To be gobsmacked at this letter from the school?

[sellisx]

My little sister who lives with me, came home yesterday with a note from the school to say, they are now starting to do their homework on emails. So instead of handing in a written homework piece, it'd have to be e-mailed.
That sounds bad enough but then goes on to say that "they should probably use Gmail as it has a spell checker"
:O I just can't fathom this. Surely spell checking isn't cheating?

I would write back and just say will will send in written work instead.

I would not give any reason just tell them.

Might be some bright young spark who is trying to be ultra efficient & can't possibly comprehend that a lot of households don't have internet or computers.

Just call her bluff, ask her how she is going to accomodate a family with no IT resources?

And as previously said will do bugger all for their handwriting skills, let alone spellings!

Seriously? The one perfectly spelt piece of work a child does every week or so is going to convince the teacher that this child can spell? So they're going to ignore the DAILY handwritten work they do in class then?

I dont get mumsnet at all sometimes. Why do some posters think teachers are so stupid?

However I agree its unfair to expect all 8 year olds to have access to an email account and it just makes collecting in homework much harder.

Wellthen. I didn't assume any teacher was stupid, I totally forgot about the rest of the school work they would do in class! Fs

Is the issue

a) The spell check
b) GMail
c) Doing it on the computer

There seems to be a lot of issues being discussed.

8? I thought you were going to say 15 or 16!

I understand that computer skills will be very important for this generation of children, but e-mailing your teacher at 8? That's a step too far surely?

If it were a requirement for my 8 year old, it would be sent from my e-mail address. No need for such a young child to have their own is there?

completely ridiculous, you do need a certain grasp of the language to use a spell check properly. Before using a calculator, you should at least know your times tables and how to make the basic calculations.

Get her to do the homework then scan or take a photo of it and email it to the teacher!

Surely they are teaching children to use technology?

Written work will be done in school,
This way homework will be emailed so not lost in bags
Don't see the problem myself. In fact I think it's a great idea!

Rudelf What LIBrary?

Ours is now open 2 x 2 hours a week. There were queues of pensioners out through the door before Christmas.

A spellchecker will pick up obvious typos. It won't pick up the difference between there/their/they're (though some programs also have grammar checkers.) It's like a calculator doesn't mean you can do maths - you need to know some maths (or arithmetic) to know which keys to use

But I do agree with - can they be sure everyone has access to a computer, and if they do, that it's got internet access? Also, some people have objections to using gmail, because it garners lots of data. Plus they're 8 - if parents don't want their 8 year old to have their own email account yet, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Have they been teaching them anything about online safety yet? Because that should surely be something which comes first - an email account is usually the first requirement to sign up to any other website.

You can't take a spellchecker into the GCSEs with you, so yes, it is a BIG problem that they're encouraging this as it will do nothing to improve handwriting nor spelling. Even worse, it encourages less thinking and planning as it's too easy to write, backspace and write again, whereas in written exams you have to think on your feet and get it right first time if you are to avoid too many messy crossings-out. You also need to practice to write quickly to prepare for when you're up against the time in exams. Handwriting and spelling practice is essential. Once they know how to do it, then moving onto the computer is efficient for everyone, i.e. mid way through secondary school.

Ours is now open 2 x 2 hours a week. There were queues of pensioners out through the door before Christmas.

Excellent point! So many libraries have closed down or are on reduced hours. Imagine 20 children all trying to access the library's PCs at the same time on a wednesday evening before they shut.

Spell checker is not a perfect system; the OP is an example. A spell checker would not have picked up on the fact that the OP typed 'isn't' rather than 'is'. If this were my child I would be extremely concerned that their school hadn't thought of this. It would make me wonder about their competence in other areas too.

Bonkers. Judging by the number of kids yy see fighting for the computers at the library, loads of people round here don't have a computer at home. And encouraging childrento use a spellcheck is a pretty bad idea, as a spellcheck can't tell you whether (weather) you might (mite) need to use their or there, for example.

I would stick to written and teach your child how to use a (printed) dictionary!

Perfectly normal here to email homework direct to the teacher (private school, if that makes any difference). Not every piece of homework by any means though. But any homework involving research, investigating a topic, answering factual questions, etc is often done on Word or Powerpoint and then emailed. This has been the case since Year 3. Each child has a school email address and knows how to log in to the school network to access it. Obviously plenty of work is done by hand in school time as well though, including formal handwriting lessons.

If for example a child types 'I like there cat' instead of 'I like their cat.', spell check will not recognise that as a mistake.

Dear teacher...

DD won't be sending in her homework via email - we are very happy to support the school and her learning by having her do homework, but she will be continuing to hand it in on paper, allowing her the opportunity to practise her spelling and hand-writing.

yours
etc.

My children have had this style of homework since they went into middle syndicate - so from age 6-7.

They are asked to do some research about a particular topic, make a google document or slide show and then share it with their teacher online. They have gmail accounts linked to a school email address (which is only active in term time).

They also have maths worksheets and spelling lists on the homework sheet - but the main weekly homework task is done online.

I love it - they're using technology, original thinking and they share it with me as well as their teacher so I can see what they're up to while I'm at work. They can also share projects with friends, it's really good.

ds1 gets computer homework, he also got it from that age, I don't see a issue with using spell checker, after all it is a computer "skill" for their age. homework is a tiny part of schooling, this part wont take away from their learning development.

The cynic in me wonders if the spell checker is for the teacher's benefit (i.e. The teacher can't spell and needs a heads up when to correct the child's work)

My dc's school (secondary) uses 'showmyhomework' site to send homework. I regularly have to print off past papers and chunky info sheets. It is a way for schools to reduce their photocopying bill and pass the cost sneakily onto the parents. I can see why they do it, with budgeys being so tight, but it does assume that all kids have access to a laptop and printer.

My ds has been doing all his schoolwork on a computer, and emailing in projects etc for a few years now. Although he is no longer classified as dyslexic his handwriting is very difficult to read and he has organisational problems so it works really well for us.

He takes his exams using a computer too (no spell check on though) and has few reasons to write by hand now. We spent years struggling with writing because we thought it was really important, but virtually everything is typed now so I slightly wonder looking back whether it was really worth it.

Eight does seem young, and better surely as an option not as a requirement.

It's not a private school, she told me that her friends had got tablets for Christmas and the teacher wants to help use them. Doing it from my e-mail address is a smart idea, I know nothing much can happen to an e-mail address but the amount of spam I get sent, I wouldn't want that to happen to an 8 year olds e-mail address
I did also think that the teacher couldn't spell