Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Just been thinking about ds's year 7 homework- interested in people's views.

35 replies

seeker · 17/03/2013 11:35

Ds goes to a school where most of the children are middle to low ability- only 8-10% high ability. Humanities is taught in a mixed ability group. They have had no homework so far- but this weekend have been told to write a police report on a famous crime from history. Ds says (and I realise that 12 year olds are unreliable witnesses!) that they got no further guidance, and the homework was undifferentiated.
It strikes me that this is a very big ask for most middle and low ability children and would just be incredibly demotivating and end up not being done. Is there any good reason for setting homework like this?

OP posts:
RedHelenB · 17/03/2013 13:08

So you know in detail what work they have had leading up to it then? Sounds a fair enough homework to me, allowing pupils to produce something to their own ability. Differentiation doesn't always have to be by task you know!

Original poster
seeker · 17/03/2013 12:28

Hmm. Yes, this comes with no scaffolding at all- just a slip of paper with the task on it.

I just think that, unless the is more to it than this, it would be completely beyond many children in the class, and so absolutely counter productive. And it does see very odd.

OP posts:
teacherwith2kids · 17/03/2013 12:17

DS, in Year 7 at a comp, is taught in mixed ability classes for all subjects except Maths.

Longer pieces of homework come home with tables as tiggy suggests - clear guidance on the expectations for each level.

Shorter pieces I do not know, though I suspect that there are different amounts of scaffolding rather than differentiated tasks in the main. I do know that if there is an optional extension, he (as a HA child) is expected to do it.

Tbh, DS is in charge of his homework. He gets at least 1 piece per night, usually but not invariably due in for the next day, and as he is home before the rest of us, he completes it before we get home. If it's not done or badly done, he gets the flak.

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 17/03/2013 12:15
Grin

It sounds to me that you have general concerns about homework and that this is one example?

Original poster
seeker · 17/03/2013 12:13

Yes, he can shipwrecked- I now know more than I ever wanted to about the death of Martin Luther King- but homework is one of the things I want to raise as a governor- and I want to make as little of a fool of myself as humanly possible.........

OP posts:
Original poster
seeker · 17/03/2013 12:10

I thought (hoped) that, snickersnacker- but he is very aware of the differentiation that goes on in class- and, bearing in mind the class make up- the differentiation would be aimed at the very few higher ability kids, wouldn't it?

OP posts:
ShipwreckedAndComatose · 17/03/2013 12:10

Can your son do this homework? If so, all is well.

However, you cannot really be sure what the other pupils have been set/ supported with...... unless you do don your governor's hat and start probing!

snickersnacker · 17/03/2013 12:06

Just a thought, but a possibility: your son may not be aware of the differentiation. a good teacher IME will be discreet about providing scaffolding so that lower ability chn don't feel singled out and self-conscious.

tiggytape · 17/03/2013 11:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
seeker · 17/03/2013 11:37

Just to add that I have just become a governor of the school, so I do have a broader reason for asking.

OP posts: