To think teachers overuse parents

[RichTeas]

I am really starting to wonder about the received wisdom that parental input is crucial for a child's schooling success? Every politician and every teacher (especially in the state sector) repeats this mantra over and over, and clearly some parental teaching is not going to hurt, but is it really an efficient way of doing things? Most of us are not experts, and end up wasting time finding second rate examples or demonstrating old ways of calculating etc.. Not to mention the inevitable arguments from children who don't wish to be taught by parents. Teachers seem quite happy to assign hours of homework at primary with the cheerful reminder of not to spend more than 20 minutes on it, meanwhile in the school they're doing all manner of arts and crafts, dress-up, cooking, while parents get stuck with the boring sit-down learning.

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"Teachers seem quite happy to assign hours of homework at primary with the cheerful reminder of not to spend more than 20 minutes on it"

Oh, that's easy. They spend 20 minutes on it and you send it in unfinished with a note that this is 20 minutes work, and if your child is working far slower than they should be perhaps you need a meeting and to figure out some extra support?

I never got a reply to that one - not that I was expecting one. We also stopped getting homework which couldn't possibly be completed in 20 minutes.

But hey - let's stick to the idea that primary teachers are all thickos who just want to sit and play with playdough all day shall we? (For the record the feeling of playdough on my fingers is like nails on a chalkboard with me - I really can't cope with it)

Same as parents being assumed lazy or feckless eh? Just for being overwhelmed by the sometimes vast amounts of often ill thought out homework received and the seemingly constant requirement of parent volunteers within schools. What begs the question is why schools want an army of lazy feckless volunteers.....

I believe parental attitude and input is key to a child's educational success. I don't mean doing ((yawn)) boring spelling practice or repetitive times tables at home (although I do believe reading has a vital role to play). Education is more then school. School is just one small aspect of a child's life. What matters more is the language parents use in conversations with children, the way parents inspire children with stories, the places parents take children (woodland walks, museums etc), the way parents problems solve and resolve issues in front of children, the way that every day mundane things (like cooking or traveling by bus to go food shopping) can be rich interesting experiences.

I do resent the craft projects they have to do at home. They take up so much time and effort.

That said as DSs are now in secondary they have become far less prevalent and I hover just over the horizon keeping a stealth watch on their school reports and intervene the moment I see any slippage in grades. I go to parent evening. I let teachers teach. Its their job. My job is to 'trust but verify'

I find that teachers sometimes don't see the early signs of slippage and a gentle email noting 'concern' often triggers action by the teacher to put things right. The threat that I would take DS1 out of the school if things didn't change after a term of warning the teachers he was slipping soon got the right response.

I help with homework if asked and that is rare.

My point is the allocation is sometimes not the parents ability to argue a case , which is not the same. Also one to one surely means that others can be helped or is that not "allowed"

On not not!

Tron as I said if a child receives 1:1 funding that is how that TA should be used. It's the statemented child's entitlement.

TAs allocated to support a whole class are different.

Tron I was happy for my DC's allocated 1 to 1 to be able to help other children but this had to be acknowledged. Not to do so can distort the perception of an individual child's actual additional needs. Any shift in how the TA spent the majority of their time and how my DC coped informed on my DC's needs.

Some children will need all the allocated 1 to 1 resource to be solely spent supporting them.

I have less than one year of experience of one of my children in school. I see parental involvement as key to their success. It is a battle to get DD aged 3 to bed on time so she is rested. I make sure she is fed, watered, doesn't answer back to her teachers and we do at least one book a day together plus DH does a Danish book and the nanny does a few too.

I also make sure she has plenty of playtime and arrange play dates with the kids in class that her teacher thinks are a good match.

I am dreading later years and have told DH I will be setting up my own business as I need to be there to support their education. The whole set up is geared towards one parent staying home.

As a principle I would have thought that the aim of support is to help a child and that if they can cope without it would help greater independence which was the ultimate aim. I wholly support providing for those who need additional needs but do think that the need does change over the years

Tron I agree. It's probably partly why my DC has progressed and no longer needs a Statement. Enabling our DC's independence was important to my DH and I. It was something we did fight for. There are different schools of thought regarding this though, and needs vary between individuals.

This may have been said but Sutton trust actually say exactly the opposite: www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/smaller-classes-uniforms-primary-homework-among-least-effective-ways-boosting-school-performance/

Oops posted to soon. I would never set homework given the chance. Many schools set it because they feel they have to, because parents would complain if they didn't. I have actually had a parent tell me that we 'wouldn't have to revise so hard for sats if you set regular homework'

Op you are being ridiculous, parents are definitely not left with the boring stuff. As people have said, dont like it, don't do it. I have no intention of doing homework with primary aged children.

Wellthen a parent would have a difficult time at my DC's school if they refused to do the homework. As a parent of a child who had a Statement, I felt I had to do everything by the book with regards to supporting my child. I felt not to do so would have laid me open to blame regarding my DC's additional needs, I had to be shown to be working with the school. It was a real balancing act, acting as an advocate for my DC, requiring a diplomacy I never would have imagined myself capable of times.

at times. Typo.

I don't know the details capsium but he is YOUR child.

