Why is homework in primary seen as "bad"

[Iamwaiting]

Inspired by a few other threads. I'm not a teacher or in education so I'm genuinely interested in perspectives, plus those with older children who have been through/ going through primary.

Why is homework viewed so negatively?

Context... I have a DD in reception. She finishes school at 3. We come home (5 min walk) and do her homework (set by me.) 15/20 mins of reading, 5 mins of writing (tricky words / practicing writing words with "igh" sounds for instance / following wibbly lines for pen holding) and 5 mins of simple maths.

Finished by just after 3.30 leaving 4 hours to play / go to clubs / see her friends before bed. Same thing at the weekend but we do it in the morning.

But so many threads on here seem to imply homework is awful in primary, certainly reception. But I genuinely don't understand why. Surely it's just getting her used to a concept that will become increasingly important as she gets older?

For context she can ride a bike, swim well, climb a tree etc etc. Not boasting but just to show she is still enjoying lots of activities despite the "evil" homework!

Late to the party, but here’s my take: kids in this country start school at around four years old. They are there till 3pm-ish. That’s seven years of primary school, with around six hours a day.

I went to school in Germany. I started school when I was seven and primary was therefore only four years. Hours were the same just earlier (between 8am and 2pm) in the day.
We had homework most days.

I feel the trade off for starting school
younger is not having to do as much homework. I like that most if the time my lad can come home and just be. They are institutionalised at such an early age, I’m glad he can build Lego, play with the dogs or the neighbour’s kids after school. And what little homework he has, he does in no time because it’s not all day every day. When he was in reception, he was so tired after school he found reading every day a real chore. Nowadays he reads all the time.

There’ll be plenty time for homework when they’re in senior school.

All homework in primary should be things that kids can (at least theoretically) do by themselves and should be consolidation of classroom learning. A spelling or maths exercise that is practicing content learned at school is fine. “Making things,” costumes, models, anything involving printers can go to hell.

Reached point last night where I was thinking about changing to a school with no homework! One cracks on, the other it is hell. Same again this morning. At the end of a world book week where we've done posters and montages and shopped for all the shite that goes with the crafting and bought set clothes requested from school and decorated fucking spoons, I feel done. Explaining the topic they'd not done at school was the easy bit. The cajoling beforehand is shit. I might be feeling it more as I have so little semi-well time (long covid) and wasting it on pointless crap, or recovering from energy expended on pointless crap. On top of battling every sodding illness parents send their kids in with to come home to us.

I don't think people think it's bad. But I don't think it makes any difference in terms of developing academic ability. At that age, I'd rather let a child explore their own interest, eg building lego or drawing. Or just rest. They'll get to homework in their life eventually, and I prefer to "open as many doors as possible" rather than "forcing" them down a specific route too early. There are many ways to learn.

I say that as a person who likes learning, both in an academic and in a non-academic point of view. As do my DH and DCs

Wow, did that make you feel all superior?
Did you read the posts from time poor single parents who work full time stressful jobs?
Whose children are out from 7-7 everyday?

Please don't go over 'tricky' words with your DD. All words in English are decodable using phonics.

That makes no sense. Yes, all words are decodable using phonics. But some of them use trickier phonics than others and therefore are tricky. And require more going-over.

I’ve always taught my own kids to read with a synthetic phonics approach (we live outside the UK), but teaching kids how to spell words like “any” or “head” or “could” requires more practice than words like “bat” “top” or “sit” because the correspondences between the sounds and letters are harder to understand and memorize in the first set than in the second set.

I had children who would happily get on with homework, but I totally resented them having to do boring worksheets after a full school day. I wanted to have fun and do active learning with them instead of some bloody pointless cutting and sticking or colouring exercises. In the primary years there’s just no need.

It still depends on the kid. I have bright, literate kids who love learning, but the very idea of spending 10 minutes doing a shopping list with "igh"words in it leaves me cold. It would still mean a half hour of arguing per child, as they would still see it as tedious busy work.

When my eldest was in reception, I had his 2 younger siblings to look after too and he also has SEN so found the day exhausting I'd be dealing with a meltdown when he came home rather sitting down for extra learning.

For me it's a big battle. Ds is year 3 now and he's expected to answer 100 maths questions correctly every week, read every day and practice 10 spellings every week. Plus the homework the teacher sets weekly that's usually craft related which ds also hates, Throw into that my work, breakfast and asc club, sorting tea, washing, housework, clubs, food shop and it's just a battle I don't have in me. I work 7 days a week as a single parent though so I have no time to do the shopping cleaning etc other than after work and school. I get a tutor during the summer holidays and ds engages much better when it's not me. The odd time he will happily do it all but I focus on reading daily and spellings weekly, anything else is a bonus,

what I’m talking about is on top of reading, 5-10 mins of doing some fun tasks around what they have been taught that week. So for instance a shopping list with list of “igh” words in it.

What's a shopping list of "igh" words?

Night nurse
Light bulb

....

??

I don't know why you think 5-10 minutes of random activities like this is adding anything to your daughter's life after a whole day at school.

Genuinely, you'd be better playing some board games with her and reading bedtime stories every night. That's plenty.

Not all words are decodable in English
🤣🤦‍♀️
That's why they learn them as tricky words
I my was the he she go no etc etc
even most synthetic phonics schemes call them tricky words "because they don't follow the rules"
and even once the more advanced phonic rules are understood there are STILL English words that aren't decodable or are exceptions