Y7 - am i helping too much with homework?

Hi alittletreat:

It's been all paper for DD1 - no traditional maths book.

But as you have access to My Maths - take advantage of opportunities there. use the GAMES and use LIBRARY and select the LEVEL you're doing most homework in - to do more/ review things that are tricky.

I think it is a good sign that the new senior school has moved your DC up a set after one half-term - it sounds like they're tracking her closely. So encourage her to keep up the good work - as it's likely to mean she finds herself in top set (which would be brilliant for her - as you say she's been bottom set at her primary for ages).

I have come across a website Corbett Maths which has 5 a day practice maths problems for GCSE level pupils. Right now DD1 is secure numeracy level (NC Level 3/4/5) and finds foundation level (NC L6/7) sometimes has things she's just not encountered - e.g. tangents to circles - but she has been doing more with this and answers are provided: corbettmaths.com/5-a-day/

HTH

Like PSBD I am an old fashion parent much believe in a little homework at primary and more so in secondary. I also did not have good experience with my dd's primary school. However I am a little concern about this secondary school as dd hasn't brought home any maths books or paper homework but all on mymaths only. I know she has recently moved up to middle set and still finds it quite easy. Thank god! After being stuck in bottom set since the age of five in yr1 finally now dd can have some faith in herself. Do mnters' dcs bring books or paper maths homework home?

Chandon:

Yes I'm right there with you Chandon (although I opted for going part-time and doing more at home, rather than private school) and I too am judging new senior school by what they send home in terms of homework.

So far, very pleasantly surprised and pleased.

We did contact the maths teacher about lack of maths homework (worksheets are started in class and any unfinished work is homework - but DD1 was finishing worksheets & extension in class). We were very careful to say that DD1 loved the class just was a bit jealous that most kids had homework but she didn't. The teacher wrote back with a subscription log in for My Maths and permission to start L6 lessons/ homework + encouragement to continue using NRich maths.

DD1 has also been asked to help Y7s at maths homework club.

We've also discovered 5 a day on corbett maths which is a GCSE level revision exercise: corbettmaths.com/5-a-day/ - we find the 'foundation' stuff is a bit tricky - but DD1 likes to have a look and have a go if it isn't 'too new' - but the numeracy level stuff is good review.

Like your school - our senior school spent last half-term gradually and steadily increasing the amount of homework (and I think the work has got progressively more demanding). There also seems to now be a steady stream of weekly quizzes in one subject or another. We definitely are getting maths homeworks now too.

Naturalhistory, I know what you mean.

Primaries in England set them so young, and then stick to the "expected level of progress" which can be very limited.

DS1 was bottom if the bottom set in English and was heading for a level 3 by Y6 (expected level of progress, so no worries ).

I am one of those foreign mums mentioned by Pastsellbydate, and I went as far as sending him to a private school for the last 3 years of primary.

AND I helped him with his homework. Not by telling him answers but mainly by giving him time and space to do it, and helping him getting the hang of doing research online.

I also made (and make) him do literacy homework that I set myself for 30 minutes each day the school has not set homework.

He is now above Average in a comprehensive school. Interestingly his target levels are a lot higher now too.

But we had to really break the defeatist attitude of the primary that he was just the bottom of the class, and bottom in terms of future attainment .

How can kids be written off at such a young age?! It baffles me. Do parents really just accept this?

A confession: we have complained to the new school that there is not enough homework. They explained that the focus of the first half term in Y7 is for kids to settle in. That seems fair enough.

But yes, I will keep a beady eye on DS homework!

PSD, like you I believe that hard work goes a long way. I also agree with nearly everything you'd said.

What's problematic is when you hear Y2 teachers saying they can 'always spot the NATURAL mathematicians' and unwittingly mean those well versed in Kumon etc (agility and speed being of high value in the early years). Maths in primary isn't rocket science after all. Then it's often a virtuous circle with these children in a group working with the best Maths teacher or similar. In our school those who haven't grasped it or are perceived at lower ability always get the TA who is sometimes just not as able as the teacher etc (although not always the case and not PC to say so) and as mine have told me in the past sometimes understands less then they do & makes mistakes. This leads to the feeling that you have let your child down if you have not done as much as other parents, leading to some kind of exhuasting educational arms race. As someone on here once said the difference between a high and middle ability child is an interested parent. Once a child is on a certain trajectory or 'high' 'middle' or 'low' ability there is not much that can be changed as long as all make the 'expected levels of progress'. It just seems to me this is often very arbitrary for all the reasons you've flagged.

I feel this is wrong, I want to trust the school, I have a big family and a job that means I travel lots. I just can't be on top of it all the time as I don't have time. I am hoping in the secondary years it's a much more even playing field with the onus squarely on the child? We are in good school so don't have this issue but it has been the case elsewhere in the past with bells on.

