Completing homework for many children at home is becoming increasingly difficult with one or both parents working full time, parents don’t have the ability and time to help their children in addition many parents and children are involved in different extra-curricular and after school activities further decreasing the time available to complete homework tasks. Due to these difficulties the role of helping children with their homework has fallen upon the shoulders of many of our OSHC Educators. Most if not all OSHC services have a Homework Club for children to get together and complete their homework tasks for the week, some services have upwards of 40 children signed up each week to their Homework Clubs. Our YMCA OSHC Policies state ‘YMCA OSHC services will supply time, space and supervision by staff for children to do their homework if they wish, homework is offered in addition to programmed activities’. Providing that time and space is extremely important, a consistent and safe environment is the key in our children succeeding and completing their tasks. At YMCA Enoggera OSHC we consistently use the same space and environment for our children with the responsibility of overseeing the tasks kept to the same educator each week as to not confuse our children and send any mixed messages. To assist our children in completing their tasks we supply them with Homework Helpers, these contain the Times Tables, Roman Numerals, information about the 4 seasons, the calendar, shapes and objects, as we come across difficult aspects of their homework we will strive to find more information and helpers for our children to better improve their knowledge and understanding of the tasks they are completing. Throughout OSHC we are guided by the National Quality Framework and strive to meet the outcomes it outlines for us. By providing a Homework Club for our children, we meet many of the outcomes listed in area 1.1.1 ‘Curriculum decision making contributes to each child’s learning and development outcomes in relation to their identity, connection with community, wellbeing, confidence as learners and effectiveness as communicators’. Curriculum decision making contributes to each child’s learning and development outcomes in relation to their identity, connection with community, wellbeing, and confidence as learners and effectiveness as communicators, this is evident by:

• Talking explicitly about concepts such as rhyme, letters and sounds when sharing texts with children
• Engaging children in discussions about symbol systems, such as letters, numbers, time, money and musical notation
• Supporting children to contribute constructively to mathematical and scientific discussions and argument
• Using everyday events as a basis for children’s learning about nature and science
• Supporting children to take on roles that use literacy and numeracy in their play

For many of our children completing many of the complex and difficult tasks each week at school can be very daunting, by providing our children the time and space we can help alleviate the anxiety homework and schoolwork can produce and instil our children with increased knowledge, confidence and the ability to think independently in completing their homework tasks.

Written by Ben Jorna Coordinator at YMCA Enoggera OSHC