to only want people on this thread who agree that school setting research topics for a 6 year old

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is lazy teaching

as a teacher you do not set homework for children that they cannot acheive without parents doing it for them - you set homework for them that they can acheive with parental support

it is two different things

and this time I am going to say something

Sorry I should add - he's nearly eight, but has certainly behavioral difficulties than make writing, studying, even LISTENING difficult.

If they can't get him to do it at school, I can't imagine what they expect from him at home.

he did NOTHING at home until this year because I was concentrating on getting him to use a fork.

But you see I wouldnt want my kids using wikipedia for research/studying

I may use it for day to day stuff but not for anything where i need the information to be accurate

And i'd be pissed off at the school encouraging that and google.

So he deserves a big treat today then?

No, I wouldn't sanction a child for not completing homework. It's the parent's fault if it's not done, not the child's.

(I meant coldtits' ds needs a big treat!)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Hall_of_Fame

You've started something now, mary

Wall E, er.....Metal Mickey

I think that research projects are for the teachers to do. What happens to the poor kids that have no internet, libraries, acccess to lovely felt tip pens etc. I can think of lots of poorer families stuck in the back of beyond who lose out.
Also it needs inspiration to make projects work. What if you don't have that sort of parenting? Why should kids fail because their parents are crap.Bright kids are capable of asking for extension work - I did. But I hated projects that envolved nice paper,glue and other bits that just weren't available to me.

'You' meaning the parent? I think this is a lot to ask of the parents. Many work evenings or nights. Some don't have a computer at home. Some have younger children or babies and homework must be accomplished despite the fact that dinner must be made, eaten and cleared away, children bathed and taken to bed. Some have older children and activities to fit in like music or dance or whatever.

Evenings are a busy, busy time in most households and a lot of parents have worked all day at their jobs. Then they find they have to sit at the computer if they have one and coach a child about Saturn? Some parents wouldn't know that Saturn is made of gas or that it's the second largest planet. Some would have the same difficulties separating correct from misleading information on Google that their 6 year old children would. You are assuming way too much when you say most parents would be a little familiar with space, castles, animals or minibeasts (?).

It takes an enormous amount of attention from the parent to supervise the writing up of facts by a n average 6 yo, and to ask the parent to type an assignment contributes exactly what to to the child's education? It's not about the finished product on the page. It's about what the child is learning through the assignments. That is why the assignments need to be carefully chosen or designed with clear and age and developmentally appropriate goals in mind.

DD9 is currently doing a research project on the river otter. She is able for this and the teacher has helpfully provided several pointers to sites where age appropriate information is available online. She is a perfectly intelligent child and could read from age 5, but could not have done this at age 6 and furthermore if we had managed to find out anything together on the river otter back then it would have been of very little value to her either from the pov of learning about the otter or learning the sort of skills that would enable her to do similar work independently for the next assignment. Nor could the extent of her own contribution to the assignment be accurately assessed by the teacher for grading purposes.

All this talk of R2D2 has given me an idea. Dh used to know the actor who played one of the characters in one of the newer Star wars films. He isn't really famous and due to the make-up no-one would recognise him but would he count?

stoats do you really think that what coldtits has described was useful? Really? Because it's this sort of thing that I think is utterly pointless. If the teacher wanted all the children to get their parents to find something out and have the child write it down then why on earth could the teacher not have provided the information and have the child write it down (or just read/hear it) at school? Why is this enriching or useful? We've done stuff like this and no my son wasn't "dead chuffed" he was actually very angry that he had to do school work at home.

Exact;y math. Most nights becasue of dd's activities and work we don't get in until 6pm. I cook tea, spend a little time doing reading and spellings then before you know it it is 7pm and time to get ready for bed and a quick chat to Daddy who always calls around then to say goodnight (he works away)

Saturdays I am at work all day. That just eaves Sundays when we have to do the shopping, spend a bit of family time, try to get housework, washing and ironing done. The dc do their homework then, but it has to be done on their own as dh and I have too much else to do.

My DCs are not allowed (by the school) to randomly google or cite wikipedia for homework.

