Supporting homework without doing it for your child
Homework is essential in reinforcing student’s learning and teaching them study skills. It’s natural to want to help your child with their homework and to want them to do it well, even to do it perfectly. But the question of how to help can be tricky. Curriculums are updated all the time. You may not have studied the same topics or subjects. Luckily, you don’t need to be the expert – or even have the right answers. The most impactful way you can support your child is not to show them exactly how to do their homework, but rather to encourage them to learn how to tackle it themselves. This allows them to become confident in dealing with unfamiliar questions, resolving difficulties and finding solutions – skills essential for adult life. The best way to help your child to learn how to learn depends on their age as children need structure whilst teenagers require more independence. Here are five ways to make your support count at every stage.
Written by Anna
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Agree a homework routine
Predictable routines build learning habits, making it easier to get going every day. They also build confidence, showing pupils that they are capable of managing their own work.
Primary school (6 to 11)
Keep the routine short and consistent, ideally at the same time each day.
Give them choices within the routine: Do you want to do your homework straight after school or have a break? Do your snack before, with or after homework?
Make sure they’re in a calm, quiet space. Set them up at a table with nothing on it that will be a distraction. You may need to sit beside them to get them started.
If they don’t want to get started, break up the tasks for them. Suggest that they have a go for ten minutes or try just the first question.
Secondary school (11 to 18)
Involve your teenager in coming up with their own study plan. It’s less likely they’ll follow a routine that is imposed on them.
Be curious about what your teenager needs. Invite them to reflect on what helps them to focus: Do you concentrate better after school or on weekends? What resources do you need to get started? Would leaving your phone somewhere else help you get this done?
Help them to plan
The ability to plan, check progress and review work are important study skills, but may not come naturally. Help your child to manage their workload, not by mapping everything out for them, but by encouraging them to learn and practice these skills.
Primary school (6 to 11)
Provide a weekly homework checklist – put up a whiteboard or a piece of paper somewhere visible. Ticking off each task will demonstrate their progress, while a small weekly reward for a completed checklist may increase their motivation.
Encourage them to choose how they work through the checklist. Ask: What task would you like to begin with? Is there anything on there you could complete today?
Secondary school (11 to 18)
Provide them with their own planner or calendar or show them how to set up a digital to-do list to keep note of homework, coursework or EPQ submission and exam dates.
Encourage them to work backwards from deadlines. Turn a big task like coursework into stages – research, first draft, feedback, final draft. Breaking large projects like these into smaller jobs makes it easier to understand the process and how long each step might take.
Offer to help them think through their plans. Ask: How will you fit your homework in this week? What do you need to tackle over the holidays?
Link their plans to their aims. While older students may be less motivated by rewards, motivate them by reminding them of their end-point – university, career, or mastering a set of skills. Acknowledge that we sometimes have to do difficult or boring tasks in pursuit of our goals.
Encourage, don’t fix
It can be challenging to see your child struggle over a homework task. It’s tempting to help by taking over and working it out for them. But stepping in with the answer means that your child may not have had the chance to think the problem through, try out different approaches and gain confidence by solving it themselves. This is an essential process for developing independent learning.
Primary school (6 to 11)
Sit next to them and encourage them to try again before offering your help.
Get them to share their thinking process with you. Ask: What is the question? What have you tried? Can you show me how you did it?
Prompt them to take the next step if they’re stuck, but give them the space to spot any problems in their approach themselves. For example, you might ask them to read the question once more or spot the difference between their work and an example from their textbook.
Secondary school (11 to 18)
See if they can talk you through their thinking. Ask: Can you explain what the question means? What do you already know about this? What part are you stuck on?
Show curiosity about what they’re learning. You don’t need to be knowledgeable – encourage them to describe what they’re learning about, in their own words. ‘Teaching it back’ can help students to spot gaps in their learning and let them build their confidence with the material.
Let them make mistakes
No student, no matter how brilliant, gets it right every time. Mistakes are not failures – they offer important feedback that helps a child work out what they haven’t understood and what they can do to do even better next time. What matters is encouraging your child to become used to checking their own work and changing their strategy when they keep making the same mistake.
Primary school (6 to 11)
Ask them to check their work themselves each time. This allows them to spot their own mistakes and encourages self-review to become a routine part of finishing a task.
If they haven’t noticed a significant mistake, direct them towards it and encourage them to find it themselves. Ask: Can you check that one again? What do you notice about that answer?
Reassure them that making mistakes is important to learning. Tell them that what matters is to keep trying to work out the problem. Ask: Where could you look to find out what the next step should be?
Let them see you making mistakes. Involve them when you can’t work out a problem. Model what it looks like to not know the answer to something and go about finding it out.
Secondary school (11 to 18)
Don’t focus only on grades from marked work or practice questions, but encourage your child to reflect on what they can learn from the feedback. Mistakes might point to knowledge gaps, problems with essay technique or issues with their understanding of the test’s structure. Ask: What does this suggest that you need to review? If you were your teacher, what would you say you need to focus on next?
Help them to turn feedback into practical steps. This might mean recapping a topic, going over a practice question or asking for help from their teacher. Ask: What do you need to do next?
Praise their efforts and strategies as well as results. Acknowledge when they’ve taken control of their learning. Say: I noticed you started that essay even though you didn’t feel like it. It was smart to use past papers to become more confident in that topic. I like how you used your teacher’s feedback to improve on your last mock exam.
Keep in touch
Everyone around a student – from parents, to teachers and tutors – sees a different aspect of how they learn. Keep your homework support targeted and consistent by communicating with those involved in your child’s education.
Primary school (6 to 11)
Use school homework diaries and reading records to tell your child’s teachers how they respond to homework – what they avoid and what they enjoy. This can allow you to raise problems early, before they become big learning gaps or confidence issues.
Ask what methods teachers and tutors use to teach tricky subjects. This allows you to keep your homework help consistent, and will help you to enable your child to work out the next step when they’re stuck on a problem.
Pass on positive feedback about your child’s progress to them, raising their motivation to keep going with their studies at home.
Secondary school (11 to 18)
Suggest your child asks for help from teachers and tutors when they need it. Help them to work out what next step they might need to take, like emailing their teacher or making a list of topics they need help with before a tutoring session. Ask: What can you ask your teacher? Is there anything you would like to get out of this session?
Check in with their teacher or tutor if you see a change in your child’s motivation or attitude to learning. Stress, tiredness, a challenging new topic, a large workload or friendship falling-out could all be the cause of a student saying ‘I can’t be bothered’.
For any child, the route to becoming an independent learner is not always linear. It’s expected that on some days you’ll have to offer more hands-on homework support than on others. But by giving them time, patience and plenty of space to practice their study skills, you can support your child to find the right answers themselves.
Written by Anna
Anna is a Cambridge graduate who has tutored since 2017. She has experience in the classroom, at university level, and has helped students with SEN. Anna aims to create a learning environment that enables each pupil to flourish.
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