Some schools think they can dictate far more than they actually can

blackcat thanks. Good thing is, thankfully, a lot of the problems have subsequently been resolved. Not that this did not take some doing. My DC progressed far beyond their initial expectations and no longer needs a Statement. The current teacher is much more encouraging and seems to take much more interest in my DC.

Primary school teachers work exceedingly hard my friend is one and the amount of hours she outs in is unreal. You think it's hard work sitting and helping your child with homework...imagine marking 30 sets of it its not easy.

parents aren't all lazy as there can be too much homework but it is lazy to say I'm not the teacher so i don't do homework with my children. You have kids you put some work in too or they won't reach their full potential.

I agree that parental input is crucial. That doesn't mean that I am taking over from what my DS's teacher is doing. I see it as a partnership and I fully support his teachers and the school.

It is my job to provide the basics - a child that is fed, has clean clothes and has a good nights sleep.

It's also my job to listen to him read, help with his spellings, talk to him about his 'Big write' topic, discuss what he did during the day.

It's also my job to teach him to dress himself, use the toilet, wash his hands, cut his food up and use good manners.

It's also my job to ensure he can swim, tell the time and do his shoe laces up.

It's also my job to broaden his knowledge by giving him as many experiences of the world as I can afford - museums, travel. As well as ensuring he plays out and gets exercise.

It's also my job to talk to him and listen and answer his questions.

If he gets stuck with his homework, I will also help him. I've no issues with looking up how to do long division using chunking or asking his teacher what method they use.

OP: you are predictably getting a lot of heat from some posters, but believe it or not, there are quite of lot of people in the teaching profession who will (sometimes off the record) agree with a lot of what you are saying.

Take this teacher here, for example (she is a teacher herself, but in this post she is talking about her own child's school):

"Most schools rely on parents to teach children to read.No! I can already anticipate the angry response as teachers explain that they run weekly or bi-weekly group reading sessions and daily discrete phonics sessions…
It will make me horribly unpopular to say it but still I stand by my original claim....

"... I am all for teaching reading through synthetic phonics but the vast majority of schools use ‘mixed methods’ which marginalises the use of phonic decoding when reading. ...Add to this that if schools follow the good practice videos for phonics instruction issued by Ofsted, most phonics sessions will involve delightful games that may be engaging but contain little sustained practice.

"The system is wrong and makes me very cross. I am told in every school newsletter about the delightful, engaging activities my kid is getting up to at school. There is almost a profligacy in the use of time. A numeracy session in which each child gets to throw a dice twice so manages only two calculations in half an hour. An hour of forest school a week. Phonics through parachute games. There is a cost to this indulgence but it is played out behind closed doors. In the family home the experience is a tad less joyful as the parent returns, often dog tired, from a day at work or is wrung out from a day with a fractious toddler. They prepare the meal for the children and then with determination that can only be summoned because they know their child’s future depends on it, they coax, bribe and sometimes (to their own shame) threaten the tired child to read."

And that's even before you get on to the fact that a lot of parents are illiterate, cannot speak English properly, or are simply unable to cope with doing this due to overwork, multiple sublings or disabilities and health problems. If we rely on parents to effectively teach basic skills, that basically means we are allowing illiteracy and inequality to be passed down the generations like a toxic legacy. Schools need to be prioritizing core academic content. If that means a bit less time spent on Golden time, endless dressup days or making Xmas decorations, well, so be it.

Sorry--link to the blog is here:

heatherfblog.wordpress.com/

By the way, this is not about (or should not be about) accusing teachers of laziness or not caring about the kids they teach.

I think the vast majority of teachers are the exact opposite of lazy; I think most are daily busting a gut trying to do the best thing for their pupils. But I do think that a whole array of educational institutionsfrom the PGCE system, to Ofsted, to educational theoriststend to encourage, and even pressure, teachers to engage in teaching methods that don't result in very efficient learning.

The "parachute" reference in the previous blog post is a reference to a series of videos on the Ofsted website which claim to be showing "good practice" in schools. The video shows a group of kids sitting around basically playing with a parachute, and very occasionally getting to practice a phonics element (in a noisy, windy outdoor environment where the teacher and pupils couldn't even hear each other efficiency).

The lesson is a perfect example of what is crap about Ofsted. The lesson got top marks from Ofsted because oooh, outdoor learning, how natural! Learning through play, awesome! Such fun for the kids! So whizzy and innovative! Well.... yes, but. Each individual child was getting so little actual practice of phonics that the whole thing was almost a complete waste of time. There are countless examples of similar stuff on the Oftsted site and elsewhere.

When substantial amounts of curricular time is spent on such activities, it ends up falling to parents to actually teach bloody reading to the kids. If parents are unable to do so for any reasonpoor parents, especiallythen the kids are absolutely screwed.

www.syntheticphonics.com/EN_Report_Ofsted_Films_4.pdf

I also think the education system needs to recognise the vast differences in time available to families outside of school. A stay at home parent has hours every day to do all this stuff with their kid. I'm a single parent who works full time with a long commute and I can spend 60hrs a week out of the house. My eight year old ds is also a keen footballer and plays with a club. This doesn't leave us much time to get schoolwork done at home and I'd rather spend the little time I have with him having fun than doing homework.