Why do some parents not engage with school?! Asking as a teacher!

Jesus wept. 10 minutes in the evening is all that's required.

Our goals are to help your children learn and secure the best possible future for them. We often work evenings and weekends to do this. We’re verbally and physically abused, do not have enough resources or funding and stretched to breaking point. You sound so hostile and defensive but we are only trying to teach your children

I think I’m a pretty engaged parent and we do a lot of educational stuff. I’ve got a good relationship with my Y1 child’s teacher.

We read the school books occasionally to show willing but they’re not the right level and so we mostly ignore them and read the chapter books my child wants to read. Maths homework is on an app and I’m not prepared to have the only time I get to hang out with my daughter after late play spent on a screen. If it were on paper I’d do it, and we do have workbooks and maths games that I’ve bought. I’ve had conversations with her teachers in both of these points and they’re fine with it.

Mostly though, it’s because I just don’t think there’s any evidence for the benefit of homework at that age. She’ll learn more from reading non-fiction books with me, listening to classical music, watching films and documentaries and discussing them, getting out in nature, playing strategy or word games, indulging in pretend play and dancing round the kitchen then she will on a maths app.

Parent of year 1 child - I almost always ignore the homework they said out. We usually read the book sent home but I rarely log it in the book. We also read other books at home every other night. That's it. We do lots of counting games and maths in a everyday type setting but I'm not sitting down with a 5 year old to do organised homework.

We've never complained about it and the teachers have never raised it 🤷 it's not a big deal

As a full time working family we really struggle with homework and daily reading for our year 2 daughter. It’s not that we’re disorganised or disinterested it’s just so much to deal with of an evening after she’s been in ASC till 1630 and we’ve got home, made and cleared away tea. Often I have to catch up with additional work in the evenings. This is before even considering clubs or after school activities.

I know full well it’s important, it’s just such a massive mental and strategic load to manage on an almost daily basis and sometimes we drop the ball. Not often, but I can completely understand how some parents just can’t manage it.

People are making this post about their individual circumstances, offloading their stress and directing their anger at the OP and all teachers in general.

The OP isn't using online games, devices or platforms for the homework.
Send back the reading books, decline the homework and stop complaining about it being set in the first place.

Teachers are leaving in their droves and parental attitude has a huge amount to do with it. Teacher's don't want to fight with parents, they want the best for your child..now and in the future. Reading skills affect life outcomes.

My mom was anti-hw in the 90s, so it’s nothing new. Her view was that we were doing important things at home too (we were tbf, we were building our family relationships, playing and going out to exciting places like the park or random castles etc.) we had no money, relied on benefits but me and my siblings were all straight A students because what we did at home added far more value than homework.

i’m a teacher now (secondary) and sometimes do the school reading with my sons (to be honest they hate reading the same book on repeat and aren’t struggling) but am not too bothered either way because I read every night with them and have done since they were babies, now I just get them to read a page themselves of whatever we are reading.

My DC is exhausted (I am too but I'm used to it and an adult). Every single request after school and after wrap around care is a battle for my SEN DC, EVERY SINGLE THING. I have to choose my battles wisely to ensure my child has eaten, is hydrated and clean, so yes, homework is probably at the bottom of my list.

I want my DC to love learning, they read for pleasure, watch documentaries and curiosity leads them to research on their tech - that's surely better than forcing homework 'just because' a teacher has set it

Well there is your data poor families ruled out straight away.

Actually, cutting corners on useless stuff has been a big part of my professional success.

Yes I have heard of that. I would have hated that. Nothing like a glaring iPad screen before bed!

@Purpleturtle43
i must be living on a different planet but it never ever occurred to me that I would ignore my child’s homework and wouldn’t not look into it! Wtf!
Im actually shocked what I’m reading here, like parent deliberately ignoring their children’s homework etc..
My child always had their homework done on time , all spellings practiced daily so could get 100% spelling or reading certificates, this was from Reception up to Y6 as the school had all these homework’s on starting from Reception and I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t do them with their kids!
I can’t imagine anyone would just ignore the schools rules liked that.
I mean how the children are supposed to became obeying and follow a live life later if they can’t be bothered to do a simple homework and their parents encourage it?

Here we are @ThriveAT 😉😌

My kids started in year 2, 4 & 5. Every one of them is achieving higher than the expected standard.

They should definitely bring the books back.

I'm really not a fan of this trend to push parents to teach their kids everything. When I was in primary, the teachers were the ones who taught us in class and we just had reading at home, then wrote a story/ poem at weekends. Bigger projects for older kids. Not reading, maths, spelling and writing every week. There really isn't time for tired little ones before bed for anything except reading, so we end up with 4 hours every weekend studying. These are tiny kids, but that's as much as I had in year 8! We do it, but it makes me feel angry and sad for my DS that we can't spend that time enjoying each other's company instead, and I don't care when something is very occasionally late because I fit it in when we can rather than always when it's asked for. The less you send the better in my opinion. Hope that helps.

did you see my last message? I’ll tag you!

I am talking about the spelling really being a bit of a waste of time. I definitely think the extra reading practice is of huge benefit, especially for those who are struggling

My experience has been there's a trend to trying to have most of the class on similar level reading books, due to the guidance to align with phonics taught in class.

This typically means that 6-8 more able readers are stuck on green/orange books for half of y1 when they are way beyond this, while a similar number haven't clicked yet and are being very put off by trudging through those same green books because they are still sounding out.

The reading book should only take 5-10 mins at bedtime or in the morning. Kids are usually reluctant with reading when what is sent is too hard. Try sending easier books for the ones who aren't doing it often.

Home school them then. See how you get on.

And by the way, all this fluff about how not completing homework will set them back blah blah blah… they are at school for 6 hours at least 5 days a week - they do not need to be coming home and doing more work.

My eldest didn’t attend school until year 5. We home educated and were very much child led… he’s now in year 7 and in top sets for Maths, English and science. He scored above “average” in every single subject expect music in his first mid term exams. We definitely did not do 6 hours a day of formal learning and certainly no home work. What we did do was encourage his curiosity, let him read and research what interested him for as long as he wanted to and start school when he was ready to learn formally.

Smiggle isn’t really essential school things though.

And this is part of the problem. Teachers seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about how much they work (possibly with reason I won't pretend to know) and this unfortunately comes across badly to parents who can be working equally as long or longer hours quite often for less pay.

So when the teacher starts asking "why hasn't Jonny got his indoor shoes", "why haven't you been able to provide food for our allergy friendly Roman Buffet with two days notice" it can cause a breakdown in the teacher parent relationship that then extends to the parent engaging with the school.

Often it's the kids that are exhausted, not the parents.

And the parents might not be too exhausted to make them sit down and write their spelling words. But figure out in the written agenda what platform the homework is set on this time, find a laptop, install the child, find the password, navigate the kid doing this, and so on and so on just had 100 steps for the process to break down and is much more parent-intensive than it ought to be.