Do you agree with homework in Primary

Homework is important but should be proportionate.

Why wouldnt I want to spend 20 mins a day reading or doing maths oth my child to support the foundations of learning?

It's important for building a working relationship so they can ask for help inY7 and beyond.

It doesn't matter to me if your child does it or not.

But I would say that if you are very outspoken on this, chances are your friends and teacher friends will tell you they agree for a quiet life and you may find they are actually doing it with their own kids.

27 hours a week between 3 children is only 9 hours a week per child (on average). Plus travel time, I'm sure.

But surely they can fit sums and spellings in there? Perhaps at the weekend?

It's their homework, not yours. You don't need to do it so I can't see why the house to run is relevant here. Also I can't see how sums and spellings is an hour a night. Or why it can't be delayed to the weekend.

If you start now when it's low pressure hopefully there will get used to getting it done quickly without tense exchanges. Otherwise you're all in for a real shock when they get to secondary.

Why would you punish a 7 year old for not doing homework when it’s not mandatory. I’d have made a formal complaint if that had happened to my DC’s.

Other than reading I don’t agree with it. Since research seems to suggest it’s not beneficial in primary and my kids hated it I didn’t get them to do it . When we moved schools after yr2 I chose one that didn’t set homework.

When they moved up to secondary they started getting it and, while they still don’t like it, they are much better prepared to cope with it and manage it fine.

Primary teacher here. I hate it. I hate setting it, I hate marking it, I hate the expectation that a 7 yo should be punished for not doing HW when that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the capacity that the parents have to sit and help the child. I set it as we get checked to ensure we have, but I don’t make a fuss of children who do or don’t complete HW.

Schools don't have enough time for reading, spelling and times tables? What on earth are they doing then?! That's the basics of education, surely.

It sounds like it wouldn't take them long to do the sums and spellings then. Why not just do it? Maybe they'd move towards above average for numeracy with more practice? Surely that wouldn't be a bad thing? It will get them into a habit to get their homework done quickly before secondary?

If you think they need to come off whatever reading scheme because they are beyond it they have then talk to the school about that.

I agree with homework at primary.
But only maths spelling and reading.
Moving to secondary (where dd has gone into wrong set..) There were kids getting only 20 marks out of 60 on arithmetic test. The ones that cant do well likely didnt have or do their maths primary work or homework. It needs practice. But ideally it would be individual for the child.
The apps for maths really did improve the kids' achievement at our primary.
However i think primary is too dependent on parents doing the reading at home and reading scheme is too rigid.
Dd2 was definitely ready to come off the scheme at least a year earlier

I don't agree with homework, and I dislike the stress it can add to the evenings. We have just moved back to the UK from overseas where my DC were only expected to read - and read whatever they wanted, not levelled books, and we didn't have to make a note or sign anything every time they read for 10 minutes.

Now my year 5 DC is having weekly spellings, TT rockstars, maths, a school reading book and online reading tasks. It's too much and she just wants to go outside and play with her new friends.. which I think is usually a better use of her time (other than reading, providing it's something she enjoys). The spellings she has been set are words many adults will never have heard of or use in daily speech.. last week it was words like aphotic and euphotic, had to look them up and I'm reasonably well educated. I doubt very much she will remember how to spell these words, or use them, in a couple of weeks so feels fairly pointless (many of the words fall into this category). It just seems like it's bordering on pretentious.

I think we'll do what we can and try not to stress too much about it. Evenings and weekends should be a chance for kids to relax and/or do extra-curricular activities.

Plus it usually requires parents to persuade or nag children to do it, or sit with them to make sure it's done (not all kids of course but many). And that can be the hardest thing - I think many schools / teachers don't even consider the pressure it puts on parents to juggle even more things and the stress it can create in the home.

And we haven't even started on Sats prep yet.. would prefer to withdraw my DC from them but I think she will not like the idea of that.

Teachers don’t have time to teach all of the kids at school. If they have 30 kids for 6 hours, that’s 12 minutes per child. The bright kids won’t be stretched. The kids who are struggling won’t get enough attention. As a parent it’s your responsibility to ensure your child keeps up with the class and meets age related targets, by teaching them at home if necessary.

I agree with you to an extent but on the other hand, it helps get them into a routine of doing homework after school, rather than say, just gaming.

We're in Ireland and DS had homework set every day from Junior Infants (Reception) onwards.

He's so used to the routine that at Secondary school, he's very good at organising his time effectively to get it all done.

However, I'm not sure how he'd have kept on top of it if he was doing any after school activities?

