In not making child do homework

All the evidence points to primary school homework being useless at best and damaging at worst. There is absolutely no case for it in terms of educational achievement or engagement in learning.

Reading is what matters. If you're reading together, the rest is irrelevant.

Not every country uses the same class/age system and the site has contributors from all over. I don't know what age corresponds with year 2, 3 and so on.

RTFT!

My child is given spellings to do 4 nights a week, a homework sheet per week and a school reading book. In year 3. I used to battle with them most nights to do that spellings and get the homework sheet done.

You’re not answering a very important question for anyone to give you an accurate answer, how old?

Of course it’s for the school, they are the ones who get tested on a child’s performance, not the parents.

My DDs school were raving last year about the best ever SATs results, we are amazing especially under the new HT and yes the school looks amazing! What’s not taken into consideration is that 9 out of the 15 children to take SATs had external turtors because of worries the parents had, especially with the new HT.

Personally, I would do as the school says. The homework is there to benefit your child, not the school. It isn’t the teacher’s problem if you don’t support your child to do it. A little bit of learning with your 1:1 attention every night will make a difference. I’d bribe your dc to do it.

I would disagree where my DD is concerned. She is not currently happy with high school, many reasons, the main one being inconsistent treatment of children, problem children being rewarded for a few days good behaviour ( saw plenty of this in primary too) and shit substitute teachers who hand out unfair punishments. There is also lack of sympathy for theft, DD has had a few items taken, but as they are what the school would consider unnecessary in school they have little sympathy, as we have, though we don’t agree with the theft we also think she’s silly for risking taking into school, but at the same time understand she’s doing what tween/teens do. An example being her expensive Tower 28 hand sanitizer a relative bought her from the states was nicked the first day she took it into school. As you’d expect no sympathy from teachers leads to an already upset childbeing even more upset. It was after school but because she was so upset she called me while still technically on school grounds. My dd got punished but no interest in finding the thief even though almost every child present willing emptied their bags to show my dd it wasn’t them, except 1, the teacher just left as it was home time leaving my 12 yo bawling her eyes out because she lost a gift. It wouldn’t have upset her as much if she had paid for it.

Dd has had food and rocks thrown at her by a child in the same year who has been rewarded for good behaviour. These are her issues. Doing homework which is expected of her and which we warned her about for years, is not one of them.

My DCs are Yr4 & Yr2. As a family, we encourage them reading a book of their choice at bedtime in their own rooms quietly as a calm down time. (DC2 is currently reading the first Harry Potter) We do spellings and what I refer to as mental maths (they call it something different) on the walk to/from school/shops (not every day but when they're dragging their heels as it's a great distraction). Homework tasks are completed over the weekend & once completed they're allowed device time which is a great incentive 🤣
Don't get me wrong, getting them to do a single A4 page can be immensely frustrating, but it's important to build good habits for when they go to secondary.

YANBU. My parents refused to make me do homework until I was in secondary school. I was still one of the top of my year all through primary, and I won the school leavers' prize as well.

I just read the article you posted and one of its arguments is (pasting directly in):

“Homework may also increase inequalities between pupils. High achievers from economically privileged backgrounds may have greater parental support for homework, including more educated assistance, higher expectations and better settings and resources.”

The fact they argue that homework increases inequality signals to me that the study is at least in part ideologically motivated (i.e., homework is bad because it disproportionately benefits privileged children).

I’m not sold on the argument. Think any child benefits from a routine and some discipline, as long as they’re old enough to focus, and as long as you can enforce that without creating counterproductive stress. (Yes those are two massive caveats! One of my children is ND and we also had to make adjustments around homework to avoid making them hate school!)

I asked the question 'do you have children?' because I thought you either must not have any or your children were much older because you would know that these days most of their learning is online, so how would you do their spelling 'walking to school' as you suggested - unless they're walking with their head in a tablet?

Schools really do need to get up to speed. There’s quite a lot of research evidence to show that giving kids loads of homework has more detrimental than beneficial effects. If your child is doing well then I would carry on what you’re doing.

There’s no benefit to homework in primary school, especially if the child is getting good grades. I didn’t force mine either.

My dc were so much happier when they felt like they weren't struggling and getting good marks so I helped them with spellings, timetables and extra maths as well as reading every day.
The extra stuff was about 20 mins 3 times a week and made a big difference.

