Parents will be well aware we use Show My Homework to communicate homework and assessment tasks with their children – and probably be very familiar with the package as they help their children negotiate the work at home.

We continually review usage of the package and wanted to share some of the key data with you. The data compares our school with all other schools which use the package and reveals that:

 Teacher activity is ‘High’ with 3,457 homeworks set over the last academic year.
 Student activity is ‘High’ with 92% of students logging on last term.*
 Parent activity is ‘Above average’ with 39% of parents logging on last term.*

*The report says both figures are likely higher in reality as students no longer need to use their individual log in to check their homework. Similarly, many parents use their child’s log in or the open calendar function to check their child’s homework, so do not need to use their own individual parental log-in.

Elsewhere, the package reduces teacher’s workload and suggests that 11.4 days’ work has been saved over the last year. This is based on the assumption that setting homework electronically saves 7 minutes of time compared to printing it off, etc, and assuming 30 minutes are saved when a homework is re-used rather than created from scratch.

Furthermore, there is an environmental benefit to the facility with the report suggesting that the school has saved 289,000 pieces of paper (1.4 tonnes – the equivalent of 31.7 trees), assuming every piece of homework which can now be submitted online (quizzes, tests, etc.) would have otherwise required 1 piece of paper.

Mark Drury, Assistant Headteacher, said: “We know that SMHW is running very well but this precise data provide additional encouragement. It is only good news when we consider there is a lot of usage, a lot of time saved, and a lot of ‘green’ benefit too.”