To wonder why people are against homework in Primary school?

[EmGee]

I'm intrigued by this after reading some responses on another thread about homework in primary school. A good number of responses were against homework.

My 6yo is in her first year of primary school (in France though, not UK). In France, this is the year kids are taught to read and write (in cursive). She has reading homework every night, often words to practise writing. Once every month or so, she has a 'dictée' (kind of like a spelling test) on words and sounds learnt during this time. In addition to this, she has English homework twice a week (she is in a French school with a bi-lingual section, so she has two hours a week of English with a native English-speaking teacher with the other bi-lingual kids) - this consists of a two-sided worksheet to complete, and eight words to learn for a spelling test every week (4 x phonetic words, 4 x sight words).

Homework is given right up until the last day of term and then you are given holiday homework. For the Christmas holidays, there was (for French) 5 sheets with exercises to do (not particularly difficult, mainly revision of sounds, words, basic grammar rules), review all the words learnt that term, and to aim for 15 mins reading a day. Luckily no English homework to do.

It sounds a lot, doesn't it? I've been told it gets worse and next year, she will have 16 words of English to learn plus story-telling as well as reading and of course, the French homework increases with a heavier emphasis on the dreaded dictées.

I felt very stressed and rebellious at the beginning of this school year although now we are getting into a routine but it means being very organised especially evenings where there is an after-school activity. I should add that on Wednesdays there is no school but the other days are long (9-5).

AIBU to suggest that homework is not such a bad thing? We are told 20-30 minutes an evening is enough at 6 years.

Fabrica - because those 'leisure activities' can also be educational or just quality time spent with your children rather than going over the same stuff they've been doing all day at school.

That's not the point. You know when you have kids that they will be going to school and have homework. Plan your life around it. You don't get to change the rules to suit you!

Look. When you had children, you must have realised that they would have to go to school at some point and consequently would have homework. Plan your "family life" around it, for goodness' sake. Why do you think leisure activities with your family should take precedence over education that you knew would be compulsory a few years down the line when you had your children?

Fabrica, mainly because I've worked in the primary sector from Reception to Year 6 for the past 15/16yrs and as such, feel I can judge pretty well how useful and effective the various types of homework are.

Does anyone sit down when they are about to conceive and contemplate the impact homework will have 4 years from then and plan accordingly? Doubtful. Most parents haven't got a clue what is about to happen to them.

I certainly didn't envisage having my husband arrive home at 8pm every night, after leaving at 6.45am. I didn't imagine juggling the needs of 3 very different children on my own all week. I didn't imagine that hours would be taken up with making a robot out of tin foil when we could be out visiting a historical landmark, baking or riding a bike. Silly me. So lacking in foresight.

I will also say that homework has ramped up over the last 10 years, so when we did plan to have children, I still wouldn't have expected anything near the level we have now, even though I was working in a school at the time. Not a psychic, wish I was.

Fabrica - most people are planning their life around it (or are fitting in around their life!) That doesn't mean that you can question its value especially when you're sacrificing opportunities to learn/experience new things so that you can go over the same stuff again and again. Some children need repetition to learn, for the ones that don't it's just a waste of time.

Can't question its value

I guess it's all been said already, but my main objection in the early years at least is that it's much more about the parents than the child.
An 11 year old can realistically be expected to sit down and do the homework unaided (albeit with prodding from parents); a 5 year old can't.
Then:

• homework used as a way to plug the gaps that teachers simply don't have time to cover in class (e.g. the 'explain past, present and future tenses to your child, then encourage them to write their spelling words in sentences using a different tense each time' we had last week..)
• putting children off doing any 'school work' for pleasure because it's a chore
• eating into family time for working parents - I don't like telling my DD 'I know you're tired but you have to do your homework', nor do I like the fact we rarely have time to go for a walk, read or cook together without it being part of the homework mill.
• occasionally, utterly pointless - particularly the holiday projects or dreaded 'craft'!

There is a marked difference I see between DD's homework and her music practice. There is a clear message that the music practice is good to do for 15 minutes a night, and if DD practices her piece for the week then she'll get a new one the next week: if she doesn't, it's OK but it does mean she might have to do the same one again. No pressure on DD to do it, as there is no pressure on the music teacher to demonstrate that over 80% of their pupils between the ages of 5 and 6 got distinctions in their Grade 2 piano exams that year.. and DD is more than happy to do the work.

For homework, with the immense pressure on teachers to deliver 'demonstrable results' at each stage, that pressure is passed along to the parents and ultimately to the children, however hard we try to make it otherwise. Not remotely healthy for a 5yo IMO.

Plan your life around it.

My life didn't role like something out of the Truman show!
I had time set aside for homework. I always did homework before dinner and sometimes after when I was higher up in secondary. I didn't have homework at primary. I just didn't realise that my 5,6,7,8 year old would be so tired at that point that he could barely hold a pencil, let alone produce anything half decent or learn anything from it! Now he has his homework time between 1-3.30, produces good work and benefits from it. I couldn't have planned that time when he was a newborn because how the heck did I know we would be living in Brazil when he was 10. Life is not set in stone, anyone who plans for every teeny tiny detail when they get pregnant is either bonkers or will have a nasty shock in store for them when the real world deals them a hand they weren't expecting!

