Drowning in homework! (Year 3)

[AllHunsBlazing]

DD1 is 7 and in year 3. I feel like our life is being taken over by homework and it’s starting to negatively affect family dynamics.

Every week there is an expectation that we:

Read with her 3-5 times
Practice times tables using an online game
Learn to spell 10 new words for a test
Do some sort of creative writing exercise, or work on an extended project (e.g. a homemade model of a castle).

DD is reasonably bright but panics when faced with something new- particularly when learning at home. I spend so much time coaxing her out from under a table or out of a heap on the floor and I’m exhausted.

I have mentioned this to her teachers and they told me just to write in her homework book that we’ve reached our limit, but that doesn’t work when there are tests to take and bloody castles to present, and when we get snippy comments in her reading book for only managing 2 reading sessions (she’s a free reader, there are no concerns about her).

I’d really like some time left to just relax together and teach her some basic life skills too!

Really not sure what to do. Any words of wisdom?

I think DD needs to find some motivation within herself. Do I let her fail the spelling test, rather than battle with her sobbing under the table, for example?

Reading every day would be an absolute priority for me, closely followed by the times tables work in preparation for the (ridiculous) tables test in year 4.

My son refuses to learn spellings with me then gets angry when he doesn't do well in the test. I've explained that it is a natural consequence of not practising but still we have the same conversation every week!

Last week there was an interview with a schools leader and Kirsty Alsop, on Radio 4 breakfast news, about primary school homework. The schools leader said ALL the evidence said that homework in early primary was ineffective. It did NOT lead to improved outcomes/learning. Reading with them (not reading set books) was the most beneficial

We have complicated shit going on in our family and myself and my dh took the decision not to bother with homework until secondary school. If my kids want to do it we will encourage them and help them but I would rather spend quality time with them doing something else that they have chosen themselves like building a robot from boxes or playing a game. They don't seem to have suffered for lack of homework so far and the schools have all been fine about it.

I know reading is key. We read to both DDs every day, from a children’s novel. I was super dedicated to DD reading to me everyday in KS1 (still am with DD2). They’re both excellent readers.

DD1 lacks confidence in maths, so I’ve focussed on this over reading in the last few weeks. It’s definitely working.

It’s mainly the spelling that’s doing my head in (and hers).

I'm not battling homework until y7, and it's taken DS1 (who has some learning difficulties) to find motivation to do it, and we now work through it together. In y5, DS2 still isn't mature enough to cope.
We had enough baggage from 6 months of "home learning" causing constant sobbing/ meltdowns, and it's better in the long term to back off and ease the pressure.

Both of mine are dyslexic so even reading every night is a stress. I read with them/ take turns/ do audio books. There is a culture of regular access to literature for pleasure, and they develop their understanding better by listening than trying to track letters squirming around a page (agreed by the Ed Psychs who have worked with them). I want them to enjoy learning in the long run, and that matters more than battling them through short term tick box culture.

Is she a good speller? Reading is the best way to learn to spell, surely. You might find if she’s a good reader that you don’t need to bother doing much in terms of spelling the words.

I’m a year 2 teacher, have taught year 3 in the past, and I set homework every week but I truly detest it. I hate the idea of setting things that cause extra stress at home, hate the time it takes me to set & hate the time it takes me to mark. But it’s policy and an ofsted tick. One positive about it is it helps parents to see where their child is upto in their learning/see what we’re doing in school etc. But generally I find it a waste of everyone’s time!

Maybe see how she goes with the spellings.. she might surprise herself?

Forget that last one. There’s no way that would get done in my house! I flipping hate those crafty type homeworks (DS used to get them, but school seems to have had an epiphany since then and they are optional now DD is in Y3). Writing is a particular challenge for my DS, so it’s definitely not something we attempt under any kind of pressure.

My tip for spellings: play “catch and spell”. You play a game of throwing and catching a ball with your child, and each time they catch the ball they spell out the next letter of the word. It’s something about the physical aspect of catching that makes the brain work in a slightly different way.

@JulianCasa No, she’s not a great speller unfortunately. She can segment a word into graphemes, but she tends to forget alternatives. E.g. er, ur, ir. She’ll always use er. She will also not have it that her mishearing of a word is wrong!

@TeaandHobnobs We’ll try the ball game, thanks!

DD2 is a different kettle of fish fortunately/unfortunately. “Ask me another math’s question, Mummy!” That’s going to require a whole different set of strategies 🤦‍♀️

*maths, not math’s

My dd is 7 too. Homework is reading at least 4x a week. Spellings at least 4x a week. Times table app 3x. Spellings app 3x. One piece of maths homework a week and one longer project over a few weeks involving research.

I agree it's a lot. We do 5 min reading, 10 min on the apps, 5 min on spellings (practicing 3 or 4 a night). And then 10 min on either maths or the research project. So 30 min a night and we do it five nights a week. Weekends he gets off. He also reads for fun/ at bed time but that's a choice.

Look up Spello website, like Wordle but you add the spellings you need.

Sounds like a reasonable amount of homework (although I completely disagree with primary homework) with the exception of the project - what time frame do you have for these? I hear of others who have a whole ton of homework for this age - children who have joined are class are shocked we have so little.

My eldest is in Yr 3 and has the same, she reads to herself every night - I often read the same book so we can chat about it etc.

Its been long known that if they stop homework, they get more complaints from parents for no homework than setting too much!

My DS (8) gets a similar amount of homework, but i'm afraid i've stopped worrying about it (well almost!). He is just not able to cope with that amount of work outside of school. He works hard in school (according to his teacher), and enjoys a couple of after-school sports clubs. I do try to get him to read regularly (an uphill battle!), and in recent weeks I've been encouraging the times tables practice more (which he prefers as its on the computer). I do feel he should be able to spend most of his free time out of school doing things which aren't sitting at a desk reading/writing or on a computer doing maths/English, including playing with his brother. I fear next year he will have to knuckle down more (stricter teacher, Year 5), but I still feel I don't want to (and won't) spend every evening battling to do homework.

I think the current trend of forced reading every night does put children off reading. If they are good readers then they should be allowed to read when they want to, enjoying it.

The whole system is just so prescriptive and demoralising. My two youngest dcs are set a lot of homework. We get through what we can but sometimes I wonder why they just don't do this stuff in the six hours school day.

I’ve got a y2 child and find it hard to fit it in even though she doesn’t find the homework particularly hard. We generally have one homework plus 10 spellings which we do at the weekend and that takes max 20-30 minutes. The spellings seem largely pointless as she gets them right on the day and then 6 weeks later has forgotten the tricky ones. reading is sketchy. I tend to do mental maths in the car or on a walk rather than sitting down to do tables with the various apps we’ve been given. It feels less like hard work.

We do a mixture of her reading to us and her reading to herself. In reception and y1 we did have her read to us every night. We also have to try and fit in piano practice and have been prioritising that. I’m in awe of people who manage more than one instrument as well. We would struggle.