Do you agree with homework in Primary

They use my tax money to pay for the subscriptions, they aren’t paying it out of their own pockets as some benevolent act to me. And surely someone can make an app that has spellings, times tables, English and maths homework all on one app, with one log in?! And haven’t you ever bitched! had a rant about something that’s annoying to you?!

I hate homework. My son does his half arsed after a lot of moaning. Even the reading is done miserably and as fast as possible. Lots of the time I just forge the book to say we’ve read but haven’t 😳

I’m not brave enough to say no though!

I don’t mind my son being given homework in Year 2. However he has never been to an airshow (I’m not sure I’ve even ever taken him to a village show if I’m honest) and he only plays playground level football so clearly he needs the educational challenge. Over my dead body will he read David Williams though.

Because they're all different companies and businesses, they'd have to all agree to merge.

Schools choose the best apps and providers, the ones that suit the needs of the pupils. They also pay money for your children's subscriptions so it's galling to hear you bitching about it. Can't you just write the passwords down? If used regularly, and shown how to log on, kids from Y2 are able to get on and do it themselves.

I haven't rtft but am a teacher and would rather not set homework.

It's an extra job to find something purposeful, set it, mark it, monitor receipt and chase up late submissions.

It is not useful to me because I can't tell how much support they had.

BUT it is useful in informing parents of where their children are at. I have had countless conversations with parents who were surprised hate their child couldn't independently complete a piece of age-appropriate homework. In lots of cases it has led to more support at home - more reading, times table practise etc.

In our school the expectation is to spend 30 minutes per week, plus reading and spelling. It's not a big commitment. If parents support it, it can help to foster good attitudes that continue into secondary education - doing a bit every night, doing it on the night it's set instead of the morning it's due, asking for help if you need it. Certainly I am never surprised when secondary collleagues talk about pupils who don't do their homework because they're usually the ones who didn't do it for us either and have decided it's optional.

I always made my kids do it - good habits are soon ingrained and I always said it wasn't fair on the other kids if some opted out.

If a school accepts my child they agree to my rules

And this sums up why the education system is so utterly fucked.

Right.
🤔

We're in Oxfordshire and also use apps for the maths! Got to love TTRS and Sumdog!

I've found my kids reading has improved so much making them do 5 lots if reading! Sometimes we have a binge read at the weekend if I know were going to be busy.

With classes of 30 it's so important for parents to also help kids learn the basics. Kids need that 1 to 1 attention.

It takes 5 hours for a class teacher to listen to each child read for 10 mins just once!

And I should add that I HATE all the bloody apps. We have TT Rockstars for times tables, DB Primary for English homework, Mymaths for maths homework, EdShed for spellings. With 4 children I have 4 different log-ins for each app. So we have to log in to 16 different homework accounts per week. Bloody ridiculous and time consuming. Why can’t it all be streamlined into one app??!

Reading, spellings and times tables I am fully supportive of. I don’t think any primary children should get any more homework on top of this. In the end I refused to do any tasks on top of this when my children were in KS1, especially the ridiculous ones that took up a whole weekend and ended up with me doing more than the kids! Now my children are in KS2 there is so much pressure from the Teachers to the children to do the homework that we end up doing it all now (low grades in end of year reports because they didn’t make the effort to complete all homework, kids coming home in tears because the teacher told them off for not doing homework). I just think it’s such a burden to throw into children who have very short childhoods and parents who are overstretched working and trying to spend quality time with their children. I bloody hate it.

Well, this is it really. If you don't have a clue, you're not supporting. I agree that you can get away with a lot if you're reading to them and it also sounds like you're lucky enough to have children who are not particularly in need of extra support. My point wasn't invalid because it's not just about you. You're speaking about the value of homework in general terms and my comments are not directly relating to your children but to learners more generally.

There may come a time when you need to attend the parent's evening designed to give you a clue what they're doing and how to support them. To be honest, it's just luck that this attitude doesn't seem to have affected your kids - it could have affected them. It's great to learn outside the classroom but it won't necessarily support their learning inside the classroom unless you're covering the bases.

The problem with comments being parodies is that there are so many ludicrous ideas on MN that it's often hard to identity the parodies!

