Schools ask too much of families - AIBU?

Different parents will have different views. I like the fact that your school are giving you notice of special days coming up in advance so you can plan ahead. I much prefer this then getting emails once every few days. You've chosen a catholic school and in Scotland we do have a choice, my kids go to a non denomination school l so they don't have a lot of the events in your email. I appreciate keeping on top of what is needed when, can feel overwhelming. We add the dates to a shared Google calendar and then a physical family calendar in the kitchen.

I also see no issues with the homework they have given out. In essence it is reading,spelling and times tables. The topic I would do if you have time and i would communicate that to school. I would ask grandparents to do the reading and do the times tables on the way home from grandparents. Spellings no more than 10 minutes two or three times a week. Doing those gives you a gauge of where your kid is excelling or struggling and you can adjust accordingly.

If at any point it does feel overwhelming, speak to school as you won't be the only family short on time.

Homework seems similar in most schools but your events seem ott. Could dgp do the spellings and help with times tables? I'm not arty or crafty and the making Easter bonnets will take forever. I'd miss that one out.

I think daily reading, spelling, maths is pretty standard in KS2. What does seem overwhelming is the number of events and charity donations and dressing up. The mental load of being a primary parent is bonkers sometimes. They are at least organised enough to tell you weeks in advance what is coming up but I can appreciate it feels like a lot. Move towards getting the homework done being your child’s responsibility, it is much easier in secondary if they are in the routine of doing a bit each night and getting on with it.

Year 4 teacher assistant here. It does seem a lot. However surely reading can be done at bedtime. - a nice time to read and can shared reading. Times tables, songs and spellings can be done anywhere as and when and fitted into daily life. I imagine this is the teacher’s expectation.
The only onerous things seems to be the religious task and the happiest day task.

Mine don’t do this much homework. They get one maths sheet and one spellings sheet a week and are expected to read. I read with them every other night not every night because they do a lot of extracurricular. I get them to do their homework in the afterschool club they go to a couple of nights a week most weeks. They are high achievers at a high achieving school. I think it my job to enrich their lives with sport and extracurricular not homework. They do dance, football, cricket, swimming, gymnastics, beavers and piano between the two of them. They aare year 3 and year 5. I will get a tutor for an hour a week for year 6 like I did with my first born who is at high school now. He is also a high an achiever.

I have only looked at the homework tasks and that looks pretty standard. Most schools ask for children to be reading at home, practicing times tables and learning spellings. In KS2 lots of schools do then set another activity (for my kids this is often a worksheet, and rotates through maths, English, science and topic).
The reading we always do before bed. Doesn't have to be long. Maths we also do TTRS and mine will perhaps only play a little. We do generally neglect the spellings though.
I agree with the comments about people saying they are too busy to fit it all in, especially during the week, but I don't see how if you include weekends there is no time to enjoy a book or to do some maths then. If my child reads a different book to their school one we just note that in the reading record.

Some people think like that, but not everyone.

There is benefit in reading, but not the rest. Here children are encouraged to play, play sport, play an instrument, spend time with family and friends etc after school rather than spend it doing homework.

Where we are homework really starts in Y9. The children don’t need to spend years and years doing homework when they young so they can do it when they are older.

If I want to know what my children are learning then I can ask them, but often they will just share this information from time to time. I don’t need them to do homework to find out about what they are learning at school.

There are families here who require their children do a lot of homework afterschool. In terms of academic success, some of these children do very well, but so do others who didn’t spend their primary years doing homework.

I get that if you are use to your primary aged children doing homework it’s hard to imagine that they could simply not do it and they’d not be worse off, mostly it makes no difference other than reading.

on a weekly basis it's really not that much:
songs & timetables you can do in the car or on the walk to school
spellings you can read out while you're making dinner or maybe ask GP to do those on their evenings
reading do in bed before lights out
february's big question sounds like you've had 3 weeks to produce so that's a weekend task

add something to your shopping list for the wee box donations and notes in your diary about hair day / book day etc.

The "days" is the only thing that I think is excessive, do they really need mad hair day, wear something bright day, book day, easter bonnets and non-uniform day in the space of 3 weeks? At least they don't have to dress up as their favourite book for world book day and catholic schools don't tend to do comic relief! I'd be tempted to raise this with the PTA as it's putting pressure on parents, both time and financial and apart from world book day probably isn't adding anything to their education!

Im not in the UK so always confused with the Year levels but my DC is 7 and we do 20 mins homework every night. She does maths, writing, times tables, spelling and guided reading. She is pretty academic though and finds it all quite easy. If it was taking her twice that time I'd be upset and talking to the teacher about only doing half.

She has a childminder twice a week and she does it with her. Could the grandparents? The evenings that she's with me I do find it to be quality time actually.

I don’t think it’s a lot. Practicing stuff like times tables etc can be done while on the way to school or activities or while out for a walk. Reading for 15 minutes a day doesn’t seem excessive at all and the other stuff is just bits really.

I think at 8 he’s capable of doing this independently anyway. My DS reads his school book in bed and then follows it with a book of his choice. I don’t need him to read to me because he’s been a ‘free reader’ for over a year now, he’s only in year 2 but his reading age is 10 so I trust he’s comprehending the basic books from school well.

Spellings and times tables can just be practised as chants on the go really. On the way to and from school or clubs but again, I’m sure he’s capable of running through both alone.

Then he literally just has one writing task which he doesn’t need much assistance with at 8. Maybe just a quick proof read after or some prompts to get him started.

