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!

1. nothing is regardless of circumstances. We all have circumstances that impact our lifestyles. I work until 5pm. So I pick up my kids from primary then they watch TV while I finish work. Then when I've finished, I make dinner, clean up and start bedtime. We read a book each at bedtime and that's that.

2. if I didn't work and was available from 3pm like you, I'd still prefer not to have set homework until yr4 minimum. My child has just had 6 hours of learning in an intense environment. They want to get home and chill.

If you work, do you fancy doing something training for half an hour after you finish work? Just to push that little longer? Or are you ready to collapse and relax?

Mental health and anxiety in young children is rife. Kids need down time.

I’m an Early years teacher.

Whilst little, they do so much during the day.

Let them play, go in the garden, out in nature or for walks or just relax

Let them be kids.

Dc4 is in reception, he is set homework by school, tricky word spellings, phonics/colouring & reading. Will also include some maths after Easter, he’s 4. It’s ridiculous. Dc1 had the same and he is so far behind now, COVID, dyslexia, constant pushback, tears & rows it was pointless and his homework now is about stuff he doesn’t get as he’s behind. DD’s did the same, still do they loved it, very academic made no difference. It’s not that homework is seen as bad by many, but it’s dependent on your child, circumstances and for many makes little difference.

Doing academic work at home is not a bad thing, but my feelings on the subject are that my DS is at school for a big proportion of his day. That's their time with him to teach him etc. I do slightly resent them then cutting in to my time with him by setting him homework. I don't give him tasks and request that the teachers make sure he doesn't them at school so why is it acceptable the other way around? My son loves maths and we often do maths exercises and puzzles at home just for fun. But we do what we want to when we want to in our own way. I can, to an extent, see both sides, but I am not overly a fan of homework. It's not a thing one gets in most workplaces. Can school not teach the children what they want in the hours available to them?

Because it's unnecessary. Little children spend plenty of time at school. They should spend the rest of the time playing, relaxing and doing other, non-schoolwork things.

I'm a secondary teacher. I think there is also too much homework in early secondary. The default homework shpuld be to go over what you did in class that day, perhaps followed up with a quiz next lesson.

Its just not needed in primary school especially in the first key stage- apart from some reading and spellings. Also the way schools teach changes all the time - the way they do maths is completely different to how I do maths!

Mine at that age were in ASC 2-3 times a week - we went to the park, my daughter loved cooking so she helped with that, my son liked football etc.. and they were read too every night.

There really is enough time in yr 6 and secondary when they do get homework!

My DC goes to ASC 4 days a week as well as clubs. They are tired when they get home at 530 and categorically do not want to do homework, in fact have screaming meltdowns when I've tried. We do reading for pleasure (not school books), crafts, baking, science experiments on the weekend so they still learn but in a fun way, I'm not forcing them to do work that they find repetitive and dull just to appease school.

When they get into yr 6, I will encourage it more to ready themselves for high school but other than that no, I want our home to be a sanctuary and I'm not enforcing homework.

We don’t do the homework. School has my kid for 6 hours a day already. During my time with him I make sure he gets a good chunk of outdoor free play to regulate, a bit of tv time to relax, some game playing with me to bond and I also feed, bath and get him to bed at a decent time.

Various reasons.

A lot or primary homework requires parental input and this can be really hard on some families. I’m a single parent. My kids in primary were dropped at school at 7:30am so I could go to work (as a teacher in another school) and collected between 5-5:30 depending on traffic. Getting home and putting the tea on at 6pm and then eating and clearing away. Then suddenly it’s bath time. That’s if they haven’t had other activities (brownies was 6:30-8 for example), swimming was 6/6:30 one night and had to sit through both sessions as different ages. Decided this was important as I can’t swim myself so a skill they needed to learn.

As my youngest daughter got to y6 her homework was so basic she did it in the car on the way home or sometimes at wrap around. So basic that it was actually pointless. It was homework for homework’s sake.

One of my kids is autistic and keeps home and school separate and any kind of homework (which is school work really) was a trigger for her. Now she’s secondary she actually stays at school to complete homework.

Also as a single parent my kids went between houses and also didn’t always have the guarantee that their dad would actually get the homework done at his. This could be a particular issue on a weekend.

