The Exasperated Teacher Blog UK

Depending on where in the country you teach, depends on how reliably you can expect to see homework returned before the hand in date.

Since September, I have had a total of 5 out of 30 children who regularly return their homework each week. With only a few weeks left until they sit their end of KS2 SATs, I resorted to a teacher’s final weapon of mass destruction – bribery.

If they return their homework before the hand in date, they get a cookie.

Guess what? I have more homework to mark! Admittedly, I didn’t really think this idea through all the way, which is why I’ve hired a homework monitor – who loves to check off homework when it is returned to school and tell me who needs a cookie. As long as I give her an answer sheet, she’s happy to tick their answers and mark them too.

At the moment, it’s working pretty well as an incentive to do their homework, so much so that a few boys accepted their homework when handed out to them at 3:05pm, and handed it back to me completed at 3:15pm… 5 minutes before the end of the school day. I should probably re-explain the concept of “HOME”work to them and what it entails…but they’ll probably only try to beat their record time of completing the homework.

The only downside to this homework solution, is that the children are demanding I buy Maryland Cookies. © because they taste better than “store brand” cookies. Between you and I though, I’m actually buying cheap cookies that resemble the more expensive brand and I’ve kept the sealed packet of branded cookies as a decoy packet. They know I keep a spare packet on standby for when the biscuit tub gets low. Every time I fill it up, I empty the cheap packet of cookies into the tub and pretend to buy more branded cookies. I just have to keep a straight face when the Cookie Monsters declare that they can “definitely tell it’s Maryland Cookie biscuit!” 🙄