NaturalHistory:

I can assure you I was living in 'something must be terribly wrong' land during primary. And I can assure you I don't 'do my child's work' or 'live vicariously' - but do value a child with a reading age near to their chronological age who has full use of all calculation skills (addition/ subtraction/ multiplication/ division to 3 digits).

I get that such a view is deeply old fashioned and I do respect that our former primary truly believed that homework was of no value in primary school and therefore provided very little (to be fair that's what the research says).

But observationally it's clear that the children that did more at home: parents took them to the local libraries, parents got them books and encouraged reading, parents got workbooks, parents supported going for the 11+ (maybe even going as far as hiring tutors).... those were the children that went on to do well.

And the embarrassing reality at our former highly multicultural primary school was that foreign students outperformed home students. EAL wasn't a huge issue. However, native Birmingham students had parents dead against homework. Foreign parents or mixed Anglo/foreign families did their own thing - including both the Korean and Chinese schools hiring teachers to teach English/ Maths and assign weekly homework because of community concern over poor standard of local English primaries.

Low and behold vast majority went on to pass the 11+ and/or do well on KS2 SATs NC L5+ material.

I personally don't think educational ability is genetic - you either have it or you don't. I think everybody is different and for some people you have to work harder to get good at reading, subtraction, fractions, fill in the blank....

What I do see is well eduated parents have the confidence to make that decision that a school isn't doing enough for their kids and tend not to care so much about the school's/ teacher's opinion.

PastSellByDate whilst I applaud what you are doing I do wonder why our children are not absolutely grounded in the 3 Rs by 11 so that they know to capitalise the names of Kings, realise that until isn't untill and understand paragraphing? Surely they should also be taught how to plan out a project. Children don't always pick it up by osmosis and I think schooling should be such that we don't have to permanently shadow educate or enrich at home. Most of us have full time jobs and should absolutely be able to trust the school to instil these very basic skills (?) in our children? with bells on. IMO these basics need to be second nature FIRST before we do all the creative projects etc. Some schools do this very well others don't seem to.

Not all of us can be the Sherpa. If we are increasingly expected to be, as so many parents seem to, and our support or lack thereof ultimately boils down to the difference between our children achieving a C or an A star at GCSE (which I think I am seeing playing out currently with some) etc then something must be terribly wrong somewhere?

PiqueABoo

I really liked your post but I thought 'gosh, that's a world away from DD1's situation'.

First off I'd adore just 'one spelling error' in a piece of work. We're still working on reminding DD1 to capitalise W & C in William the Conqueror. We're still working on reminding her that until doesn't have two ls. To write in paragraphs.

I get that in an ideal world the work should be done entirely indpendently - and indeed that was how I was raised in the US. However, I think you have to start from where you're at - and I suspect PiqueABoo you did help your DD with projects/ reports in primary.

But if you never had that kind of thing (as is the case for DD1) I fear Y7 can be a very steep hill to climb. DD1 isn't saying:

How could she get a higher mark than me?

she's saying

Mum, all the kids from that school totally know how to do this stuff - they just do it and get amazing marks - I've no idea what to do?

I think for many of us PiqueABoo it's not 'living vicariously' - it's rectifying some major gaps in experience/ knowledge to make it a level playing field. (by the way this is entirely playing out with state sector educated pupils). I assure you I'm not doing DD1's work - but I am discussing projects with her and kicking around ideas - so that she can settle on something to do and then helping to break up that project into manageable units.

For me - this is second nature - it's what I do professionally - but for DD1 it's all new and she's rather at see. So I'm teaching her how to plan out a project into mangeable chunks - to make to do lists and tick them off - to lay things out first and think about it (before glueing it all down - yes we had a little disaster with an art project).

In an ideal world I'd have preferred it if her primary had thought this was part & parcel of preparing a child for secondary - but their priority was getting 1/2 of the Y6 cohort to NC Level 4 - and they really didn't give anyone over that threshold or beyond it much notice.

So although you may be classing me as a 'living vicariously' - I personally would prefer 'rearguard action filling in gaping lack of basic skills' - as I said 2 months into Y7 - DD1 seems to be turning a corner and just getting on with most of her work. I'm sure there will be further hills to climb - and I'll be the Sherpa there to hand her a rope or carabiner to help her up that hill - but she'll have done her own climbing).

Y7 DD was born with a dash of Vulcan, can do the single raised eyebrow and keeps getting snagged on perplexing, irrational life.

"But I don't understand... I mean I read it before the holiday and it just wasn't that good... it had loads of terrible grammar and things, so how did I get a 6c when they got 7b?"

