A school leader recently shared with me their concerns about student motivation. Their chief worry was that their current school - a secondary school that is part of a large and successful multi-academy trust, serving a disadvantaged community - might be able to achieve strong academic results, but wasn’t producing learners who were self-motivated.
The measure of this was that students were barely completing homework, let alone going away to research or think independently about anything they were studying.
Of course, we all want self-motivated learners, who don’t require “spoon-feeding”.
Some students are model examples of this. I will never forget the ones who stayed behind after lessons to discuss their favourite poem for a bit longer, or who asked for extra homework and actually did it.
We all know those students. But how can we make all of our learners like them?
How to create independent learners
It is tempting to say: give them independence. Stop spoon-feeding and start letting them grapple with difficult things on their own.
But we know that throwing someone in at the deep end rarely leads to excellent outcomes. By giving students freedom, most won’t choose to work harder than they did under the previous teacher-led regime of challenging homework, supervised lesson tasks and scaffolded revision sessions.
I also question whether such independence is truly going to level the playing field for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
So many of the independent schools I’ve visited strongly scaffold students’ “free” time. They run “prep” after school: a dedicated room staffed by a qualified teacher to oversee students completing their homework in absolute silence. Sometimes this room is staffed for two or more hours each evening, and during weekends for boarding students.
Many students, however, won’t return home to such controlled environments. They might not have plenty of space to spread their work out or someone to go to if they need help. Some will share rooms with siblings or will share caring responsibilities. For some, household chores will take priority over their homework.
With so many students - particularly those from less advantaged backgrounds - facing huge challenges in learning independently, the way to get students to be self-motivated isn’t to let them take control. It is to support them, perhaps initially through heavy scaffolding, to develop habits strong enough that they endure when the adults aren’t around to lend a helping hand.
So, how do we do this?
Building the habits of independence
Holding students to account for completing homework, by giving them needed guidance, space and support, means they will become more likely to complete it habitually.
If you have the resource to provide a silent space for anyone who needs it to complete homework after school, where a member of staff will be on hand to offer support, this can be really beneficial.
How can busy teachers make this work? Start by setting regular homework with reliable deadlines and checking it is complete. Lean on homework you can check at a glance: is it done or not done?
There is a range of online homework platforms schools are increasingly buying into that will tell teachers at a glance who has completed it and who they need to chase - many of these platforms are compatible with the smartphones that almost every secondary student now owns.
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In terms of a staffed space, instead of planning your lessons or completing your marking in an office, simply situate yourself in a classroom and let struggling students know they can use that space after school.
Set the culture that this is a space for students to struggle independently, and avoid getting drawn into lengthy discussions around how they can complete homework.
I’ve often found telling an uncertain student to “just write your best guess and I’ll look at it” takes the pressure off. More often than not, their best guess is along the right tracks - they simply require the reassurance that they’re going in the right direction.
Having a dedicated study space is particularly important for students who are moving from key stage 4 to 5, as many struggle with this transition.
Suddenly, they have what seems like vast amounts of free time on their timetables, and we should be mindful of continuing to scaffold them in developing the right habits: the ability to focus, work silently for extended periods and ensure they complete their work.
Education in the UK is a process of ever-increasing autonomy for students. By the time they get to university, our students might have no one reminding them to hand work in.
If they have spent the past seven years completing work after school, independently, but in a supervised space, where there is a person they can ask for help if they need it, they have a better chance of establishing those habits that will set them up for future success.
Jo Facer is a former headteacher and the head of the National Professional Qualifications faculty at the National Institute of Teaching
