To be annoyed about parents being set homework

[Snowfire]

Over half term my DD was set homework to take 2 photos per day (18 in all) of things she did over half term and take them in for a project to be done over the next couple of weeks. So, each day when we did something I would snap a pic on my phone or she would take a pic with my camera on days I had to work. It seemed like a nice variation on writing about what they did in the holidays and was quite fun.
However, on Sunday when I came to printing them out, it seemed like a rather unfair expense (18 sheets of photo paper plus ink) and wondered about how some less well off families would feel about it. On Monday after school, DD said that the teacher actually wanted the photos to still be in digital format so needed them to be either on a memory stick or disc (wasted photo paper!) and as I don't have a spare memory stick I tried to put them on disc, having never done this before I wasted a couple of discs before managing to put the relevent photos in an album and transfer to a disc (quite chuffed with myself for that). yesterday DD said that the photos had come up as a slide show and this wasn't what he wanted so could I do it again? AIBU??

Sorry, but as far as I am concerned, my Y6 DS does not do homework in the holidays, ever. None of the 3 DS's have ever done homework in the holidays until they were in Y7 at the earliest.

IMO homework at that age is irrelevant. They need a break, let them have one.

modreB - I agree. I don't think schools have ANY right to interfere with how a child spends its time outside of school, any more than parents should feel they have the right to interfere with what goes on in school time. Think I'm in the minority though!!

I disagree with HW for primary children - frankly I haven't got enough life left in me to be constructing bloody greek temples out of yogurt pots, when I'm trying to shove a load of washing in, cook something, and nagging relentlessly about GCSE HW/Coursework/essays, looking for the bloody car keys coz it's cricket practice ......

We've had a lot of these sorts of discussions before on here, I'd be delighted for specific homework to be banned in primary and just have generic ones, like 'Know all your tables by the end of Y3'
or 'Read a lot of good books from this list'

Well nailak not every child is like your 4 year old! Not every adult has come to grips with how things work on a computer.

Goblinchild you made fuck off catapults trebuchets in school and I am all for that. But suddenly having to make a proper model for Y8 homework would have been a step to far for poor little me to help DS with.

yeah i aree pilet,, not every adult has, but as a child in school they should be teachin you IT in nursery they start teachin IT, by the time the child is 9 if they dont know how to do that, then the school is failin them, as ICT is a very important part of education and the workin world these days.

I am 26, at 14 i was definitely expected to do more then this with the computers at school.

i just think if you are doin the kids homework for them how are they onna learn?

Whether they can do it or not themselves is neither here nor there really. Many 9 year olds don;t have the equipment at home to do it. We certainly don't.

Tell the teacher, problem solved. Really, that's all it takes.

elpha the school would have the equipment, especially secondary schools as one poster complained about printing and buying a camera for a 14 yr old.

but if people are too embarrassed to say they dont have the equipment/cant afford printing why blame the school? these thins are on the curriculum!!

I do not think that parents /pupils should have to tell school they dont have x y and z its humiliating to have to wait behind after class and say sorry miss q I can not do that homework as we dont have colour printer or my dad says he is not paying for it or whatever, I just think that its not ok to think that all parents can afford £5 for this and 30p per photo as to get 5p rate in asda you need to be printing 200 photos if you just needed 4 they are 30p each

i could and would print them out at home but if we did not have colour printer and PC its a 17 mile round trip to nearest place to get them printed so a lot of petrol and time, if we could not do it at home i certainly would not go to that amount of effort over weekend it would use up half a day.

I think even in nice middle class areas some of this would be a problem amd some people on benefits would be scared about their kids being different etc just not thoughtful or tactful to set complicated HW, though personally apart from a few spelling a bit of reading and learning times tables do not think primary children should be doing HW at all

Did you read the thread?
The idea was to put the photos on a memory stick, no printing or driving or selling a firstborn into slavery to pay for anything. I never print things at home, I can't afford it.

