AIBU to wish primary schools would do away with homework

just don't do it?

Smaller classes, uniforms, and primary homework among the least effective ways of boosting school performance - The Sutton Trust https://share.google/e3jVKLFGvC7A9bqqO

Have you probed what's behind her reacting in this way to the homework? With all the other things she willingly does, it sounds out of character. Of course she must be encouraged to do it. If you aren't seen to be supporting the school at this early stage things will likely get tough when she goes to secondary.

Wow, that's the complete opposite of my own experience as a child and now. It's interesting how different schools are. I feel like in the 1990s we just floated about from collage to a bit of Heineken maths to a bit of music with very little direction. Now I feel my class spend so much time at desks (vast majority of the day if doing history/geography/RE/science in the afternoon) despite being only age 7. We don't waste a second. The curriculum is undoubtedly more challenging than what I did, as an old in the year high achiever, at primary too.

Y4

we have
ttrs - maths - 5mins
reading - 5 mins
spellings for the week. Usually look/do them every other day 5 mins

so 15m in all. Everyone has that spare whether in one go or 3 x 5

weekend 2 pages maths and a math sheet timed for 5mins and often done in 2/3

this is all done before 2hrs of gym which is 4 times a week - 3 after school and one sat

if they have time to watch tv - iPads / play - chill. They have time to do 5 mins a day of stuff x3

it’s good practice for when at secondary school and get lots

100% agree.

It isn't the fault of teachers it is the fault of the system. Nobody is blaming teachers we know they do fantastic work and that the system is awful.

It depends entirely how much they are asked to do. I volunteer to hear children read in primary - the children who are struggling and need extra help are largely those who nobody reads with them at home. There are just not enough staff to give each child 1-2-1 attention for reading, spellings, times tables as often as would be helpful. 10 mins reading every day in KS1, plus spellings and maths in KS2 is reasonable.
The ‘make a volcano out of paper mache’ type of thing? Not helpful!
My youngest is now in secondary and is in a routine of doing a bit of homework every day, it’s made the transition easier that she already had that expectation set.

I think it's fine. Homework is a habit, as much as anything. Getting hit with homework in Y7 when they've not had to do it in primary would result in a lot thinking it's not necessary to do it.

My DC's work just gets marked with a well done stamp. Flick and stamp. 5 minute task for the teacher (TA) once a week. Setting it is more onerous of course.

Me and my ex had this exact conversation on Monday night (he comes over on a Monday to sit and do homework with DD10). Our school has removed homework as being mandatory, but they ask if we have time to do it - I can't help but think though that when I was at primary school (I'm 43) I sat a desk from 9-3 and I learned the work that was put in front of me.....my 10 year old rarely sits at a desk, they do a lot of free learning, they have learning "stations" and can pick and choose so I think a lot of the homework is making up for the slack that they're not doing during school hours. I have the view that you get out what you put in, so we do extra learning at home on top of the worksheet that they send home.

Another point is that my DD is in her penultimate year of primary and still writes with a pencil - I am 100% sure that I had graduated to a pen by her age in preparation for high school, we've been writing homework in pen for practice.

I may be old fashioned, but I think there should be more sitting and doing real work..... (yes I know not all kids learn well that way, but sitting and working are actually key skills that most of us need to have for our working lives)

As it should be Why are the kids being given stuff that the parents have to be involved in such as models? What does this teach them?

Well spellings, reading and time
tables is all my dc got all through primary nothing else. They are now in yr7 and 9, so current. Small village school.

If it helps we used to stick up the phonics on the wall beside where we ate dinner and we’d do 3 sounds or whatever ever day. A little bit every day actually worked in the end and when we started my dd was behind and struggling because we just didn’t do the practice

She sounds like a fabulous young woman. You must be very proud of her.

We had awful, upsetting battles over homework at primary too (although the teachers and Head really tried to help and basically let DD skip a lot of it mega tactfully - which considering it was a competitive prep school I thought reflected really well on them).

Could DD do a functional maths qualification instead?

Agree, this is what school time during the day should be for. At home let them relax, they will only be small once.

Let them enjoy their lives before growing up and having to work for 40 odd years. There’ll be plenty of time for homework in secondary school.

Homework for young kids should be abolished other than reading or timestable type practice.

My son is starting reception in September, we were told 0 homework for the whole of primary!
It's just going to be reading, not even phonics apparently.
They have some optional work available for parents who want to, that's it.

Another school we've seen said they had gotten rid of all the "parents' homework" a couple of years ago 😂that's all the creative/building projects. They only give things children can complete themselves.

If they need it at secondary it can wait until secondary.

We don't start potty training new born babies on the grounds they'll need to use the toilet one day. We wait until they are ready developmentally.

It’s good to practice the skills you’ve learnt away from the classroom, and good to get into the habit of doing homework for when they get to secondary. Some weekly spellings and a workshop, plus a little reading sounds reasonable.

Oh god, the judgement from DD's primary school about homework. She struggled (eventually got an EHCP at secondary, primary just blamed her for not trying enough plus my 'bad parenting').

In the end I realised her mental health mattered more than pleasing the school. She had begun to.punch herself in the face for being 'stupid', plus everything i read said homework at primary has minimal long term impact.

I always read to her, and she enjoyed reading to me. She did Brownies, dance class, we played board games and went to museums and parks and the beach. When you looked at 'education' broadly she far more outside school than most of her classmates.

She is now a confident, hard working, intelligent young woman of 19 who has held a Saturday job since she was 15. Currently at College and the same system means she will be retaking - and failing - her GCSE maths endlessly as well. But at least now she has the maturity to shrug it off, instead of seeing herself as a failure and waste of space.

I used to do some reading and spellings with mine when they were that age but nothing else even if it was sometimes set.

The world did not stop turning, nor did the sky fall in. Good degrees and jobs all around now that they are adults.

Its also revision and consolidation!