As a teacher I’ve noticed that not all parents are able to understand their child’s homework in order to help them with it. Even some of the more basic homework. Depends on parent’s level of schooling themselves or if things have changed since they went to school.

Lucky you op. When children attend after school childcare, getting home, tea and bed is enough of a struggle. Everyone is too tired for homework. Times the stress by however many children you have. Add on the fact that some of us need to work from home after the children are in bed and you have your answer.

I have a child in reception. He sometimes gets random worksheets sent home that he can choose to do or not.

We're supposed to read his reading book every night but that's extremely hard work, we manage once or twice a week. I would not welcome mandatory homework, he's just too tired out a lot of the time.

When he's charged up about learning, he finds pen and paper, drawing board, book etc and practices what he's learned. When he wants to play, he does that instead. I facilitate him learning by challenging him to read words, draw stuff etc where appropriate.

I think kids just need downtime to process everything most of the time.

I’m not in uk

Can you just say you’re not doing homework, what does the school/teacher say?

This. Homework doesn’t help their learning at that age, and can hinder it.
There is a reason why Finland banned it and yet their homework-less children outperform U.K. children.

It’s six not seven, and Sweden and Norway don’t do particularly well in international assessments.

Finland (Nordic not Scandi) does reasonably well, but their writing system is so easy to learn that you can master it to fluency in a matter of weeks. It’s easier for them to get away with a slower start to academics.

No, they don’t. English kids (I’m excluding Scotland and Wales) did better in the recent international assessments than Finland. You need to check your data.

I have. They are still tops unless you are going by the study with the methodology of only looking at adult literacy rates instead of the studies that assess the performance of school children at different ages in all the major subjects?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country

Primary homework requires significant parental involvement, and for some parents...when you've worked a fulltime work day, and return home to cook dinner, bathe kids and just generally engage with your kids before bedtime (which for primary age is a relatively early bedtime) it can be frustrating for school to be placing demands on parents limited time outside of school hours. Kids have also spent all day at school doing work and then come home to more🤦🏽‍♀️. But I can appreciate that some children thrive with the out of school learning time, and for secondary school students homework is a must.
My daughter (primary age) actually likes homework though, so we just get on with it

Until recently, I had a 45 min trip to school. So each school run was 1 1/2 for me, but 45 mins is a long time in a car for a wee one. We also did and still do a lot of after school activities. So with limited time, choices need to be made and I will always want to pick swimming/horseriding/ gymnastics/karate/ rugby over homework for someone that wee.

Well, it is clearly shite. Many countries are not even having children in formal education at that age. Yet they manage to produce people who can do homework!

Homework reinforces privilage.

It tends to be busy-work as it's not an appropriate setting to stretch learning.
It favours NT, healthy children with mental and physical energy to fit it in.
It favours families with educated parents, resources and suitable space.
It favours children who made good progress in class.
It favours emotionally mature, self-motivated children.

DS1 refused to do homework through the rest of junior school from lockdown, y4-y6. He has multiple learning differences and takes 2 hours to unwind after school before he's fit to process anything. He worked out that it was better to not do the homework and stay in at break in the warm, and it cost him less time than it would take to fill in the tedious SATs prep worksheets each week.
On starting y7, he had more maturity to cope with it, and benefited from tasks being organised and set on an app and usually being online. Not doing it in junior school has had no lasting consequence.

Well done for doing what you are doing!

I never understood it either but sadly I wasn't so good at making them do the homework.

Helicopter mum.
They might learn parrot - fashion. But its not natural , its pressurised. So young.

OP, come back in a few years when you’ve got 2 kids at primary school, one has spellings to learn that you struggle with yourself, and the other has to make a model of the Amazon Rainforest. And it happens to be the weekend that one has a football tournament all day Saturday and your in laws are coming for lunch on Sunday , and you’re recovering from a nasty virus etc etc.

I don't see it as necessary, there is too much pressure on children with regards to learning. I didn't have it as a child, just spellings. I got good GCSEs, A-Levels, a degree etc. If you look at other countries in Europe, children start school at a later age and there is more play based learning.

As a lone parent to a young child with a full time stressful job, I absolutely hate homework.
My child is out to breakfast club from 8 am and but the time I pick them up from afterschool, it's 5.45, then 45 mins to get home.
I often have to work weekends so the limited I have is spent doing fun things.
Homework is another chore that I have to remember to do and it completely pointless