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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that a lot of primary school homework is a waste of time

32 replies

Dancergirl · 14/02/2011 12:11

Title says it all really. Lots of primary homework requires a huge amount of parental input, often stresses me out and is of little educational value.

I would rather spend the time with my children after school chatting to them, playing or just chilling out rather than sticking pointless tesellating shapes on paper. Or helping dd to research the 1980s for a project.

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 14/02/2011 12:14

YABU it shouldn't require any parental input... the child should be able to do it themselves. If they can't manage it then return the homework, as completed as they are able, to school and do not stress. Teachers would much rather know what the child is capable of than what the parent is capable of.

Dancergirl · 14/02/2011 12:21

Ahh, yes all v well in theory but the dd's headteacher's philosophy is that homework is a chance for parent and child to sit down together and for the parent to help!

Bit difficult when you have a wayward 3 year old at your heels.....

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 14/02/2011 12:26

Help & encourage, yes, but not do the thing with/for them to the point of being stressed. :) However much she has completed after 15-20 minutes, leave it at that and go back to the the 3 year-old. The main point of homework at that age is not really academic progress but for the child to get into a routine where they set aside a short amount of time after school to do 'something'.

ClenchedBottom · 14/02/2011 12:28

Ah, this makes me smile.
Whilst there can be some benefits in setting homework, I think research suggests that it makes no difference to a child's rate of progress/attainment.
In my expereince, lots of schools set homework because the parents expect them to, and complain when they don't!

JennyRobyn · 14/02/2011 12:50

YANBU, last year DD was in year 2 her teacher didn't have a clue. Homework that was set was practically impossible for a 6 year old to do and more suited to 11+ I struggled with some of it but teacher had sent letters home stating parents should use this time to spend quality time with thier children!! Hmm

This really encouraged competetive parenting as parents would then do said homework projects, the bigger the better.

I decided if DD wasn't able to do it herself then she wouldn't do it.

This year (3) homework set is more age appropriate. DD actually enjoys homework now as she doesn't need help and doesn't get frustrated to point of tears. But i still don't see any point to it.

fluffy91 · 14/02/2011 14:57

YANBU, I hated homework as a child and now i hate it as an adult.

They do enough studying in school, evenings and weekends should be their chance to relax and enjoy being children IMO

Plus i hate having to help

FabbyChic · 14/02/2011 15:10

Of course it is not a waste of time, children need help to learn, they send stuff home so you can continue their learning at home. Not sure why it would stress you out, it is not rocket science.

PaisleyLeaf · 14/02/2011 15:12

The 1980s?
That's the sort of homework topic I dream of!

sparks · 14/02/2011 15:18

YANBU it is a waste of time. IMO it's only the reading books that are worth bothering with.

It may be headteacher's opinion that homework is a chance for parent and child to sit down together, but you don't have to agree with that. I certainly don't.

Chil1234's advice is spot on. Don't get stressed about it.

missmehalia · 14/02/2011 15:21

What clenched bottom said. (Love that name).

Am an ex primary teacher. It's an immense waste of a child's life. If the teaching is good, there is no need for it. It is unrealistic to expect children to learn to read, write and be numerate too quickly. 9 til 3 is quite, quite enough for one day's work. If an adult's workplace sent work home with them every night, we'd be up in arms.

Schools give lousy homework tasks (photocopied sheets that they haven't read, etc) because misguided parents put pressure on them to. I think it should be optional. That way the parents who want to pressurise their kids have the opportunity to do so. The rest of us will get on with parenting.

cat64 · 14/02/2011 15:22

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Tolalola · 14/02/2011 15:34

YANBU. I don't think primary school children should get homework at all.

There is no link between academic acheivement and homework at that age. Waste of time.

prettybird · 14/02/2011 15:34

SDpends on waht the homework is. In ds' early years at primary school, he just got reading home, which we did with him - helping him and/or getting him to read out loud to us and asking him questions about it. It was supposed to take no more the 15 minutes a night, for reinforcement.

He then started getting number and language homework once or twice a week - again, it was supposed to take no more than 15 minutes. It helped us to see what level he had got to and whether he was coping. We were not expected to "do" it for him, altohugh we would check it, help him if necessary - and get him to look again at questions he had got wrong.

He's now in P6 (= Year 5) and getting more volume of homework - still ponly amounting to, at most, a hour and half over the week - which I think is manageable. He does it on his own but we then check it - so we can see where he has got to and whether he is having any problems.