Well that's a complete mystery, but finishing off and typing up this eight-week English (writing) project was the half-term homework. We left DD to hers and when dutifully reading the finished work, refrained from suggesting alterations and ignored the one spelling mistake etc.

Between vicarious parents, random subjectivity or ($deity help her) what might be a more 'progressive' teacher-neutrality issue, I think both of us might grow to dislike English. It will be interesting to see if DD's mark for that work is what they produce for her level in a week or two and whether the remainder of the year is largely epic projects like this one that they can finish off at home. To add some fuel English is mixed-ability now in Y7, but will be set in Y8.

[We obviously saw this with primary school craft projects some of which were a bit grand, but 95% of the primary school writing was done at school and we didn't get to see it until the end of the year.]

My DCs went to boarding school at age 11. I never did any homework for them at all. I never saw any of their homework either. I did not know what ther homework was. They had a set time in school every day when the work should be completed. This is how the teachers know if a child is coping or not. Now they are older, they are motivated and can complete tasks on their own. Had they been at home, I would have been asked to help and I probably would have done. I am so pleased we did not go down this route because I think children should learn to complete tasks without continual assistance.

For timestable I would say perhaps to ask him to know his 2x to 9x instead of 2x to 12x. In fact chinese children only learn 2x2 to 9x9 and they do well.

Does his school do homework club? My friend daughter was not keen on homework in primary stage. But when in yr7 the new school has homework clubs and many children really like staying in school to work together.

Hi Achoo:

I saw this before half term and dwelled on it in terms of helping my own DD1 (new to Y7) with her homework.

DD1 was at a primary that when homework was prescribed by the government used majority of 1.5 (KS2 lower) or 2 hrs (KS2 upper) of homework as independent reading (there was no checking on whether children read or not & not much written work for the kids to do about their reading - it was just that nightly children should be reading 15 - 20 minutes). Maths homework was never more than 10 minutes - and very intermittent. Usually given once a parent complained about lack of homework & then swiftly forgotten again.

So DD1's issue is actually coping with a number of assignments of varying length & deadlines - some are straightforward (worksheets/ fill in the blank/ vocabulary) and others are more complex (preparing a presentation on which charity Y7 should support, for example - which involved research, learning how to use powerpoint, etc...).

So yes I've been helping quite a bit:

Showing DD1 how to prioritise work (do the work due tomorrow first kind of thing).

Looking over work and saying 'Really?' you think that's what the teacher was after? Just 3 lines on this? No research? Just your opinion based on what you remember of a Horrible Histories episode? No references. No explanation which question you're answering. No date. No name?

So really just showing the basics of setting out homework with name/ date/ assignment brief - question to be answered/ etc....

I think with your DS Achoo - I wonder if part of the resistance to homework is that he finds it tricky (not mastering times table facts by now is a real disadvantage) and I also wonder (as you said above that you don't like 'homework' interfering with family time) if you're not signalling negative attitudes toward homework.

With times tables - there's all sorts of great free websites out there offering video game type formats to practice and improve speed of recall of basic times table facts to x12:

Woodlands Junior School Maths Zone: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/index.html

Multiplication dot com: www.multiplication.com/games

Timez Attack has a 2 platform free version you can download - where you're cast as an ogre and have to run through a castle/ dungeon maze solving multiplication problems. It feels like a video game and puts you under a lot of pressure to solve problems quickly: www.bigbrainz.com/Multiplication.php - It's quite a challenge and the ogres are pretty fierce - but by playing the game the system works out which times tables are your problem area and keeps drilling you on those again and again. Yes I suppose it is learning by rote - but it's learning through practice and each time you are also shown that it is multiple additions of the same number - so 6 x 7 is shown as six blocks of seven and counted up 7 - 14 - 21 - 28 - 35 - 42. For both my girls - this game has helped them move from 'knowing the answer, but being a bit slow to arrive there' to instantly knowing the answer.

I think if anything - the key is to get your DS to see that by putting the work in now - it will make homework easier & less time consuming in future. It's important to recognise that the work will only get harder.

Finally - I know that with your own work - it can mean that you're getting home late in the evening and rather than relaxing with your family, you're struggling to get work done he needs help with - but I think you also need to see this as 'family time'. It is important to give your child educational support and to help them on their way as a student/ adult. It's like learning to speak or walk - it took a lot of your time at the time (I don't know about you but I put socket covers on, corner bumps, cabinet locks and moved breakables high up once they were 'cruising' + the requisite holding hands and walking slowly) - but it was just part and parcel of being a supportive parent.

It may not seem like 'walking' - but this is the stage your DS is at - and a few months hard work from the both of you can really crack a lot of these 'problems' - making homework more enjoyable for the two of you. Usually getting positive feedback from teachers and better results reinforces that putting in the work is worthwhile.

