?’ Like when you plan a lesson, you start with the objective of the homework. Once you have decided that, you can’t go far wrong. You’re moving away from homework as a tick-box exercise to more of an extension of learning.”

Approaches and types of effective homework

So, why are you setting your maths homework? The following are effective types and approaches to consider when setting effective homework.

Embedding learning

Students have learnt something in your lesson that you want to make sure is firmly ‘in there’. This type of homework should focus on practising previously taught knowledge, perhaps with low-stakes quizzing/questions (Jones, 2020). According to the EEF, “Homework that is linked to classroom work tends to be more effective.”

Flipped learning

In flipped learning, homework is what used to be done in-class. Rather than teach something new in the lesson and then set a homework that allows for practice/embedding of this new information, the flipped learning approach would mean setting the intro to a topic (ie. low level cognitive work) for homework. In many ways, flipped learning can save a lot of classroom time, and it means students get your help right at the point that it gets difficult. It might not always work like this, but it can be a really great approach to some topics of learning, for example, expanding double brackets prior to teaching factorising quadratics.

You might set videos, podcasts, or low-level questions to introduce the topic and get students ship-shape for the tough work ahead in your classroom.

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Assessment

Whether it’s a mock paper, or a series of questions at the end of a topic, assessments for homework can be a great way to assess learning and find the gaps. For some, doing an assessment at home can relieve some of the anxiety brought about by being in test conditions in the classroom. But for others, an assessment at home could be filled with distractions - so consider the home environment of your students with this one.

Interleaving

The benefits of interleaving cannot be understated, and setting homework with an interleaving approach is a really great way to reap those benefits. If you plan ahead, homework can play a key role in your interleaving practice. Short homework activities following a spaced rotation is what you’re looking for here.

We asked Sue Heys for any tips she had for interleaving homework: “Make sure students are aware that the homework you are setting might not clearly link to the work they are currently doing in class - and that this is intentional. Students become disassociated with the work they’re doing unless they understand the point of it.”

Effective maths homework needs to be managed

Sometimes, the setting of homework is the easy bit. But as secondary teachers, what happens when the homework isn’t done? Most schools will have a homework policy, but there are other approaches to homework that can help, too.

Your school’s homework policy

New teachers to a school and Early Career Teachers (ECTs) should always become familiar with the school’s homework policy. Hopefully, you’ll find a robust approach to homework that helps with the management of when it isn't done. Which as we all know, can have an impact on the lesson - particularly if you have taken a flipped learning approach.

Fall back on the expectations of the school as a whole. And if the reprimanding of a child who hasn’t done the homework falls on you, try sharing that burden across the department by rotating who takes the detentions.

Routine, routine, routine

American writer, John Steinbeck is quoted to have said, “There is comfort in routine.” When students experience routine, they understand what is expected of them and their peers - a true comfort for most.

Using a routined approach to homework will help to engage students. Setting homework on the same days each week, expecting the homework returned on the same days and feedback back within the same allotted time, will help students become attuned to your expectations.

Communication with parents

It might help to communicate your expectations of homework with parents as well as your students at the beginning of the academic year. Support from home can become very useful, especially if homework (or lack of it) becomes an issue.

Homework club

In their key findings, The EEF states that, “Some pupils may not have a quiet space for home learning - it is important for schools to consider how home learning can be supported…”

In a recent roundtable discussion, Sir Kevan Collins spoke positively about schools that create spaces for students to learn outside of lesson time, “...what some schools are doing is almost trying to create a safety net for children through spaces for children who couldn’t complete their independent work with support at home. We have to move away from this idea of ‘homework’ to independent work.”

With this in mind, if your school doesn’t already have a homework club, it might be worth setting one up. A department homework club could also be effective, especially when specialist help is needed. This could be particularly helpful to combat repeat ‘missing’ homework offenders. Perhaps instead of homework detention, putting positive relationships at risk, a homework club might be a more positive strategy to take.

Effective maths homework needs to be accessible and to stretch and challenge

When it comes to homework, how do you cater to everyone’s needs? Homework needs to be accessible to those who need the extra support, but it also needs to push those at the top.

If you’re lucky to have edtech to help you with differentiation in homework, then utilise it. Some edtech can take all the heavy lifting out of differentiation, ensuring students are sent down exactly the right path for them. Edtech could even lead to increased engagement from students, as Sir Kevan Collins points out, “Technology is an absolutely fundamental part of life.. It’s here to stay. One study found that kids answer more questions in an hour when they’re presented them through technology that gives them immediate feedback, compared to giving them a number of questions on paper.”

If you don’t have tech to help, provide extra support for those who need it in the form of formulae sheets, or links to videos that will take them through step-by-step.

Effective maths homework needs to be more work for the students than it is for you

We’ve touched on workload when it comes to differentiation, but the workload doesn’t stop there. Planning, setting, collecting and marking homework is a huge task to add to an already heavy load. And this is meant to be work for the students, not you.

We asked specialists what they do to reduce the workload of homework:

• Homework that extends from work done in the lesson reduces the amount of planning time needed to set homework.

• Mark at least one piece of homework in class, with the students. This is ultimately beneficial for students to see exactly where they have gone wrong (or right!)

• Follow the school’s homework and behaviour policies when it comes to chasing homework - this might be an increase in workload in the short term, but you will reap the benefits when students get used to your, and the school’s, expectations.

• Utilise edtech! There are so many tools to assist teachers with their workload. Just make sure the edtech that you’re using reduces your workload and provides an appropriate approach to learning for each of your students.

Learning by Questions can help you with all of the above. Our platform contains hundreds of maths resources - including exam style questions, as well as instant question-level analysis. Better yet, you can trial LbQ for free for six weeks.