One constant in the attitude of pupils to school is a dislike of, and an aversion to, homework. It got in the way of life. In 1910, it prevented the reading of novels for pleasure. In 1913 “the stress of homework made golf impossible”. In 1936 it “starved the brain”. There were so many other things one could be doing. 

But in 1933, a debating society motion that proposed its abolition was defeated, though it is unlikely that pupils who attended debates were representative of pupils in general.  

Keen pupils who did their homework and showed any signs of enjoying it were ribbed. In 1913 a mock trial took place of a pupil charged “with that most heinous of crimes – doing his homework”. His defence was not helped that he had committed the offence on the night of November 5th when every schoolboy should have been burning effigies or igniting explosives.  Many pupils turned up for the trial “to show their disapproval of such an outrage”.  

What time of day one should best do one’s homework was discussed in 1919; one pupil claimed that it was best done in the early morning “when the brain was fresh”. Another  that it should be done in the dinner-hour, another that it was best done on a full stomach while another claimed it was best done in the evening. The dinner-hour option appears to have been the most popular. Nobody admitted to doing it in shaky writing on the morning tram en route to school. 

By 1956 a pupil included “Masters who set too much homework” on his hate-list. In 1988, 50% of pupils said they were set too much homework. The same pupil survey (of a hundred 15-16 year olds, conducted by pupils), revealed that pupils claimed to do an average of two hours a night of homework, and three at weekends. The same pupils said that they watched and average of 1.75 hours of television every day apart from weekends when it averaged 3.5 hours a day. One imagines that Match of the Day – which began in 1964 – contributed to this total. There was no information gathered on those who watched television while doing their homework. A 1970s Preparation Book (pictured) recommends that parents make "every effort...to get the boy a quiet room without distraction for his prepation".

Nowadays, when pupils use devices that tempt them to watch sport, get involved in social media, adopt extreme views or engage in other addictive activities, it is perhaps remarkable that those same devices are used for doing their homework and that that homework, by and large, gets done.