Karen Casey, minister of Education and Early Childhood Development has confirmed changes to homework standards for the new school year.
"Homework will be based on students' individual needs. Not everyone in the same class will necessarily receive the same homework because not every child can do the same," Casey said.
"In a home environment, some students can easily sit down and do 20 minutes of homework and some cannot."
Homework will be related to classroom studies with the intent of having students practise what they've learned and will be assigned based on age and developmental ability.
This, Casey said, puts the onus on teachers to delegate individual homework plans and teachers will use their professional judgment to determine when to assign homework, what to assign and how much.
In addition, teachers must review homework and provide feedback, said Casey. And homework assignments will not impact the students' overall grades, she added.
Changes to the standards can be traced back to last year. Casey said it was discovered the Department of Education as well as school boards had homework guidelines and there were "inconsistencies" and "confusion."
"All of the guidelines were omitted and replaced with a ministerial policy and all teachers in all schools have been asked to implement them," Casey said.
She said the new homework standard also had feedback from 7,000 students, teachers and parents through a survey. The new initiative will be monitored by the department throughout the year.
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