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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Homework and making

48 replies

SilveryMoon · 19/09/2015 15:23

I'm just on my way out for the afternoon so may not be back on until later.
Aibu to expect the class teacher to mark homework?
My ds1 completed homework incorrectly last week. I have been advised by Senior leaders to submit homework that is an accurate account of his ability, where before I was kind of re teaching what he got stuck on. So we send it wrong work and she's just ticked it. No feedback, no comment, nothing. So how is he supposed to know what to do to improve?

OP posts:

Blackcloudsbrightsky · 19/09/2015 15:25

Probably busy

NotAWhaleOmeletteInSight · 19/09/2015 23:22

I know it's annoying, but I sympathise with the teacher. I'm a teacher myself and the amount of stuff I fit into my week is huge. Sometimes homework marking has to give and isn't done in as much depth. As long as feedback in class is good and he has time to respond to next steps etc, I think it's ok.

I'd also say help him with homework by all means - I imagine they say to let him have a go himself to try as much as possible to prevent parents from basically doing the work for the children, however inadvertently.

Wearyheadedlady · 19/09/2015 23:38

YANBU. Homework is to reinforce what is learned in the day. If its lacking then so is what has been learned in the classroom. The teacher should definitely be paying more time and attention to marking. Of course she bloody should.

RealityCheque · 20/09/2015 00:18

Sorry Whale, that is a really shitty attitude.

If you really don't have time to do marking then don't do it - don't just tick it without checking! It's fucking lazy and unprofessional. People working in the private sector simply would not be able to even consider taking that attitude.

OP, yanbu.

MrsMummyPig · 20/09/2015 00:29

whale why bother setting homework if you haven't time to mark it?
If kids and parents are giving up their family time to actually do the homework then the least you can do is mark it properly.
What if the student said he hasn't done it because he was too busy. Would that be ok?

PenelopePitstops · 20/09/2015 01:05

Mrs mummy pig you are obviously not a teacher! Ticking it is wrong if it's incorrect but marking takes freaking hours! I'm a secondary school teacher and teach 140 children 4 times per week. I mark their books once per week, average 7 mins per book. That's 980 minutes, or 16 hours. This is on top of the 23 hours teaching, plus tutor time, planning time (usually around 10 hours), at least 3 hours of meetings per week. I get paid to work 32 hours!!

Something has to give sometimes, in your teachers case, it's homework.

MrsMummyPig · 20/09/2015 01:45

I didn't say tick it if it's wrong, that would just make you look stupid but I think if you are expecting a student to put the time and effort into doing it in the first place you should show them the same respect.
I do work in education by the way although not as a secondary school teacher.

Wearyheadedlady · 20/09/2015 02:44

My mum was a school teacher in a state secondary school for years. She used to go to bed with piles of exercise books (languages) next to her - and she didn't go to sleep until every single one of them was marked properly.

Joskar · 20/09/2015 02:56

I'm a teacher. I don't set homework unless I can mark it/use it in class. Depends on what it is. I might sometimes go over it collectively and get them to set their own target. Homework that takes ages to mark is not something I approve of. Essays are better written under my beady eye without the assistance of Google or parents. Redrafts would be summatively graded on the basis that their first draft was formatively marked.

MischiefInTheWind · 20/09/2015 07:23

Weary, I started teaching 30 years ago. The paperwork has increased a hundred fold. Well done to your mother, but the job is completely different now.

Fratelli · 20/09/2015 07:36

Yanbu. It used to really annoy me at school and uni when they put such an importance in meeting deadlines then failed to mark it when they said they would. If they've got a lot on they should give a later date for when it should be marked, not say it will be done by next week when in fact it will take three.

ShanghaiDiva · 20/09/2015 07:53

If homework is not marked and feedback is not given it's a pointless exercise IMO. Personally I don't think homework should be set until year 6, with the exception of reading every night.
When ds was in year 9 his teacher set the class an essay on Macbeth and 2 weeks later another essay. First essay had not been marked, so why set another one? Complete waste of time.

GoblinLittleOwl · 20/09/2015 08:03

She should have marked it properly, it is pointless otherwise.

Just that if there are 32 children in the class, three pieces of written work per day (maths, English plus one other) equals 96 pieces per day to mark plus homework, reason why it only got a tick.

