‘I won’t set homework’: Teacher’s surprising stance

High school teacher Taylor Ford is ticked off with homework – find out why she refuses to set it for her students.

Meet Taylor Ford – the SA teacher who refuses to give homework to her kids.

High school teacher Taylor Ford has dismissed homework from her Year 9 classroom.

The committed 24-year-old, who teaches a special education class at Christies Beach High School in South Australia, says she wants her students’ nights at home to be about happy family time, not homework.

And she says most parents don’t have the time or skill set to supervise their child’s work at home.

“I’m a teacher for a reason and I don’t expect parents to be able to support teaching a student how to do something when that’s not their job. Their job is to be the parent,” says Ms Ford, who graduated from Flinders University in 2023 and is in her first teaching job.

Taylor Ford has a firm no-homework rule for her high-school class. Picture: Emma Brasier

“I went to uni and worked my butt off for four years to become a teacher. I don’t expect parents who have pursued a career in something else to then try and do that as well.

“Kids need to be kids when they get home. And they need quality time with their parents.”

Ms Ford says her students, including high-functioning children on the spectrum and with language delays or those who needed extra emotional and social support, were happy with her policy.

Only one guardian had approached her and asked for homework to be set for their child.

She obliged and also offered it to her other students – with no take-ups.

“The student whose guardian requested it submitted the homework but it was a very rushed quality. I could tell that it wasn’t a desired task to be done,” she says.

“Sometimes my kids ask ‘are you going to give us homework?’. And I say ‘no, I go home at the end of the day, I’m exhausted. I wouldn’t want to do homework. I don’t expect you guys to do it either’.

“If they ask for it, I’ll provide it to them and I’ll encourage them to do it. But there’s no expectation whatsoever. Even if they ask for it and I provide it, there’s no expectation for it to come back submitted, like completed.”

Teacher Taylor Ford says students need quality time at home with their families, not homework.

As a student herself, Ms Ford says she “never liked homework”.

She says its nightly pressure created tension at home.

“My dad’s a police officer, not a teacher. There’s no way he was going to be able to explain maths to me,” she says.

“I couldn’t understand what he was saying and he couldn’t simplify it for me to understand so it just became this big stressful mess.

“I spent a lot of time doing homework and missed out on quality time with my family.”

Ms Ford says homework is often just “ticking a box” and doesn’t have any real educational value.

She says the weekday is long and exhausting for many of her students, who didn’t get home until at least 5pm.

“They need downtime and they need to then prepare themselves for the next day of learning,” she says.

“If they’re working until 11pm on homework and assignments, that’s not healthy. Cooped up in your room doing homework, what good does it do? You’re not spending time with your family.

“For me, the negatives massively outweigh the positives.”

Originally published as ‘I won’t set homework’: Teacher’s surprising stance