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!

3 nights a week my kids get home just after 5, because I can’t pick them up from the childminder until that time. We get home, make dinner, eat dinner then they have an hour before I start getting the youngest ready for bed. Can you imagine telling a 7 year old child they need to do homework in that hour? I’d rather they play and relax. We try and do some of his spelling and timetables whilst I cook dinner and a bit of reading before bed but quite frankly by the time he gets home he’s tired! One of the other nights he does a dance class at 4.30 so we get home, have a snack, change and head to dance, get home for dinner, bath etc.

At age 6 they are doing a full day of lessons in the UK

I teach secondary, we need the homework time as the curriculum has become so jammed but the kids also have a later bedtime which allows for an hour of homework (year 7 and 8) increasing to an hours and a half by the time they are in GCSE.

If we had daily homework from my child's reception it would feel hard. Due to work he's not home until late and is pretty much bath and bed. On the weekend we do the homework the school has set, maybe half hour on one of the days. We do numbers letters, writing practice also on the weekend - and occasionally have a full weekend and ignore it all and do the extra homework the next weekend

Doesn't bother me...

As many have said already, homework for primary school children is unnecessary and proven to be of no benefit.

DD was in wrap around school care from 7.30am to 6pm every day. I was a single mum working full time with zero support so there was no time or energy in the evenings for homework. I got fed up of the pressure to do craft projects at weekends - which were the only time we could relax and enjoy each other's company.

I remember spending a whole Sunday cajoling my 5 year old to make an Easter bonnet. What a waste of a day. Neither of us enjoyed it. I decided there and then to stop.

We did read together every night, which we both enjoyed and maths was included in everyday life. That's enough at primary school.

As an aside... There was a girl in my DDs class who had doting parents and grandparents on both sides, who lived locally. So basically, she had 6 very hands on adults raising her. All very nice for her. Her homework projects were incredible, but were clearly done by one or more of the adults, so what was the point/benefit of that homework?

The only homework that is has any evidence as to it's value is reading.

Furthermore the things that are within parents control that are shown to improve children's well-being are mealtimes together, a predictable bed time routine and reading to your child. Imo homework often impeded on the first two.

Children also need play - again a lot of evidence to back this up and homework can impede on that too.

As a teacher I loathe the time spent setting and marking something which has no value. Then I get in from work and have a limited amount of time with my kids which again I have to spend doing something which again I don't believe to have a purpose. Many many people in primary Ed have been pushing for change but for whatever reason people are reluctant to change in this area.

It increases the attainment gap. At primary level it requires input from a parent. Those that think it doesn't have their nice clean home with a good supply of stationary and a table in mind.

Many, many children don't have that. By secondary it's a bit easier to take control, go into school early etc. At primary if you've no one to help you then you fall even further behind.

DS is same age and has ASD and ADHD, I’ve told school I will do as much as I can get him to do and they said don’t worry. By the time we get home from the childminder three nights a week it’s just after 5. He does gymnastics and dance two nights a week. He has a TA and he reads to her every day so they said anything we can do at home is extra. His reading age is above his chronological age. To be honest I’d rather he wasn’t switched off to learning and has the evening to regulate so he goes to school in the right mood the next day.

I have yet to see a study that demonstrates that homework adds value. I don’t believe it does. As with an earlier poster it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know when I was a teacher and I now have a SEND child who is exhausted from school and needs time doing activities that relax him and educate him in different ways

Simple answer from me
it's only easy like you experienced because you don't do wraparound care
you also have a very short walk to school
for kids of working parents they're collected at 5 and are much more tired by then
i also assume you do no organized activities (rainbows, swim, gym etc) as most of those are at 3.30-4 till about 5 ish so no time for homework before and way too tired after
there is a reason the school day isn't longer because most kids can't focus that long
it also depends on your child's ability to be taught by you the parent some resist and it's another battle ground that's in my opinion unnecessary until at least juniors!

3 nights a week DD has ASC til 5. Journey home is 10 mins in the car plus any amount of time drooling around desperate for a parking space; longer if it’s a day I need to collect her sibling too or there’s some chore or other to fit in like petrol or groceries. They feed them snacks in ASC but not dinner, so once home she needs to be fed and play and reconnect; she’s also exhausted and needs to be in the bath by 7. We do reading with her but nothing else as even that’s a battle.

1 day a week she finishes at 3 but I’ve got her toddler sibling in tow so can’t sit and focus on anything with her so we go to the playground: fresh air and play is as valuable as homework.

1 day a week she finishes at 3 but we keep her sibling in nursery. This is so she can have 1-2-1 time with me which helps regulate her behaviour and emotional state. It’s also great for her to have free play where she isn’t scheduled, isn’t in a club, isn’t doing homework: she’s just pottering around the house doing her own thing.