I am starting to come home from work now to find DD1 has nearly completed all of her homework - and I can hear about her day, look over her work and have a cup of tea & a bit of relax now. It's taken 2 months to get to this point - but I do feel that DD1 is now trying to manage her work on her own and really just using me as a sounding board, whilst I'm drifting about (cleaning/ cooking/ helping DD2 with her homework/ etc...).

Have the battles now Achoo - it's worth it for him long term, it will help him get over this particular hurdle - and it will mean that homework will become less of a chore long term.

HTH

It does take time to acclimatise to the expectations at Year 7. But if he is truly that unmotivated by the work it might be also worth speaking to the teacher. The teacher's role includes motivation and lack of such in a child may be due to many factors. The teacher can be vital in highlighting some of the issues and should help.

DH spell checks for Dyslexic DD1 if asked, he has a bash at MFL (I'm also dyslexic, did Welsh not German and 4/5 of my French teachers were crap). We both help with anything else if asked.

If we are not asked we keep out of it!

His maths is a bit like my spelling tonight. Whoops!

DS was recently set maths sums and instructed to shops the workings, meaning he had to write the suns out. He was tired and not copying the suns correctly. I did help by copying the sums leaving him the space to show his workings. If DS needs to do a poem, I may suggest themes, otherwise he will sit for hours without doing anything.

I will admit to doing ds's colouring in. No academic input (except for direction and ideas) but where I cannot really see a learning point to it and it is just taking up ds's time, I will help.

For example, a recent language homework was to draw 10 things and then lable them in relevant language and English. Ds had already spent 4 hours doing homework over the weekend so I did the drawings and he did the labeling (which I think was the learning bit anyway).

There is a learning point to the colouring-in. It's about learning to pace yourself, learning to identify the different aspects of a task and work out how much time to dedicate to each aspect.

Personally I think that by year 5 they should be able to sit and do homework without parental involvement. DS is year 6 I look over his work but would not dream of doing ANY of it myself, he regularly has about an hours work 3/4 times a week. OnlyWatford I think you are doing your daughter a disservice. Will you still be "helping her finish GCSE work??

Step away people stop trying to control every aspect of your child's schooling ( maybe that is why some are seen as "perfectionists?)

A friend of mine even did half her Ds's coursework for uni - she was then left with a DS who could do very little for himself, so she set upon getting him a job too....she thinks she did too much but she just can't stop herself and he still can't cope without her assistance, he's a bit of a mess and she always tells me to back of while you still can let them sort themselves out without too big a fallout.

I will admit to doing ds's colouring in. No academic input (except for direction and ideas) but where I cannot really see a learning point to it and it is just taking up ds's time, I will help.

For example, a recent language homework was to draw 10 things and then lable them in relevant language and English. Ds had already spent 4 hours doing homework over the weekend so I did the drawings and he did the labeling (which I think was the learning bit anyway).

I'm afraid I have to confess to doing some of DD's homework. The whole 'do a poster' thing that appears in almost every subject is way too time consuming for an 11 yo (admittedly arty-perfectionist 11yo!). She does all the content and if we run out out of time - ie it's heading towards 10pm. I'll finish the colouring.

For written assignments in, for instance, English and RS. She'll dictate her draft essay to me and then she can edit the draft and write up the final copy. I'm hoping that in time she will be able to do the draft writing on her own but at the moment she needs help with focus and direction so that she can sensibly plan essays in the future.

Also, if she is struggling with ideas I will suggest - have you thought of saying 'x' or 'y'.

I think it is fine to sit and help. I read an article on (i think) the BBC website a few weeks ago that the best period for productivity is working 52 minutes with 17 minutes break. I told my daughters and the precision of it made us laugh. And I joked that we'd use it! Turned out to be not such a joke... I set the timer for 17 minutes the second she walks in the door and she has that time to get changed, get a drink etc. Then we time for 52 minutes while she does homework. It started off as a joke but we call it The L*** Family Homework Device. She does her homework in the kitchen so I am always there for asking questions if I am cooking - but for lots of that time I sit with her and do emails, sort out bits and pieces of my own work, finish her colouring if necessary ;). I think it's good for her to see me working too. She's rarely finished after 52 mins so we set a 17 break and then start again. It's crazy but it works for us :D

Achoo - glad it has improved! I hate to worry you but it only gets worse I'm afraid. My Y9 works most evenings around her other activities, and probably 2 hours each Sat and Sun. My Y12 has a couple of hours each night and probably about 5 hours over the weekend at least, not including revision for tests etc. It is therefore so important to plant the seeds now in Y7/8 when it isn't so vital i.e not directly attached to GCSE / A level.