Children quickly lose heart if their homework is not marked; if this happens frequently, parents should take it up with the school. Homework, well managed, binds child, parent and teacher in a delicately balanced partnership. Parental support is a vital ingredient, but the essential contract is between child and school. The better the channels of communication between home and school, the greater the chances of success for the homework process: if parents are unsure about any aspect of it – its purpose, how it should be done, its aptness – they must feel able to talk to the teacher about it.
If homework is to benefit the child, it must be a meaningful task – such as an extension, or consolidation of work already done in class, or preliminary research for a new project – rather than something dreamt up at the last minute by a teacher who remembers she has to set something. Or, parents may assume a relaxed attitude until the child’s bedtime, when the admission of a task still to be done whips parent and child into bad-tempered or tearful panic.

Cubie is likely to report with his proposals by Christmas.LH. Homework, poorly managed, can cause terrible friction in families. Parents can become overly-anxious and competitive about the work their children produce at home, greeting them after school with the automatic question, “what homework have you got?” – and making children despair that the academic pressure will ever be lifted. Whether bringing back grants in Scotland would be enough to appease the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who made abolition of fees a manifesto commitment, is debatable.

The abolition of grants is also deterring some students from entering higher education, according to Cubie.Graeme Davies, the Vice-chancellor of Glasgow University, believes Cubie will recommend that the poorest students should have access to some kind of bursary scheme. “We have heard from individual students, representative bodies, and from some universities and colleges that there are signs of students falling out because they can’t sustain the living costs,” says lawyer Andrew Cubie. But Cubie’s interim consultation document found the reintroduction of grants had more support than abolishing fees. The Cubie Committee, set up by the Scottish executive to look at student finance as part of the Lib-Lab coalition deal, is coming under pressure to recommend the reintroduction of the student grant – and Scottish cabinet ministers are said to be in favour of bringing back grants for the poorest students.Grants were abolished throughout the UK this year in favour of means- tested loans. And they will be careful about their rhetoric, arguing they don’t want to introduce top- up fees, but that they have no alternative.