When I decided to have children my only knowledge of homework came from my own experience, which was zero homework until senior school. I figured that by this time my child would need very little supervision. But I would have questioned the validity of homework pre-senior school anyway seeing as I received none and yet still managed academic success and a fruitful career without it.

As it happens my child is now reception age and dh and I both work full time. I balance my time between home and work very effectively - partly because I have such a flexible employer though I might add - and the homework tasking at ds's school thankfully only extends to reading during the week and a project during the holidays, which is absolutely fine and entirely manageable. But the level of homework dished out at some primary schools severely impacts on working parents and their free time with their children, which should be family time, doing family things and not forcing them to sit down and do what they've been doing all week. I don't work at weekends, I want some down time. What makes anyone think that children are any different?

We are also parents who impart knowledge of the world by doing fun and interesting things with ds during our free time. What better learning is there than getting out there and doing something together? Trips to the science museum, looking at the moon, collecting muscles on a beach, cleaning, cooking and eating them etc. These are the things that provide children with the best opportunities of learning. Their minds are wide open when they're doing things they enjoy with the people they love.

I absolutely object to it. It's like going to work all day and then being expected to work again in the evening.

Childhood should be enjoyed, yes they can work hard in school, but home time should be freedom time.

I hated homework in school and just didn't do it.

Plan your life around it.

I'm seeing a strange thought process emerge: 'Well, I always wanted to have three children but the homework in 11 years time will be too much to manage, so I won't bother.' Delightfully bonkers!

Homework that needs anyone's life planned around it is patently much too much. And it's perfectly reasonable to express doubt over the benefits of homework, look for evidence that supports or refutes the proposition, and not just accept that it must be right because somebody somewhere says so, and if you don't like it, then that's your fault.

collecting muscles on a beach,

I say!

Oops Pippistrelle! Obviously, had i received English homework at primary school it would have prevented embarrassing typos!

Definitely. Plan your life around an hour of typo/inappropriate autocorrect prevention right now. It's for your own good.

I totally disagree that starting hw at an early age means they adjust to it later, DC are malleable and flexible! They usually do whats asked, start to give hw at a certain age they will easily adapt and probably be at a better mental age to do it.

Our HW is pointless. Thankfully I am lucky atm and do not need to sit with dd to do it, she does it quickly.

DD IS A GREAT student, loves learning and is thriving, she is in top groups and her teachers have nothing but praise for her.

Its hideous that in spite of all that we have this weekly tussle over HW because she hates it. It does nothing for her, she doesn't learn spellings, she looks and remembers.

our hw has now gone INSANE, its coming at us from all angles and we even got the cheekist missive asking US to now mark our DC HW.

I have to sign the bloody crappy HW book, even dd has no idea what she is writing in it...its all a total waste of time in our house hold.

Fabrica Plan my life around it? Seriously?

We get home at 6.30.

The kids go to bed at 7.30.

We need to feed them and it would you know, be nice to chat and read a book and generally RELAX with the children.

Teachers, should teach them in SCHOOL and stop expecting me to do it AT HOME.

And yes I do appreciate they need to practice etc but there should be space made for that at school. Make the day longer. Give them a good break and then back for an hour to consolidate whatever the fuck that is

As noted previously, I don't really think teachers appreciate what a normal working week is like.

I am not a teacher, have hideously little patience (having never done phonics myself for example) and it's just a recipe for conflict.

Teachers, should teach them in SCHOOL and stop expecting me to do it AT HOME

I whole heartedly agree.

We do loads of things to support the dc learning, tons of museum visits tons of culture, if they say " it would be helpful to take your dc to see the Globe, we will be studying this next term " etc, we really try and get there.

If they say " we are studying volcanoes and earth quakes" we will try and get them to the NHS and look at the displays.

We always do this on top of every day learning, as others have said - cooking, reading, tons and tons of reading, incorporating it into every day life.

But when it comes to actual HW NO!!! I don't want anything to do with it!!! That's the schools domain!

That sounds far more like your own bad planning than any fault on the teachers' part, wiltingfast. Not their fault you only choose to have an hour a night with your children.

As noted previously, I don't really think teachers appreciate what a normal working week is like.

Do you appreciate what teaching is actually like

Yes, because of course teachers all down tools for the day at 3pm and don't do any more work. rolls eyes They probably work longer hours than you.

Homework is a part of school life, and you need to allow for it when you have children. Allowing your childrens' education to suffer because you can't organise your own timetable to have enough time with them after school to do it is your own fault, isn't it?

Ultimately you get out of life what you put in. The more work you put in the more you learn, the more you achieve.

There are diminishing returns for "more work" beyond a certain point, and some schools have surpassed this point with the homework they require.

Balance is very important.

You know, unless you're spending thousands a year sending your children to a private school, most of you lot seem to have forgotten that these teachers - the ones you're deriding for not having a clue how the real world works - are giving your children very good educations so they can grow up and earn money and have a nice quality of life in that real world, at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever. What in God's name makes you think you get to dictate the terms of that? Be grateful and make them do their damn homework.

Whoever said that when you make something free people stop appreciating its value was right, I guess.

beyond a certain point

And where is that point precisely? It's different for different people.

I've never experienced 'diminishing returns' for any work I have put into anything. Just a sense of accomplishment and fulfilment.

Fabrica-isn't the educational system funded by taxes? People are paying for it, albeit indirectly.