Saturday detention and inflexible school.

Sufficiently non-dim that my dc have only ever needed one weekday detention each for uncompleted homework. After the first time, they worked out for themselves what they needed to do to prevent the situation arising again.

I agree with Frogs. My dd is in year 8 and her tutor rang me to say her homework wasn't always complete. I came down on her like a ton of bricks and she now has to do it in front of us at the kitchen table as we can't trust her to do it under her own steam. We have made it very clear that homework comes ahead of computer time or "fun". There is no way I want to get to year 10 or 11 and still have her thinking that homework isn't important.

Yes, our school use frog too. It's easy to check what homework has been set. It sounds like he is just not used to a 'homework routine' and you need to help him set this up as a matter of urgency.

Just reading this and I think the OP does need to man up.

Is it the phrase you object to SirChenjin or the notion?

In y8, the boy really does need to be capable of getting his act together a little more for himself, and if he gets detention, he needs to suck it up and not do it again. 5 detentions for the same kind of thing is just crazy.

Ahh - childish and a bit dim. Sweet.

Ahh, little delicate flowers. Sweet.

Get out a little more? Hardly Frogs - you just need to do a bit of growing up and stop thinking that telling a woman to grow a pair of testicles or to man up isn't pathetic.

Just sayin'.

You could suggest a VLE to the school.

We have one, hosted by a company called frog (although tbh my techy colleagues say there are better, cheaper alternatives.)

All teachers set HW on frog - I do this as the class is working & display on the interactive whiteboard.

All students AND parents have a log in. Students can see all their HW (& it's possible to attach resources such as worksheets, so no excuse if paper copy given in class has gone AWOL...). Parents can see everything set for their dc, with due dates etc.

Obviously, it doesn't solve the problem of ds producing inadequate/skimped work which passes muster with you, because you don't know the standard required, but not with the teacher - but if he honestly thinks his work is OK & he's being constantly told it isn't, you probably need to set up a meeting with school anyway, as he'll just fall further & further behind. IME it's much more common that a year 8 lad does know what's expected, but 'cba, tbh'.

School may not want to go down the VLE route but it's increasingly common & I think v effective. May be worth suggesting.

Oh & YABU about the detention, I'm afraid. He does need to suck it up.

Aww, bless. If you think 'main up and grow a pair' is offensive, you possibly need to get out a little more.

But don't worry, just keep blaming the school for their unreasonableness. Just don't come back in three years time and moan about how much better all the other kids did in their GCSEs, and how the examiners were really unreasonable in not taking account that your ds needed to go to scouts and play on the computer.

Just sayin'.

Agree. Telling someone (ie a woman) to man up and grow a pair of balls is pathetic.

Frogs please don't say 'man up' it's pathetic and offensive.
The op isn't a bad parent because her teenager has missed a bit of homework, by that age they should be organising themselves a bit more. But Saturday detentions worry me. Schools should not be dictating our lives. I'm assuming it's an academy which sadly all schools are becoming. It means they value profit over student care. A child needs encouragement and help not being forced to be at school 6 days a week!

Is there a 'report' system? We can't as you say check 30 have written it in correctly but I know the 4 or 5 who can't be trusted and need checking.

Oh fgs, you and he need to man up - your son needs to acquire some initiative and you need to grow some balls. The after-school activities are really not the issue here, nor is the school's so-called 'inflexibility'. 5.30 is not late to get in from school - a Y8 probably doesn't go to bed until 9.30 at the earliest, so he's got 4 hours every evening to do his homework, at minimum.

There are kids who do training for sports every day after school. Kids who swim competitively will be doing an hour's training before school most days. If they want to do it enough, they find time and energy for it

If he sees schoolwork as a priority, he will find a way to get it done. Even if he doesn't see it as important for its own sake, if he sees that you regard it as a priority and are prepared to enforce it, then he will gradually realise that you and the school mean business and it's in his interest to get on with it.

Obviously if you don't regard homework as a priority, and keep coming up with excuses as to why your poor put-upon son can't do his homework, he will consider that a green light to carry on prioritising scouts, computer time and doing sweet fa over getting his schoolwork done. In two years' time he's going to be starting GCSE courses, whose problem is it going to be then?

Is there a reason why he doesn't manage to write down all his homework in the planner, or is just carelessness?

When we had issues with DS1, I went to see the HT and we worked out what each of us would do to address the problems - so rather than it being his problem (although primarily it was...) we looked for solutions and agreed what he would do to improve things, what we would do at home to support him and the school, and what the school would do. I put the agreement in writing and we all worked towards it. Maybe worth a try as an approach?

Why don't you approach the school and suggest the things you will do to help and the things you think would also help, e.g. checking that he's written down his homework correctly. Maybe suggest that you and they try these things out for a short duration, say three of four weeks, to try and crack it, then evaluate what's worked and what hasn't. If you write it in a 'lets work in partnership' way rather than being angry then hopefully they'll be happy to give it a go.

SirChenJin - 15 sounds a lot but it is just under 4 days worth of homework missed in a whole year. It is possible to earn more saturday detentions than there are Saturdays in the school year. (approx 3 every 2 weeks)

It sounds a lot - because it is a lot! In fact, it's a huge amount of missed homework! It sounds like you're doing a lot to address this, but you say that no-one is addressing the issue. So - what exactly do you want him (and the school) to do to address the issue?

Btw - I totally agree with you re your Scouting commitments. You couldn't have let everyone down, definitely not. It is time to take a back seat for the next year until you get on top of this though?

Does he recognise there is a problem ?

How does he get to school during the week? If my year 8 had a Saturday detention, I would expect him to get himself there and back.

I am assuming other parents are managing to ensure their children do homework given with the same timescale? So you can't really blame that.

If he can't write it down properly why not ask him to ask the teachers to write it into his book? Or you contact the school for that to happen?