A girl's soccer coach has started a campaign to get rid of homework which he believes is stopping a lot of young athletes from taking part in sport.
Dave Hewitt said he has been encouraged to continue his battle after the President Michael D Higgins called for homework to be banned during an interview on children's television last week.
The dad of three daughters, who is behind the Sport over Homework page on Facebook, has been coaching girls soccer at Balrath Girls and Boys FC, outside Navan, Co Meath for the last ten years.
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Dave who has a total of 30 years coaching experience says he has seen more and more teenagers drop out of soccer and other sports because homework is taking up too much of their time in the evenings.
"I've three daughters who are now 25, 17 and 13 and I've been involved in Balrath soccer club, which has about 160 girls now, for over ten years," he said.
"I'm genuinely concerned that homework is forcing girls, especially teenagers, to give up training and matches.
"Getting out in the fresh air and training with other girls, without a phone in sight, is good for their mental health. Any sport is.
"Apart from school, it's probably the only other time where they will go for any length of time without scrolling down their phone.
"I see teenagers itching to get away from training because they have homework to finish. It's a complete distraction for them from what should be an enjoyable activity.
"Kids are being put under unnecessary pressure to get reams of work done and their after-school activities, be them sport, dance, music lessons or whatever, are being affected.
"My daughters come home, grab something to eat and disappear upstairs grumbling about all the homework they get, which they say makes them learn. They should learn in school and a little homework should be given for revision but they shouldn't have to spend hours and hours at it.
"They are already in school for six or seven hours, poured over text books and then come home to spend their evenings at more text books. When do they get pure down time that they can escape without homework on their minds?
"I train all age groups together so they can be proud to be part of a club and not just a team. I've spoken to the girls briefly on this and they agree that they get too much homework.
"Covid took basically two years out of their lives from sport and social interaction. Now is the time that we should be encouraging all kids, men and women, to be active in sport.
"I see more and more teenagers dropping out of training due to homework, especially in major exam years but we need to realise that sport lets them release steam and stress and reduce the anxiety surrounding the exams"
Anyone who wants to join the campaign can look up Sport over Homework in Facebook.
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