It's absolutely not lazy parenting. At primary age the best that you can do with kids is get them to read to you or you read them a bedtime story whilst they follow along. If they really struggle with spellings, then maybe help them practice those, but i wouldn't be doing any more than that.

Hangman a good shout. Used to play that with mine for hours. Still do Wordle with my 16 year old when we’re out.

And same with piano! Effing hated it. Remember eventually sitting there and the teacher (who I didn’t relate to and didn’t teach me any music I knew or liked), asked me if she wanted me to tell my mum I didn’t want to do it. I said yes. Never forget my mum bounding up the path to pick me up and her crest-fallen face when the teacher said I’d admitted I didn’t want to come any more. I felt bloody terrible but didn’t even have a piano at home to practice on lol.

Turned me off for years. If I had my own place, I’d buy an old piano now and teach myself, as I love music and would love to have sings songs when my mates come over for a few jars.

I don't "make" mine do it either! Yr5 and Yr6 although the latter chooses to go to homework club but refuses at home... but ynbu

I didn't agree with homework in primary years. For me, proper family dinner, conversation, bath if needed and 7pm settle down to sleep after stories were more important, and there's only so much time, especially as most families need two salaries to manage.

Secondary is fine as bedtime is later

Dd in year 3 has reading daily & weekly worksheets of timetables (96 of them), English this week is adverbials, maths is fractions, along with 12 spellings & four sentences to include spelling words. It increases in yr4 & yr5. On one hand it’s ridiculous to be doing homework in primary & I feel like telling Dd to not do it. However I work in a secondary school & on one hand it seems a pointless exercise on the other they need all the help they can get & the more you do now the better their ethic, ability & outcome going forward.

My youngest is in Y1 but is STILL only 5 😬 he’s an end of July baby and also the baby of the family! He is young for his age and needs a lot of sleep, he is genuinely exhausted after school and just needs to have his tea and relax in his pyjamas and have a nice bath. He still goes to bed at 6:45pm and is asleep by 7pm I’m not making him do homework. It’s a long day for him already using his brain and he needs to switch off and just be 5 for a couple of hours! I’ve told his teacher we will do it when we can but I’m not forcing it if it’s not what’s best for him at that time. In hindsight he should have delayed a year as he still struggles a little with the workload, however I was advised he was totally ready for reception but the same teachers who now say he’s still visibly just about coping by the end of the day sometimes! He only turned 4, 5 weeks before he started school!

Mmm. Do you want to help your child to learn? If so, making them do homework may not be the answer.

When you have a child with SEN you do have to pick your battles, DD who is autistic is in the first year of GCSEs and diligent with her homework. But at primary we had hours of meltdowns including self harming behaviour especially if it was maths she just absolutely struggled with the subject and was already exhausted from containing herself at school.

We did have some success with doing reading and spelling in the mornings.

The battle continues with DS who has ADHD and is in year 4 if it's harder he's so exhausted it triggers a meltdown but it's gradually getting better.

I expect you are OP but I found you need to be in tune with your child sometimes you can push it other evenings you can't and have to step back. As they mature then it does seem to get easier.

Although don't start me on the meltdowns our eldest has had during her A levels!

I am old. When I was at primary school we did not have homework. One of the things I was excited about and looking forward to on going to grammar school was having homework! Not sure that feeling lasted but not having it at primary certainly didn't have any impact on my ability to manage it at secondary. My parents were very supportive of our education and expected us to work hard and do well but they didn't get overly involved in the actual work, we were expected to get on with it by ourselves and by secondary age most NT kids should be able to. Older children are also more likely to have a later bedtime so there is more time in the evening to complete it. I remember when my kids were in primary school and had homework and most of the time could not possibly have completed it without a lot of input from me. Like another pp said it felt like it was my homework rather than theirs! It made zero sense to me.

We’re really low demand with our kids out of school (also query adhd/autism). I’d follow your gut if I were you - if it is too much for them, either try to add humour/game into how you are doing them (like spelling bee or hangman) or take it off the table for the time being. I think the worst thing to do is to make something wonderful (like reading) into a battle and a chore. I went to piano lessons when I was a kid and fucking hated them! Put me off for life