The school makes a big thing about the "triangle of school, child and parents" - working together to make sure that our children make the most of their potential.

But they absolutely don't want us "putting in a large amount of parental input": it is a case of being aware of what your child is doing and giving them suport if necessary.

We did have issues in P3 and P5 with teachers who either weren't giving any homework or were giving the same homework to the whole class, which meant that ds was being bored out of his skull with his numbers homework as it was so easy it didn't add any value. The head teacher agreed that this meant that we (the parents) weren't able to particpate in the "triangle of support" to ensure the ds was progressing according to his potential if we couldn't see the level of work that he was doing in class.

baildonwen · 14/02/2011 15:37

YANBU I think you could bin about 90% of all primary school homework without it having an impact at all.

GrimmaTheNome · 14/02/2011 15:41

A lot of it is a waste of time.

Some of it is worthwhile.

Reading to a parent/carer is definitely not a waste of time (though it sometimes feels like it!)

Learning to deal with doing homework - organisation and working alone - by yr 6 is very useful preparation for secondary school.

Dancergirl · 14/02/2011 15:48

'Of course it is not a waste of time, children need help to learn, they send stuff home so you can continue their learning at home. Not sure why it would stress you out, it is not rocket science.'

You don't need silly bits of colouring in and sticking to continue their education at home. Dh and I TALK to our children about all sorts of things, they are constantly learning. I would rather have more time to do this rather than help with homework.

No of course it's not rocket science but in a busy house with children of different ages I find helping with homework just another chore.

OP posts:
mnistooaddictive · 14/02/2011 16:02

YABU ALL primary homework is a waste of time Grin

prettybird · 14/02/2011 16:06

I must be lucky - I've never had to (nor seen ds have to) do any stupid colouring or sticking. Any homework he has brought home has been "real" work: sums to complete, sentences to write, reading to do. Occasionally a wee bit of research, eg on Robert Burns.

cat64 · 14/02/2011 16:22

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verytellytubby · 14/02/2011 16:25

I really don't think they should get homework. I'm really anti it.

Mine seem to get a huge amount (8 & 5).

cornsilk · 14/02/2011 16:29

Parents who ask for homework should be shunned at the school gate.

LeQueen · 14/02/2011 16:39

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

skisundae · 14/02/2011 16:41

Yes, I think it is a waste of time. I was delighted when I attended a meeting for new parents at DS's school where the head said they had a policy of not setting any.

Even more delighted when we took the bus to the swimming pool afterwards and sat behind a mum struggling to do homework with her son, they were having to do it on the journey because they wouldn't have had time to do it once the swimming club had finished.

compo · 14/02/2011 16:49

It's a pita
and to be blunt a sahm with one child has from 4pm to 7pm to do it with said child
but me I pick ds up from aftersch club at 6.30pm then want to spend quality time with younger sibling

that doesn't mention things like cubs, beavers etc - I'd rather kids played footie after school than more work at this age

prettybird · 14/02/2011 17:08

My involvement with homework is now down to 5 minutes a week :)

Reading with a child in the arly years is not a waste of time and doing a small amount of work in the evenings in the later years of primary school is good preparation for secondary school (ds gets given it on a Monday and has to have it completed by Thursday).

Small amounts of homework are also useful to ensure that parents know what level their child has got to - and if they are having difficulty (so that you know to go to talk to the teacher).

Having to cope with/juggle children at different levels goes with the patch if you decide to have more than one child.

We never thought we would be the sort of parents who would be in at the school complaining about the lack of homework until we had a teacher (P3) who set homework that was so easy it was useless (ds even complained about how pointless it was) so it made us wonder about the level he was being taught at school (if this was a reflection of the levle of maths she was teaching him) - so when we raised it with the school (first with the class teacher, then with the head teacher, with whom we get on very well) it was acknowledged that she wasn't streching the "top" group enough (class split into three for Numbers - this was the first time she had tuaght this particular age group). Without feedback, she wouldn't have known; without homework, we wouldn't have known.

The same thing happened again (with a different teacher) in P5 - and when I went in to comment about the overly easy (or indeed lack of any) homework, the head teacher actually showed me her own notebook to show that she had laready raised with the teacher that she should be giving each group differentiated homework to refelct the work that they were doing in class.