I think you’ve got off easy with this in truth. My DS has daily reading, times tables and spellings plus 3 written tasks a week.

Get him to type his work instead? It also doesn’t have to be his “best”. Just pick his favourite day and explain why.

Other than that, the “homework “ is just basic stuff. Reading should be every day . Timestables , DD just on TTR during breakfast club. Spellings, we only practiced the ones she didn’t actually know . We did it the boring way, but it was actually a lot quicker so she preferred it. I said the word , she wrote it down, if it was wrong she wrote it down correctly. 10 minutes, if that, on a really tricky week.

The events seem excessive but you don’t actually have to take part in all of them.

Times tables can be done in the car, in the bath, whilst you are getting pjs on. Reading to you can be done in bed. Fifteen minutes independent reading is independent reading. Your child can do that before lights out . Grace before meals, you're at a Catholic school so that's part of it. You signed up for that. Song lyrics can be done anywhere anytime as can spellings. Your child can go over the words 4 times for each word ( look at it, write it , check it, repeat. ) Then you test.

I'm in Scotland too OP but my daughter's primary school doesn't have a homework policy. When my daughter started school during covid, all homework for a few years was app-based and parents pushed back strongly on it, including me. It wasn't working for any of the children. Teachers can now set homework or not and most don't. I'm not opposed to homework per se as especially coming up to high school I do think there can be a benefit in knowing how to self-organise and self-discipline but I am opposed to it being set just for the sake of setting something.

I do go over things with her less formally though and she's the same as yours, absolutely no problems with times tables for a long time and has been a class and school maths champion. But we still do quick fire revision on it sometimes, literally just a few minutes of me firing times tables questions at her. Or sometimes words to spell. And I do make sure she reads. Maybe the list makes it seem much more daunting than it really is.

My dc are In a private school and get FAR more homework than this. In fact I’m surprised that you feel this is a lot, this is the bare minimum. Do your kids not have a routine?
why is homework left for the end of the day and not built in during the day?
My dc gets in and has a snack then shower, and then gets straight to homework. He’s done everything by 5:30 and the rest of the evening till 8:30 is just dinner and playtime.
why can’t he do his homework at his GP?
We do only the big event days, Xmas jumper, world book day, etc. none of all the silly nonsense I’ve read on here.

I do think homework is a good habit. It just reinforces what they learnt so far, I’m able to see what they are doing at school and help if they need it. Surely most people think like this?

Y4 - they should be doing homework without adult assistance. Just checking the work afterwards is all any adult should do.

YANBU, especially on the homework. Especially at 8 years old.

Use the time with GPs. At Y4, they shouldn’t need much adult support with homework. Let them do it themselves and just check it afterwards.

Gosh, wait until your DC move to secondary. Then you/they will know what homework is!

I am totally anti homework in primary. All the evidence suggests no benefit and children benefit much more from rest and family time. I would just do what you can and tell your child not to worry about the rest.

Other than reading, and practicing anything they are falling behind on (e.g. multiplications) we have always just not enforced homework at primary, except in yr6. But even that is only just to get used to it for secondary. The kids will do what they can do, or not.

Same level as mine but in year 3, except for the communion bit.

Since they tell us in advance and the system doesn’t change we just made a schedule of it. We do some in the morning since he typically has 15 minutes before we walk to school (usually math on my tablet and reading) and what we don’t finish we do when he gets home which is usually spellings and then he has 3-4 hours free in the evenings. Depending on how tired he is, I sometimes move one to a bit before bed usually reading and make it out like he is reading a bedtime story to his toddler sister and I and I’ll read a story back if he desires.

We don’t do homework on Saturday and Friday evenings he doesn’t have anything either.

He has three extracurriculars, 2 at school, after school but short so he is home before 4:30pm and cello on Saturdays mornings.

The hardest part is keeping him on task because he gets distracted so easily (he definitely is SEN but waiting for the assessment. If it wasn’t for that, it would go faster. Takes us 35 - 45 minutes total, would be less if not for constant prompting to stay on task.

The dress up days are optional and it is rare that more than 1/2 the class is dressed up for them.

Donations are optional since they know not everyone can afford them.

It looks overwhelming but I think it is more to whomever wrote it. It could have been laid out differently imo.

YABU. To give some perspective my mum was a drug addict, we had no electricity sometimes and no central heating and she still did my homework with me every night when I was in primary school or made sure I had done it independently once I passed the age of 9. I’m 28 now and it has served me very well. There are kids aged 9 that can barely read and I do believe that this is due to lack of parental involvement. Parents believe that the school should be responsible for everything - except disciplining their little angels, of course.

I really hate the “days” thing, when Dd was younger I felt like I was buying something that would get used once every 5 minutes.

Mines 6 and her homework is her own responsibility, she does it, she knows it will be marked, we tell her to sit down and do it, one of us will check it over and thats it. Reading we take it in turns while the other one tidies up after dinner, times tables I would expect DD to practice herself with us doing quick fire quizzes in the car. Spelling would can also be done in the car or with a quick quiz.

I actually don’t think it’s too much. I have seen homework schedules that involve a lot of parental input (like find a leaf from the park and turn into a sculpture of the queen shit) that I thought was completely unrealistic for two working parents. This isn’t particularly bad imo. I get it feels like even more stuff to do but the best thing to do is to push that responsibility back onto your kids imo. Get them in the habit of as much independent study as possible.