I don't really see a need for primary homework at all, but if they are going to have homework then I don't really see a problem with this sort of thing

• my daughters get this occasionally and enjoy it. They were both reading fairly well at 6 and able to do this. At that age, they probably only got this sort of homework once a term or so. I remember my older daughter in yr 2 being asked to find facts about Brunel and getting very carried away.

However, in yr 2, the teachers at our school don't seem to mind too much if they don't do every piece of homework, so long as they have a go at some of them, which I think is sensible at this age. Some of them get a bit tired or have a busy weekend, and I don't think they should feel pressured into doing homework if they don't enjoy it, as they are still quite little.

Stoats - patronising much?? Do you think you could possibly manage to listen to the parents? You know, the people who are bringing these children up, living with them, loving them?

Nah - much easier to just keep repeating 'I am right, you are wrong'.

and as for 20 minutes every half term LMFAO

I have fallen in love
True love....

SarahItaly - please tell me you'll be teaching at 'A School Near Me' soon - please!! Actually, better still - is there anyway for you to teach teachers???

They aren't at ours, either - internet safety.

I read this thread, and I now think Penguin facts are FINE.
I suppose we are all talking at cross purposes really. Some of us are talking about projects not just a few penguins.
I wonder whether children really learn more from stories anyway...not just looking up facts.
There's a penguin story called Solo, I can imagine any child wanting to find out more after hearing that in class.

I think the best "research" can be where children have a choice whether to talk, write or even just make something about what they've learnt, rather than it being so prescriptively about writing things out. As Stoats said, it is about discussing things. I think we get so frightened and the child gets so frightened about handing something on paper in, that we forget that there can be other ways to re-inforce knowledge.

I remember after the kimono project (I think we were one of the 9 angry ladies but 4 years on..Sarah) saying to the teacher that ds1 had absolutely no interest in making a kimono, sewing or painting it, or writing about it LOL and I had to make the blasted kimono entirely myself. And write a project on it. I then said, of course if you had asked him to make a Samurai sword that migth have interested him. Oh, she said, what a good idea, you should have done that instead!!!!AARRGH. Why not think of that a bit earlier???

thats been said several times, math, stoats says we are uninterested in the kids education if we can't or won't do it.

I'm just going to make my point - one more time.

I am talking about 20 minutes 'research' homework approx each half term.
It entails an adult (or older sibling ) sitting down with a child to find a few facts out about a child-orientated subject. They can use a computer or a book.
The child or the adult may read the info but they need to talk about it. The adult may even know something that could be one of the facts written down.
The child takes a copy of the facts into school and shares with the class.
The class all talk about what they have found out and collect all their facts together.
Children and teacher learn more about their topic and feel enthusiastic about learning more and doing lots of work on said subject.

I am not being smug here. I really don't get the problem of spending 20 minutes every two months working with your child on a topic they're learning about at school.

You are the parents, and it is your perogative to disagree with me. However, I do believe that collaborative learning is the way forward, and without it, our knowledge base is restricted.

But that's just my opinion and I'm bowing out.

I don't think it is lazy teaching to set research homework - I object to boring worksheet type homework, but think that researchhomeworks can really enhance what is learnt in the classroom. Also, we mustn't assume that all research homework must be literacy based either!

Last year, my daughter (then in year 1, so 5/6) was set the task ofresearching how people had had holidays in the past. Cue a lovely phonecall to Granny chatting about her old holidays and DD took in a couple of old photos etc. She got a house point for this and it was a great to ignite her interest in something that could not be done in the classroom.

Other research homeworks we have done have involved me simply spending 5 mins getting some pictures off the Internet and then spending time talking about them with my DD. Taking the penguins homework for example, a simple photo and discussion can lead the child to see that penguins live in cold climates, they have wings not arms and eat fish or whatever. Why would a child needto be able to read to be able to do this?

