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!

Though I'd also add, that school days are much shorter here so for instance 1st graders do about 4 hours a day increasing to max 6 hours in 6th grade, so they have many many hours to do homework. If they are at afterschool club they can do homework there as well.

I don’t see the need and my two were simply too tired after a day at school. Both have additional support needs and find mixing home and school very tricky and homework blurred the lines too much.

They have both benefitted from specialist tutoring - which meets their learning style and embeds things in their long term memory - and they have some activity based homework for that but school homework was either too abstract or too rote based for them to engage with.

We do reading (read a cake recipe), counting (how many pieces of pizza each, problem solving (how will we find the way to x shop) but we’ve agreed with school that they won’t do class assigned homework.

I think its good practice for older primary age kids (year 5 and 6) to do a bit of homework just to get them ready for high-school where they will need to homework.

And I'm generally happy with that, as long as they get at least a weekend to do it. Our schedule was like I described above, or worse (two of mine were choristers from age 7 so were at the cathedral 4 days a week, plus they also did sports and played instruments which needed practice) so it was the daily homework I had a problem with - with 3 primary DCs there was simply no time of an evening without them missing activities they loved. And one of us was always taking at least one child to something or other in the evening. The most annoying homework was definitely all the 'busy work' (make a poster, do a worksheet that was both time consuming but too easy) as these were useless and took away valuable relaxation time. Luckily all 3 were avid readers, so relaxing before bed with a book was a normal daily occurance. But more valuable homework that could be done over a weekend - that's fine.

The research is clear that it makes no difference to achievement at primary level.

What it can do is create conflict at home, and take children away from activities they would like, such as playing with siblings, friends, spending enjoyable time with parents or just relaxing.

If your daughter enjoys it and sees it as a nice thing she does with her Mum, that's great.

But in situations where is causes conflict or displaces more beneficial activities, not so great.

It sounds great ATM .However as the years go by it becomes more time consuming,many parents who work or have multiple DC struggle . There are many who resent it

Personally I don't like it in ks1, because a lot my dcs school sets seems to be testing how much the parents input, rather than actually helping the child learn or cementing knowledge already learned. Years 5 and 6, getting ready for SATS and high school, they actually seem to have proper homework that complements the school learning so I am very much on board with that.

They're not really doing it by themselves though are they? Can't imagine many will get their homework out and sit and do it of their own accord every day. Parents will still have to remind them and facilitate the time and place to sit and do the homework. Not so hard with 1 compliant kid, gets trickier with 3 who'd rather be doing absolutely anything else. There's a real risk of it causing friction and turning education into a chore - they've got their whole lives to be worn down.

I had to remind DD to do her homework to begin with but that's pretty much the only input needed from me. Not doing the homework would get her consequences in school (having to go to homework club after school or during break, or extra lessons before school if not doing homework because they find it too difficult) so whether or not the parents are able or willing to help, the children will end up having to find a way.

See I would actively remove my child from a primary school with those kind of consequences (certainly pre yr5). That's an insane amount of pressure on small children, for little to no benefit.

I've seen the benefit for my DD at least. And I disagree that its an insane amount of pressure, they don't have large amounts of homework (up until about 4th grade it would take DD 10-20 minutes max each day), they have much shorter days with lots of breaks so they're not doing this from an exhausted started point, and there is so much support for any child struggling, whether its homework club, the extra lessons, or sessions with the special ed teacher (my DD needed this for learning to tell the time for instance), that they most likely are doing less work per day than a British primary school child, with less stress.

I can see how it worked for you @Natsku as you seem to have one compliant, capable child. But i disagree about it being no pressure. As @Ahugga said, it's a totally different matter if you have 3 DC who can't/won't do it unless you are sitting with them, and even then might refuse or become distressed over it. Or one family PC so they have to take it in turns, so sometimes 1.5-2 hours of homework happening with one child or another. Not everyone is in the same situation. One of mine has (then undiagnosed) SEN and when it took over an hour to do a '5 minute' piece of homework, with lots of tears, we realised we had to put our foot down with school. It was absolutely causing friction and distress and it simply wasn't worth it. Even our 'compliant' older DCs objected when they could see that the homework set was utterly pointless and they were shattered and needed sleep. Luckily the elder 2 didn't have to put up with this homework regime too long and we pulled DC3 out of school because it was causing so many issues (not just this - the whole school environment was problematic). Her next primary had a far more nurturing approach and far less homework, which was so much better. And the problematic school was a standard village primary, not a sought after one.

