Introducing Heathfield's Pupil Editor

To kick off the New Year, we're delighted to introduce our winning pupil editor from Heathfield School:

The brilliant Lucy in Year 11 grabbed our judges' attention in both the journalism and photography categories. Here's a sneak peek at her winning entries:

Journalist: Lucy, Year 11

Homework or Hellwork?
It has been a long-standing debate as to whether students should be set copious amounts of homework both during the term time and during their holiday breaks. It has been the subject of many studies, focusing on the benefits to learning, and the long-term effects on students’ mental and physical health.

Scientists suggest that teenagers should get a minimum of 9 hours of sleep each night, however a survey showed that 93% of students reported that they felt under pressure to stay up past midnight in order to complete the abundance of homework they had been set. This could have hugely detrimental effects on their cognitive development, as the brain cannot function to its highest ability without the suggested amount of sleep. This has the potential to have calamitous effects on their ability to learn and retain new information.

Mental health is also a large issue within teenage students. Researchers have found that ‘healthy’ students in the present day have higher levels of anxiety than teenagers who were in psychiatric care with severe mental illnesses in the 1950s. This suggests that there are numerous disadvantages in forcing students to spend their free time completing schoolwork; they are unable to spend as much time with their peers and are therefore more prone to being developmentally stunted in social skills.

So, should homework still be set for students? This is an ethical argument that perhaps may never be fully settled, but many students have suggested that in the future they hope to see a change in the system to benefit future generations.

Photographer: Lucy, Year 11