It still assumes access to a digital camera though.

the school will have digital camera, even my dcs nursery has digital cameras...

so basically some people are saying that they shouldnt ive hw which follows the curriculum and learning targets it ICT in case some parents feel it is too humiliating to ask for help?

people would rather that the whole class/year/schools learnin is at risk rather then ask for help?

So you tell the school you haven't got one and see what they suggest.
Not even a camera phone?

I do have a camera phone but it hasn't got whetever it is that phones need to put pictures onto a computer. I have now at least gone onto a contract (was PAYG before) so I can now send and recieve pictures to other people by text which I couldn't before.

DD had homework which was to take in a picture of her grandparents. We didn't have one.

My 14 year old has Spld ,so no he doesn't know and would certainly need help,to be honest I don't really want him being able to do this as goodness knows what he would upload,still thats another question.

He can however cook himself a basic meal,has just passed his entry level maths GCSE ,plays the cornet and enjoys walking his dog and looking after his hens,personally I would prefer him to be learning such skills rather than how to upload a photo,have to admit I only learnt to do this about a year ago and can't say it has had a major effect on my career,as a Head Of finance

Likewise i really cannot see why my 9 year old should need to learn such a skill at school,school is for reading,maths ,history ,music ,geography etc.not how to post a photo onto the internet.Mine do not have their own Email either (well 17 year old does).I will make sure that if necessary for school coursework etc at 15 he can do it but would be quite worried for my computer if he was to start fiddling around with camera`s etc .

For all those people saying the school would have a camera,I doubt they would have enough for half the class ,am struggling to understand what the point of this homework would be .What is wrong with write a dieary adn illustrate with some pictures or items from the day etc .

yes goblin had read most of thread, I just pointed out that even a £5 for a memory stick is beyond the means of some and it said earlier that 23% had no access to internet even via mobile so that means between 1 in 4-5 children so at least 7 in class of 30, I doubt any school has 7 cameras to lend out and its a bit unfair on the 7 not to be able to do HW or to have to ask as too poor like the stigma in some places with free school meals and the lengths they go to disguise who has the free ones

Then just don't do the homework and don't explain or ask for assistance.
It's your choice.

I used to had homework like this during the holidays. Not the photos per-se but having to do something with the DC every day. It's a sneaky way the school gets the parents to do something. Wonder how many kids took in photos of their Xboxes

DS2 (4yo) had "homework" from his reception class. We turned the paper back in to his teacher and explained that the particular assignment was more an exercise for us as parents and DS2 would not be participating. Teacher was fine with that (we were not the only ones that did not complete it!). We've also told them that we would not be doing some of the regular homework as it was expected to be done on certain days of the week, and DS2 was simply not up to it during the week - it's all he can do to be functional throughout the day - by evening he is simply too exhausted to focus on homework (and we would like to have some family time, not spend time in the evening struggling with homework that it not particularly vital). We save his reading books during the week and read them over the weekend, when he is more rested and better able to focus on reading them and understanding them.

I do sometimes feel this homework is busy work and is unnecessary. Most of it is a pain in the bum for us as parents, and not beneficial to the child at all.

dd had homework, via her vle, which she was meant to fill out and print off and bring back in.
of course our printer is not working we are stumped.
until the teacher said we could email it!
i was really annoyed that the teacher couldnt just give out handouts for the children to fill in.
in future perhaps i should just put my foot down and say, we are not printing, we will email?

ha bloody ha... they would have loved my film camera then....

mrswoodentop i see you have reasonable issues with the curriculum in reards to ICT, and the one size fits all approach.

i dont understand why you feel it is important for a 9yr old to learn about tudors and stewarts but not ICT? it is all part of education?

and i am worried about this keepin up with the joneses attitude that seems to be prevailin; because other people have it it is humiliatin if your child doesnt? i mean would you say the same about trainers or mobile phones etc?