Personally, I think one of the major problems we have with our education system in the uk, is that too often we want to box it in, it becomes functional, something we must do, where has that love of learning and inquisition about the wider world gone? Children need to see that learning is not an activity that can be achieved solely in the classroom. If they want to really learn about life, then there is so much to discover and explore in the outside world. Any homework which encourages a child's natural curiousity I'm in favour of. Completing boring worksheets that 6 year oldscan do alone I think are wrong and I object to them.

How about finding out a few facts about the number of possible productive hours in a day in the average home?

The sheer busyness of the average evening is not even the main point though -- how can a teacher possibly assess what a child is learning through this kind of exercise, that requires so much parental input, at age 6, and what exactly is the teacher trying to assess?

Why does all homework have to be assessed? Why the need forthe tick box? Shouldn't the homework be about the child, and so long as the child benefits, the assessment is irrelevant? Education has lost sight of what it shouldbe about in my book!

"I'm the ICT teacher Sarah. I don't know what kind of school you're used to!
I have 30, mixed ability, 6/7 year olds in a computer room at one time, with no help. I have a feeling you've never experienced that.
They're not really ready to follow things through on google unaided."

I'm used to probably a far lower quality of equipment than yourself.

And yes I have experienced EXACTLY what you are talking about with the same kind of cold sweat that goes with it. And mine are doing it in a foreign language that most of them don't speak.

With extra added internet failure just when I need it least, just to add spice ( =

And eliciting the reaction you had, was my aim. Admitting that equipment, manpower and skills are an issue that can turn a project conceived as "Just find\do etc" into "OMG do you realize what you are asking of me ?"

One of my income strands is training teachers to incorporate ITC into the curriculum. The teachers I train are very quick to point out the very real issues that poses for them. Yet often unable to recognize the transferable nature of those issues as they brainstorm ideas that incorporate ITC into the curriculum, but swiftly pass the element that they find burdensome onto the parents. Usually in the form of of research projects and production stages to be done at home.

What I try to get across to them is that managing these activities in the home environment produces the same or similar issues. It doesn't magically become any less troublesome or "cold sweaty" for the parents at home, than the classroom situation is for the teachers. It just feels nicer cos it isn't us going hot and cold and one can always sneer at a "parental lack of commitment to their child's education" to shut their complaints down.

Bottom line, if the idea of doing the ITC element planned yourself brings you out in a cold sweat the likelihood is that a proportion of the parents are going to feel exactly the same way when you shove the issues onto them.

Equipment issues, the needs of multiple children, skills gaps (including their own), time constraints due to other activities looming...all on top of what has probably been a very long day and a long list of things (that have nothing to do with school) yet to do before they can sink down and enjoy their children's company for the few hours a day in which they are awake and not busy.

That is not "making excuses" that is every bit as real, every bit as infuriating, every bit as unreasonable as me saying it is COMPULSORY for you to run around like blue arsed fly in the computer room with no realistic thought given as to how you are supposed to cope with equipment, skill gaps and (not enough) manpower issues.

The answer is, until equipment and manpwer issues in schools are resolved (which will be never), thus freeing us to be as immaginative and techy focused as we'd like, is to ensure that we have looked carefully enough at the "burden" and if it is too much for US, it's time to go back to the plan and work out how it can be better shaped to fit the kids' current skills, the equipment available and the manpower on offer. And then we do at school and resist the urge to fob it off onto the parents. Unless its an optional extra. Cos I'm not wasting all my fabbier plans that won't work at school if there is a kid or parent out there who wants a bash.

Oh math, I have to jump back in.

Why is this h/w to be assessed? It is being used to foster inquiry and a thirst for general knowledge.

As a teacher, I wouldn't look at it (except to admire and maybe translate). The child would use it within a lesson, which would have a clear learning objective (e.g. to learn how to sort information; then perhaps the next day to learn how to write non-fiction using headings..) Most, if not all, h/w sheets would go on our topic wall.

The reason I hate worksheet homework is that half the time you're expected to mark a parent's answer, as many parents don't like the teacher to see their child making mistakes. That type of homework is a total waste of time, and I would never consider using h/w as an assessment!

Thank you oldjolyon. I'm glad someone agrees!