Kamuli Childcare Community Association (KACHICA)

Kamuli childcare Community Association  (KACHICA) was founded  in 2017 by community members of Kamuli village in Kyotera District to provide education for their children who lacked good schools with better educational facilities. With support from other Donors KACHICA established  Kamuli  childcare Nursery and Primary school which is providing education to school children aged 4-12 years.

The Mision of KACHICA is good quality education for all community children and its objectives include:

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The Chairman Board of Directors of KACHICA is the Leader of the Association managing the the school and is the chairperson of the school management commitee He supervises the school managment commitee and isin charge of policy develoopement at the school.

The Team is made up of an Expreinced researcher who shall lead a team of 10 people including Teachers and school adminstrators to conduct the research

Kachica- Improve child performance  with no homework

For decades home work standard have been a rule in schools reccomended for all learning grades and despite the colleration between performance for young children , some scholars say not all home work is important mainly for young children below 8 years.

In many homes Home work mainly for children aged 4-8 years home work is a budren and its also a night mare for parents as many in case of Kamuli chillcare Nursery and primary school have not gone to school yet they are expected to help thier children on home work.

Using Kamuli childcare nursery and primary school we are setting up some research to find out wether homework is necessry for children below 8 years and we seek to  investigate in homework is removed from these lower classses it can affect children performance in higher grades.

The research results shall provide a basis for setting up a  system which shall improve learners performance, improve child attitudes in emjoying school and saving the parent the burden carried to them from school and they get a good time with their children at home instead of worrying about homework.

Young children aged 4-8years in Uganda schools are subjected to compulsory home work every day yet there is no corelaration between homework and children performance at that age apart from burdening the children and parents. The average impact of homework is positive across both primary and secondary school. There is, however variation behind this average with homework set in primary school having a smaller impact on average 

The quality of the task set appears to be more important than the quantity of work required from the student. There is some evidence that the impact of homework diminishes as the amount of time students spend on it increases. The studies reviewed with the highest impacts set homework twice a week in a particular subject. Evidence also suggests that how homework relates to learning during normal school time is important. In the most effective examples homework was an integral part of learning, rather than an add-on. To maximise impact, it also appears to be important that students are provided with high quality feedback on their work

The purpose of this solution is to remove homework  amoung young children aged 4*8 years in school and see the impact.

I have made some foundation research as below

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

The debate

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs, thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

The averageimpact of homework is positive across both primary and secondary school. There is, however variation behind this average with homework set in primary school having a smaller impact on average (see below).

The quality of the task set appears to be more important than the quantity of work required from the student. There is some evidence that the impact of homework diminishes as the amount of time students spend on it increases. The studies reviewed with the highest impacts set homework twice a week in a particular subject.

Evidence also suggests that how homework relates to learning during normal school time is important. In the most effective examples homework was an integral part of learning, rather than an add-on. To maximise impact, it also appears to be important that students are provided with high quality feedback on their work (see Feedback).

There is some Australian-based evidence for non-academic benefits of homework. For example, it may help to develop a routine for students and self-motivated working patterns. Nonetheless, there remains a dearth of research literature on the impact of homework on primary students’ learning and outcomes specifically in an Australian or New Zealand context. Since 2012, two evidence reviews on homework in schools have been published (in New South Wales and Victoria). Both reviews concluded that there was little evidence that homework improves academic performance for primary school students, but noted that homework could have other benefits, such as promoting parental engagement. The Victorian reviewers noted that few high-quality studies had been conducted in Australia, suggesting that new research would be worthwhile.

Evidence based learning is very important in our education system  and its important we give our children education which is beneficial not just burdening them more especially among young children.

In Uganda parent find no time for thier children at home in the evening and teachers find no time to relax and plan since they are always involved in setting and marking homework for youg children who might not need it at ther age.

This solution once adopted can save along of resources and time and give children enough time to relax and enjoy school

The key research questions shall be:

1. Is there a correlation between  home work and child performance with children aged 4-8 years in school

2. Is home beneficial  to young children and thier parents

3.What is the impact of home work to children aged 4-8 years on their performance at higher classes

we shall use  4 hours per week to conduct interviews and visit homes to interview parents

we shall involve 4 teachers per week to work on the reasearch

we shall have 2 hours per week to discuss to write reseach findings 

after the conclusion of the project we shall invite education leaders in the region to discuss research findings  and role out our solution to other schools to see the impact.

our short term  outcome is to have a school policy to remove home work in lower classes  and asesss the impact in year and later share the results regionally and nationally in 2 years