She’s four; she’s been exhausted and ratty since starting reception, and constantly ill. She’s also ahead in phonics, reading and writing, on track for maths, her teachers at parents’ evening say she’s well prepared for Y1 in terms of behaviour. So what benefit would homework bring vs free play and family time?

The only kids I know who are doing homework every day and do all the half term projects etc have a SAHM or grandparents to do pickup, and finish at 3 every day. Anyone juggling work too, or siblings at a needy stage, is just trying to get through each day.

Im a SAHP but still don't enforce homework. Eldest is autistic and needs a lot of downtime after school.
Youngest is in reception, and it's up to her if she wants to do any she's given. She is extremely bright but also gets tired. Kids have one childhood. They also learn in a multitude of ways and play IS learning for children.
We bake, do puzzles, read, go to the park, colour, lots of role play, Lego, play dough & kinetic sand, listen to music or audio books, build dens, marble runs, board games (monopoly, the toy, Jenga) etc. all ample opportunities for kids to play and learn. Learning isn't all about work sheets.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn Aha, yes: DD’s school corridor is decorated with the kids’ homework projects and 90% of them are done by adults. With weird bragging in the class WhatsApp over their crafting skills. Good luck to them handing over the homework duties to their kids who are used to having it done for them!

I’m a secondary school teacher for context- English, History and Classics. Have 3 DS: 17, 9 and 4. My view is that the best possible thing for kids to be doing in the early years is phonics/reading every night and encouraging reading for pleasure. Literacy is the gateway to accessing every other aspect of their education, including maths (a lot of worded problem solving and written instructions at primary level.)

Towards the end of primary, some light homework is good preparation for secondary school. Most, if not all subjects benefit from practising the skills/terminology and revising the content beyond what is possible in the teaching day and it’s building working habits for GCSE/A Level study.

BUT there needs to be balance and the quality/advantage of work set obviously makes a huge difference in terms of value.

our own household timings are tight: up at 6, school 8-4 (later on match days when no homework is set, thankfully), bed at 7. The school is 45 min drive each way for us- decision based on 9yo’s SEN. We tend to do reading in the car and homework as soon as we get in, to get it out of the way and relax during the short evening together. I will often get marking and planning done at the same time and then return to my work once the kids are asleep. My eldest is working now, so he has his own long day (9-6) routine, including homework for his qualification.

We do not find it easy. Managing all the school stuff (both as teachers and parents) is HARD. I have a huge amount of sympathy for both sides of the coin, as we have to set, oversee our kids’ and mark the homework!

I have nothing against homework in principle (luckily my children’s primary don’t set any other than spellings, and they are academically able so don’t ‘need’ to do anything extra as such) but I do have a lot against these apps that many primary schools seem to favour. Times tables rockstars, ed shed etc. we are anti screens and so there is no way my children aged 4-11 are going to be coming home and spending time on a screen doing times tables when they would far rather be outside playing in the garden or going for a walk or going to sports training. They both read for pleasure and read a book for 1/2 hour at bedtime happily. So it’s the method of delivery of homework that I am against not the idea of it. Also, as my children both do a lot of sports outside school they would struggle to fit in lots of homework, as I don’t want them using their downtime (which is equally important) for homework, when they could be outside doing what kids should spend the majority of their non-school time doing, which is playing.

I think other than reading it's useless and for dc who are already hating school it's a struggle.

I particularly hated it when it was something that was clearly given because they had to give some homework that week.
As for ds, who hated drawing with a passion, giving them "fun" homework like draw a book cover at the end of term was worse.
They liked to try and be "creative" with homework, which made it take twice as long and half as useless. I remember the junior week where they asked for the spelling words to be written out in dots. Took forever and they then had to learn the spellings afterwards because writing them in dots doesn't help the memory.
Or where they asked to "write about the number 2". The glory of maths is that it isn't open-ended, and it was amazing how often they found things that had a tenuous link to maths that were.
For ds I used to just give him a worksheet of maths with a tenuous link to the subject and send him in with that. They never complained.

Then we had peer marked homework. They were given stickers and told they could give them out to "good" work.
So the child who was popular but scribbled two words on their homework got a page full of stickers and comments of "brilliant" "good work" etc. And the unpopular child who had worked hard to produce four pages of beautifully illustrated work got one comment "untidy". (real example, not my dc).

I'd go for reading 2-3 times a week, and possibly spellings in juniors. I'm not sure how useful the spellings are though.

Not everyone is home by 3.05pm with their compliant child.