But not acceptable. (full of guilt over past lapses.)

eurochick · 20/09/2015 08:10

I think that incredibly poor. Wrong homework is an indicator that the teaching wasn't understood. If that is ignored, the teacher might as well not bother teaching at all because the child isn't getting anything out of it.

echt · 20/09/2015 08:21

I teach, and put a lot of effort into marking work and getting it back very quickly.

On the other hand, I don't have to do the daft planning documents and weird marking so many UK schools. This means I can get on with real planning and marking. Pupils are very discouraged by work being returned late, how on earth can they learn from something they can barely remember writing?

thinkingmakesitso · 20/09/2015 08:25

As a teacher, I see homework as a waste of time really. It either can't be done properly without parental help (makes it pointless) or a child is left to struggle alone, or it is so easy it was a waste of time. The marking becomes impossible when you have planning, classwork to mark and all the other meetings, paperwork etc to do. But parents insist on it so we have to set it .

As for the old chestnut 'in the private sector they wouldn't get away with that' - what utter bollocks. If you mean private education it's and irrelevant point as they have tiny classes, longer holidays and I assume (but may be wrong on this) fewer contact hours. All of this would make it easier to keep up with marking. If you mean there are no mistakes made in whole private sector and no one who works in it is guilty of cutting corners at all, you must know that is not true. I have had errors, laziness and incompetence from all manner of people including utility companies, estate agents, people working on the house, carpet fitters - and many of these were running their own businesses and still managed to fuck up! I've also, of course had excellent service - sometimes from the same people on different occasions. There's good and bad everywhere and we all get overwhelmed/make mistakes at times.

ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged · 20/09/2015 08:29

I'm a teacher and I try to mark every piece of homework but it often just isn't posssible. That doesn't make it 'pointless' though. The idea is for pupils to learn something, or for them to consolidate something learned in class. Pupils get a clear target for improvement from me at least every two weeks. That might be based on homework, class work or a combination of both.

WombatStewForTea · 20/09/2015 08:32

I set homework because it is school policy and I don't have a choice. I think it's a complete waste of time. So there's no point saying don't set homework when the choice often isn't up to the teacher!

Egosumquisum · 20/09/2015 09:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

clam · 20/09/2015 09:28

"People working in the private sector simply would not be able to even consider taking that attitude."

Yeah right. Can you back up that load of old cliched bollocks?

JimmyGreavesMoustache · 20/09/2015 09:33

if the teacher's busy I'd far rather they didn't send anything home, or send something shorter. eg DD1 has about thirty sums today which don't vary in type or difficulty. The learning would have been reinforced with just 5 or 10, surely?

monkeysox · 20/09/2015 10:06

Unfortunately with maths repetition of methods is one way of remembering them.

PenelopePitstops · 20/09/2015 11:42

Jimmy often parents say 'these don't vary in difficulty' sometimes they are right. Other times, there is a subtle difference between questions that are designed to get progressively more difficult. Without seeing the sheet I couldn't say. An example is finding the nth term, my extension activity was finding the nth term of a decreasing sequence (more difficult than and increasing one), Ofsted inspector told me that the questions were all the same (English specialist). I had a very heated discussion with him and was further backed by my head of dept before he relented.

Original poster

SilveryMoon · 20/09/2015 15:34

Thanks for responses.
It's very frustrating as a parent to see a child doing this kind of work at home, and for us sacrificing time to do anything else and then not have any usable response.
Bare in mind, the majority of parents are not teachers and are not equipped with the skill to appropriately teach (and in some instances understand the task fully). I used to spend a hell of a lot of time fully supporting every homework task, because my ds appeared to have very little idea of what he needed to do, or how to solve the problem. This led to much frustration and me questioning if there is a reason why he seems unable to retain information. This is something I spoke to slt about and was told homework is a way for the teachers to gauge how much the pupils know. Fine, so I gave my ds some space and told him to just have a go. Then we get it back with nothing, he sees a tick in his book and that's fine for him, but the homework was incorrect. This particular piece, he needed to correct sentances, we talked through what he needed to do, we spoke about when youj would need a full stop and why and the difference between using a full stop and a connective etc etc etc. He puts full stops in the wrong place and it seems to me the teacher hasn't even looked. So why bother setting homework, and why bother completing it?

OP posts:

WildStallions · 20/09/2015 15:40

Often it's the TA not the teacher that marks the homework. And the teacher doesn't look at it AT ALL.

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