Guide for parents · September 2026
Homework That Teaches, Not Just Answers
Homework help that teaches: work out which of four evening problems you have, then use the smallest hint instead of handing over the answer.
The evening, not the curriculum
This section is about a specific half hour. Something has been set, your child is stuck or unwilling, and you have to decide within about two minutes whether to explain it, sit with it, leave it, or email the school. That decision is made badly when it is made tired, and it is made well when you know which of a few common situations you are in.
Homework has also changed in a way that is easy to underestimate. When any question can be photographed and returned as a full worked solution in seconds, the completed exercise stops being evidence of anything. The book looks finished. The test six weeks later is the first honest signal, and by then the habit has set.
Work out which problem you have before you solve it
| What you are seeing | What it usually is | What to do tonight |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing has been started | The task was never captured properly | Check the portal or planner together |
| It is done, fast, and perfect | An answer app cleared the list | Ask them to explain one answer aloud |
| It is taking three times as long | A genuine gap from an earlier year | Stop, note where it broke, do a check |
| Refusal and temper | Fatigue or a bad day at school | Stop. It is not a learning problem |
Most kitchen-table arguments come from applying the wrong row. Explaining a method to a child who has not understood the instruction, or pushing a tired child through one more question, reliably makes the evening worse without improving anything.
The smallest-hint rule
The principle Pobbi is built on is easy to apply by hand: give the smallest piece of information that lets the child take the next step themselves. A sub-question. A reminder of a definition. A simpler version of the same problem. A request to say what they have already tried. The finished answer sits at the end of that sequence, not at the start.
It is slower than telling them, deliberately. The point of a piece of homework is not that it is finished, it is that something similar next week can be done alone.
What a parent can do without knowing the subject
- Have them read the question aloud and say what it is asking for, before any working is attempted — a surprising share of "I can't do it" is "I don't know what they want".
- Do not pick up the pen. The moment an adult writes, the child becomes an audience and the work stops being theirs.
- Set a time limit per question and write down where it broke, so you have something specific for the teacher instead of a general worry.
- Point at a line that contains a mistake without saying what the mistake is. Finding it is the learning; being told it is not.
Pages in this section
- Maths homework help
- Homework takes too long
- Child using AI for homework
- Maths support
- Does my child need a tutor?
- Tracking learning progress
What Pobbi does with homework
Pobbi does not complete, mark or submit school homework, and it is not a live tutor. It runs a short check to find the earlier skill behind a repeated mistake, gives guided practice on that skill with hints instead of answers, and reports to you what kept coming up. The homework itself remains your child's work and the school's business.
Questions about homework
How much homework is normal?
Schools set their own policies and it varies widely, so a national figure would not help you. The useful comparison is your own child over time: if the same kind of task takes twice as long in February as it did in September, the issue is a gap, not the workload.
Should I sit with my child while they work?
Being in the same room without looking over the page is usually the right distance by secondary school. Close supervision quietly transfers ownership of the task to the parent, which is the opposite of what homework is for.
What should I do about answer apps?
An outright ban tends to move the behaviour rather than end it. Asking your child to explain a solution they produced is more effective, because being unable to explain it makes the problem visible to them rather than to you.
When is it right to email the teacher?
When the same difficulty has persisted for a few weeks, or when homework is regularly taking far longer than it should. Teachers can tell you whether the whole class is struggling with the topic, which changes what you should do about it entirely.