From reading a lot of the responses the word "homework" seems to have negative connotations as in people's experience it involves pointless worksheets, and building Viking longboats. I suppose in my head (due to the fact that she has only just started school) that is not what I was thinking about when I meant homework. I entirely agree that sounds totally pointless and a waste of time!

Most people seem to agree that reading (if the child is not too shattered etc) is important if possible and that's mainly what we do plus 5-10 mins of extra tasks after that, always related to what they have learnt at school that week.

So actually what we are doing seems sensible to me as long as she is happy to do it.

I am a retired primary teacher. I worked FT whilst bringing up 2 boys as a single parent. Thankfully my children attended the school I taught at for quite a few years so they just came to my classroom at the end of the day. We had one memorable Easter holiday when my eldest son ,then year 3, had 2 weeks worth of activities, worksheets and general crap to do every day. We did all of it. It caused tension throughout the holiday. I should have just told her that we had done other things but I felt frequently judged as a single parent so we ploughed on.After a week of being back at school he hadn't had his book bag returned with a new book. We went to ask for it. The book bags were in a huge pile in the corner ,all completely full of all the sheets of homework. She was young, keen and child free and had no idea what homework can look like from the home side and no hope of going through all that work 31times once term had started. Hes 31 this year and I still remember that Easter. I had one son who was very compliant and one who would do anything to avoid just doing the damn things. Reading is important, verbal maths is important, playing is important, making things is important, playing with friends is important. Worksheets just for the sake of worksheets should be put on the fire.

During covid lockdowns is when the homework problem was highlighted I think.

Some children might have a uni-educated SAHP, their own laptop and their own bedroom with a desk, but many children are attempting to do their homework in a full house at the kitchen counter with parents who can't help them and endless noise and chaos that a small family home can be.

It perpetuates an inequal society I think.

Also, the school day is really long for children! Surely they can fit enough education into 25 hours a week for 13 years?

I think what you are doing is what many parents do incidentally across the course of a week without it being homework. Like counting the dogs on a walk, like someone said, dividing an orange. Reading every night when they have their story and they read a bit to you first. Writing and pen control when they are colouring at the weekend or writing a little story in their notebook. But sitting down formally to
do it, and what’s more being told we HAVE to sit down formally to do it, is too much for parents and children at age 4 in my
opinion.
My dc are at an independent school and have an hour a night from year 5, it’s insane.

@milveycrohn

I couldn't agree more. I acted according to what the school told me was essential and her levels of what DD could take.

Some people would have done a lot more, others, less.

I don't think there is any point in causing major stress at such a young age.

I despise homework! Unable to do it in the week due to working long hours then most of Sunday trying to do it, a massive battle, stressful and pointless in my opinion.

Mine was set a small amount of homework every day in Primary but as he’s naturally academic, it wasn’t a problem. I think plenty of other parents chose not to bother with all/some of the homework and that was ok too.

My bugbear is the amount of homework set in secondary school. His lessons are 50mins long so he has many subjects 3 times a week and homework is set for every subject.

Not only that, but they’re expected to complete it before the next occurrence of that subject, which could be the next day. Last night he was up until after 11pm doing homework and that’s not unusual.

It’s far too much pressure at this age.

Not going to uni does not mean you aren’t intelligent, it might just mean you didn’t want to go to uni!

I don’t see homework as a bad thing, both my boys had homework from reception (really basic write letter or number of day in book 5 times) through to Y6 where we had about 30 mins an evening. I work from home own business so have flexibility to manage/supervise which makes it easier. It has been a huge benefit to them both transitioning to secondary school as they had no problems with getting homework whereas many others struggled as they had not done it before. My Y7 son averages 45 mins per night and Y9 probably an hour to hour and a half. They have never loved doing it but it wasn’t a huge change when they moved to secondary school.

A few things at play here. Parents spend the first 4 years of a child's life being told to le kids be 'free' to play and explore and create etc. They start school and are given 6 hours a day of structure and that seems like enough. Time to get back to being free. Add to that the typical long hours many parents work and the depressingly small window of daily time they get with their kids and I can understand why more schoolwork may not be welcomed.

That said, the evidence linking daily reading to exam success down the line is overwhelming. Missing the reading boat is so easily done - it really does need to be prioritised from when they're very small and that is easier for some than others to pull off, mostly for reasons stated above.

The transition from primary to secondary is already massive in terms of expectations on the child - it would be so much harder if that was the point of homework starting, too.

There does seem to be a huge difference in homework amounts in different schools, too. Then there are kids who are eager and kids who are resistant or struggling at school.

As always, one size doesn't fit all. Not all families and not all kids.