By Siddarth Tumu ’18, Staff Writer

If you ask a student at Newark Academy what’s different between NA and their old school, one of the things they’ll mention is the homework load. People have different views when it comes to homework at NA. Some think it’s too much and others think it’s not enough. An anonymous survey was conducted within the sixth grade to see what their thoughts on the issue were.

A majority of kids, aged 11, spend 1-2 hours every day doing homework. That’s reasonable as in sixth grade there isn’t much homework as everyone’s new: the main aim is to transition the students into the school and make them comfortable. The homework starts to increase as the year progresses. According to our surveys, most students spend less than 30 minutes procrastinating the start of their homework. 7 students told us that they spend 30 minutes to an hour procrastinating. Some students may revert to their old habit of spending time on their favorite websites playing games. For most of them, it will probably stop in seventh grade when the homework load substantially increases. One question that was asked in our surveys was how much time was spent on Facebook and other social media sites during the time they were doing homework. 10 people told us that they spend less than 30 minutes a day while one person admitted that he/she spends 2-3 hours a day on these websites. This is pretty surprising as not many sixth graders have Facebook accounts and if they do they don’t spend too much time on it.

We got a variety of responses when we asked students how many assessments (quizzes and tests) they had per week. 9 students said they had 2-3 assessments. 2 kids told us that they have 4-5 per week. This is very astonishing as once every two or three weeks, the sixth grade has a sufficient number of assessments. The sixth grade has rarely has 4-5 assessments in a week; the maximum number of assessments the sixth grade has per week is 3-4. The last question for the students was their thoughts on how much homework they are receiving. 13 students came to the conclusion that they had the right amount of homework while 6 students told us they think they have too much homework.

I think that in sixth grade, the homework load is reasonably light since everybody is new and used to different teaching and learning styles. Teachers have to get their students on the same page of learning and their understanding of the classes’ content. In the seventh and eight grades, the number of assessments significantly increases as students are familiar and know what to expect. If students think they have too much homework in sixth grade then they’ll certainly be overwhelmed by the homework load in the seventh and eight grades!

In conclusion, the sixth grade, on average, has a decent time when it comes to homework. It will definitely be interesting to hear the sixth grades’ views about homework once they’re in seventh grade.