I agree with age appropriate homework. Reinforcing what they've learnt in school with a worksheet or such won't impact extracurricular activities. It's good preparation for independent study. If anything, I don't think primary schools prepare children sufficiently for secondary, the gap in expectations is too large.

Reading yes. Times tables and spellings, sure. Other than that, I don't think they should do any more homework until year 6.

My dd is year 3. We are asked to do reading for 15 mins a day and TT rock stars (tiles tables). We also get discussion points where you chat to your child about what they have learned but they don't have to write anything. Frankly that's enough, our school don't believe there are any benefits to more structure led homework and would rather the kids were involved in extra curricular activities etc.

It's so much easier for us to get them reading fluently and quickly if they do words and read the books sent home at home. You can really see the difference in those who are read with and those who aren't.

We send home words, two books and a page of maths a week, in Primary 2. No art projects etc here.

I disagree. I think homework is a useful tool to help children engage, parents to be aware of what they are learning and fill in or support any gaps in their learning If my kid is struggling with a concept I'd rather know at the time than the end of the year. As a result I think homework should be based on what they are learning or have learnt that week rather than a completely new concept.

As I’ve just pointed out to another rigid thinking poster - the comment is clearly a parody of the post I was responding to.

But actually, no. the school would not need to operate a different set of rules for each child. If their rules were not overly restrictive and parents’ rules weren’t overly restrictive, then most wouldn’t clash at all and lots of different rules could live in harmony.

I found it a shock going from having nothing apart from spellings and the occasional project to an hour a night at secondary, so I'm in favour of it in Year 6

Another naive one! If all parents thought in this simple way then a school with 500 pupils would be operating 500 different sets of rules! The school sets the rules, if you don't like them then find another school rather than setting such a poor example for your child, telling them they can pick and mix their way through life,

I don’t know if you’re bored, have difficulty with thinking flexibly or just spent too much time on homework as a kid to read widely and develop your reading comprehension to include contextual clues, but my first post was clearly a parody of the poster I was responding to.

The rest of it was you apparently thinking that my not sending a contract to the school (see, that is hyperbole, another device that communicates “tone” - information that isn’t just contained within the dictionary definitions of the words) before I put them on my application form was some sort of “gotcha”.

All I was pointing out was that school’s aren’t absolute authorities.

It’s early in the year. When the teacher sees how your child is excelling in all
areas, in top sets for everything, actively involved in extracurricular school life, with a rich and varied programme of activities at home with supportive parents, she will probably ease off a little.

Have you seen the secondary curriculum? And the primary one too for that matter?!!

There's barely time to cover the absolute basics of what's required let alone revisit or embed anything useful.

The entire National Curriculum is based mostly on regurgitation of facts and info. Not genuine, meaningful learning.

No wonder the poor kids have to do homework & revise so much. They have a lot of info to cram into their heads!!! Especially at GCSE.

(For what it's worth, I agree. Homework is something I can take or leave but if we sacked it off, parents would complain!!)

Agree that hw is needed at A Levels.

During my kids’ A Levels, esp Maths and further Maths, they whizzed through topics so quickly at school that some time at home practising the new concepts was time well-spent.

Also teaching them how to write well- constructed essays.

I don’t disagree with well-designed homework at A Level stage. It was much-needed really. But not at junior school level.

The homework at GCSE was geared to ‘how to pass this exam with maximum scores’. Depressing really but it served its purpose.

I abhor hw. My kids have left home and gone to university.

At primary I can get behind spellings, reading and completing maths worksheets.

But I regret all the time we spent in junior school on stupid projects and research which were completely beyond their ability. I did the homework. I even told the headmaster that I was being rewarded for the top grades, not my children. I do not see the value in these kind of projects which cause busy families great stress.

But having said that, School can’t win. I have stood behind parents at parents’ evening, grilling the teacher as to why they didn’t give the kids more homework. I could strangle those parents. Until they are 14, I see no benefit from homework. And that is from us as a very academic family whose children were so inclined.

But one reason for doing the set homework is if you have rule-abiding kids. Not completing the homework might make them more stressed and I would not want that.