@Toastiesforever yes YABU. Children practicing sums at home on their own is good practice for speed, they build on what they learn at home.

Spellings are essential.

If your children can do this homework quickly then that's great. And if they can't, then they need the practice.

Only bit I would ask about are the books - do they follow a specific scheme? How do children progress? How are the children's pronunciation? Could a parent or the PA broaden the books on offer if they are very repetitive? Maybe your child is above the categories school offers and would be allowed to read freely? Lower level books (Reception - year 2) use the phonics for spelling in a structured fashion; might seem odd but there can be logic there

Fyi: I don't include reading as homework

No.
School is for working, home is for relaxing and play.

Homework was my pet hate and I was the teacher.
Reading, spelling and tables absolutely. Anything else questionable in it's usefulness.
I worked in a very deprived area and then a mixed area. No point setting homework that required anything more than a pen or pencil. Because a large number of children wouldn't have the items at home.
Some parents would complain about not enough homework, some that there was too much.
I couldn't send anything that we'd rely on later like a research topic because not everyone would do it.
Some homework in the later part of Y6 worked because the children saw it as grown up and getting ready for high school.

I think a bit of practising spellings/maths/times tables is pretty reasonable and helps solidify learning. I've never found it causes difficulties: supervising a worksheet/ book report while cooking dinner is pretty easy. Neither has it prevented her doing after school activities. However, I think holiday craft projects for small kids are the devil's work. We had to make London landmarks one Christmas. One kid brought in a model of the Shard with a working lift. I'm not convinced it was all the work of a 5 year old.

When I was in primary school the only homework we had was learning spellings and times tables. I was already an avid reader so didn't need to be told to read at home.

When my DD was in primary there was some level of homework all the way through and I am not sure how much use most of it was. Fair enough listening to her read but, like both her parents, she soon became a bookworm anyway. Some of the work sheets she had I really am not sure what purpose they served.

I once became the world's most unpopular mum when she had to find out five facts about George VI and I wouldn't let her use the Internet because I have loads of books on Royalty so I heaved them in her direction and said "Here, look them up from a book". The moans and groans and huffing and sighing!

I thought it was very telling though in Year 6 when they were preparing for SATs. They had one very experienced older teacher who specialized in Maths so he taught both Year 6 classes for that. He never set any homework at all during that year. He didn't need to because he could get everything across perfectly well in the lesson time. Every child in the year got at least level 4, many got level 5.

No, only reading. But my kids are ND.
They have hobbies they enjoy but kids also need downtime, boredom is good for them!

I’ve always been very anti homework in primary. My dcs attended a lovely fluffy village primary school which didn’t set any except a termly project which was optional. We did occasional ones of those, but they were really just a test of parent’s crafting skills (I was particularly proud of my model of the hanging gardens of Babylon…).

BUT ds has had a hell of a time adjusting to year 7 now he’s moved up to secondary. The homework load has been a massive shock to his system, and it would have helped if the primary school had broken them in gently to the idea in year 6.

@Parker231 i honestly don't think many parents mind a good old fashioned maths sheet sent home on a friday with boxes to tick and a few answers to be written out. If Freddy has umpteen sweets and he wants to share them with his mates ect. ect.

''Here's the sheet, here's your pencil. Sit now and take 15 mins to fill it out and after that we'll quickly go over it and then we can go to the park''.

But we don't get much of that. It's lots of weird open to interpretation stuff like ''search round the house for examples of ways to save energy and make a bloody presentation'' type stuff.

It takes a lot of motivation to do it and to keep prompting them to do it and for some families it creates resentment and disengagement from the school and from homework that is actually doable like 10 mins reading and a quick maths sheet.

Reading, spelling and times tables - schools just don’t have enough time for these and parents have to take responsibility. Anything else should be optional (I suspect most teachers would agree with this, not just parents).

I don't agree with it. I did a Masters in Education and one of my assignments was a review of research studies on the effectiveness of homework. It was really clear that it's ineffective at best before the age of 14 or so, with the exception of reading at home.

I hated school and having to do 'more school' at home made me miserable even as an academically able child. It's worse for those who struggle, especially if parents don't or can't assist with it.

I think primary schools should have at most a list of optional tasks for parents and children who want to do something more directed at home. No stress, no penalty for not doing it, and if they want to use the maths app but not make the model castle (or vice versa) that's fine.

I've been told by primary teachers that instant recall of time tables isn't necessary as long as you can work them out quickly. They admit that they don't instantly know.

I see arithmetic practice as important as reading practice. Even 5 mins a day makes a massive difference over time.