They don't get given homework that needs a computer to do, its all in their textbooks and workbooks, so no issues with everyone trying to use the same device. A child that's struggling so much would be getting extra help in school not left to struggle at home so that would be different too, and I'm sure if homework was causing big issues at home then most teachers would agree some kind of compromise with parents, so long as the child doesn't fall behind - if they fall behind too far they might have to resit the school year, so they can have a proper chance to catch up rather than being rushed past concepts they haven't grasped yet.

My DD is quite compliant though, perhaps I will find it more of an issue with DS, but its not something the parents of the children in DD's class complain about at least, and there is a high proportion of children with SEN in her class including some very uncompliant children.

Great post.

The evidence isn't there that it helps. And too often the more project type stuff is essentially a task for parents, especially if it involves making anything.

It should be a voluntary thing as in if children want they can take something to do at home and if parents want they can do it. It should not be required.

For me it's that I don't want my kids straight home from school to be sitting at another desk doing more of the same. They're at school for 6 hours a day. Such a big chunk of their day, much more beneficial things to be doing after school - and by that I mean even just sitting doing nothing! My kids school don't do homework til year 3.

Practising.

I think what you are talking about here is a good school that seems understanding of difficulties. You are lucky and I'm pleased you and DD are happy with it. My DCs were sadly at a school that was supposedly good, but in practice was awful. The kinds of checks, allowances or support you talk about simply didn't happen. Just an insistance on unrealistic or useless homework that caused problems for DC and for the family The homework regime at secondary was actually more flexible and far easier to manage than what was expected at that primary school. I wished we had pulled all the DC out much earlier than we did. But for us this was the only school in the village. I wouldn't like to guess how many schools are more like yours, and how many are more like mine. Our school claimed they would support sen, but didn't. And the homework was predominantly 'busy work' rather than actually useful - particularly for my DC who were ahead rather than behind. And no matter how good the school, there is still a massive difference between supporting 1 compliant child and multiple children who are struggling for whatever reason, especially when the school aren't supportive.

We don’t generally go straight home from school - the children usually all play in the park next to the school for at least half an hour after school. Then DS has sports clubs, music practice, second language practice etc to do between 5-6pm.

We read every night, and practice spellings on the way to school. I don’t want extra writing or math homework on top, thanks.

Because there is evidence that too much academic work at a young age (under 8) worsens long term academic outcomes.

@LameBorzoi that's really interesting thank you. Do you know the title of that research as I'd be really interested in learning more please?

It should be a voluntary thing as in if children want they can take something to do at home and if parents want they can do it. It should not be required
I agree with this.

I don't mind homework where it's read with your child, here's 10 spellings to learn and we're working on our 2 times tables so can you recap them at home.

Some of my friends have said their DC get a huge amount of homework often across multiple online apps or accounts, and it eats into their family time.

I can think of a lot of things we do as a family that are more valuable and more educational than building a junk model of a castle.

Because there is evidence that too much academic work at a young age (under 8) worsens long term academic outcomes

That's really interesting, could I have the link to the study. We do a little bit at home, but it would be interesting to see how much they deemed to negatively impact them long term.

So yes, we do a little bit at home, more so just to check in if everything is ok (year 2) so reading, comprehension workbook and a bit of maths.

I am sorry that your children went to such a bad school. The whole school system can be so different and so much better but sadly I don't see that kind of change coming for the UK, which is why I won't back, at least not while my children are school age because I couldn't put them through that system, and especially the risk of a bad school like you experienced. Much better support here, my son is in nursery and has been moved up to the intermediate support level really easily and he's not even in school yet and I don't think he has particularly challenging needs.
And the lack of busy work is nice, I only remember DD getting it once, her first piece of homework in preschool, and I think it was just to introduce the idea of homework (they had homework a handful of times in preschool)

DD7 KS1 has ten new spellings each week, 3 x 36+ page books, expected to
Log on to a school app 3 x a week to practice maths times tables and has one larger piece of homework set each week too. DD4 is in reception so just 3 x books but it's going to be very hard to juggle from next year when DD4 gets homework too.

DD7 also has ASD and really needs time to decompress after school it just feels too much.

@BarbaricPeach.. I thinks it's swings and roundabouts re homework.

Some dc need to over learn and repeat some things and something don't.

Yes of course dc won't learn if their parents are doing it for them but also young dc often need to learn "how" TO learn. A parent going through work and showing theme how to answer is also a powerful tool.

But the parent needs to know when to back off also.