To think this is a little bit too much for Year 3 children?

[NoCapes]

DS1 has just started Year 3, today he came home with a newsletter type thing telling us what will be happening each week, when he'll need pe kits, when his homework is due etc
I'm a bit surprised by how much work he'll have to do at home

Each week he'll have -
Homework consisting of 1 thing topic related, 1 piece of maths, 1 piece of English
2 reading books
A list of 15 spellings to learn for a test each Friday
&
He'll have a times table test each Friday so we've been asked to practice times tables too

This feels like a lot to me for 7 year olds and is quite a big jump up from what he was expected to do last year

AIBU to think this is just too much?

That's too much, last year (year 3), one reading book (she reads her own ones anyway so we didn't really read the school ones), home work on a Friday, then every now and again we had a piece of work on the topic.

We are in Scotland so DD is in the equivalent of Year 3, she gets reading every day, spelling or maths homework that takes about 10 minutes each day but they never get homework on a Friday for the weekend.

My year 4 has gone home with a similar amount of homework to last year. Maths, mental maths and English homework. A spelling list will start next week for a test as will preparation for tables tests each week. They are expected to read each night and normally get projects in the holidays. Far to much IMO. His older sister at the middle school has no homework this weekend.

We have a busy weekend so I've had to get him to do some of it tonight. He has cried all the way through doing it about how unfair it is and how much he hates his teachers for giving them extra work over the weekend. Sound like an excellent way to give childre a love of learning (and before anyone says its becasue he is tired an I should have let him do it tomorrow, he would have cried then too, he feels he goes to school and works hard and doesn't see why he should have to do more work at home too).

It seems quite a lot in black and white but the reality is at the beginning of term the schools start off saying we'll do this and that but after a few weeks it slackens off. Good intentions.... Also it probably won't take long to do this sort of homework - a few minutes here and there. Children do tend to like reading to parents and you can turn spellings into a game etc. Keep it relaxed and don't get stressed yourself and all wil be fine.

This sounds almost identical to what our school has for the same age group. They get maths and literacy on a weekday with two days to do it in, and topic over the weekend. Topic is a grid you can choose something from, so you can pick something easy/quick if a busy weekend, or something more involved if you have more time. For the mid-week homework they do specify you should only spend 20 minutes on it and if you don't finish it in that time it's fine. 20 minutes out of 2 evenings is hardly taking up all of any child's chill out time.
I struggle to fit in the times tables practice though, and ended up ignoring the spellings because I thought it was so stupid. They had lots of words on a particular spelling pattern e.g. -tion but in trying to shoehorn words into the pattern, they had ones the kids didn't know the meaning of. What is the point of being able to spell a word if you don't know what it means? Also learning a specific set of words for a test does not make you remember them longterm.

Our infant school "spellings" is a much better system. No tests. They have a list of commonly used words, and in your own time you underline words when they can read them, write them and use them orally in a sentence. Then school check them and they get a certificate when they complete the sheet and go onto the next.

I do wonder if we look back on what 'homework' we got we'd actually stop being quite so arsed about this. I'm the wrong side of 40 so had a 1970's primary education. We had a reading book that had to be read aloud every week. We had an old tobacco tin with scraps of card with our words to learn on. We used these to learn spellings and also to form sentences. We sat at the dining table with Mum and did these things before we did anything else after school. We always had some kind of project on the go as well. I've got my project folders from primary in a big box, so I know I did a whole thing about tadpoles and frogs...
We sang times tables and had spelling tests and mental arithmetic tests every week. It was normal. No one knew that 'maths is hard', it was just something we got on with. We even had tests to see how quickly we could tie our shoe laces and we could all toilet ourselves. And no one came with us when we had to leg it across the playground to the outside toilets.

I got reading, spellings to learn and that was about it. Primary school in the early eighties. I've got an MA now so lack of primary school homework doesn't seem to have harmed me. We did do mental maths tests etc but there was no homework for them - it was just part of the school day.

I remember getting to secondary school and getting my first proper homework - I was so proud of myself and rushed home to do it straight away, announcing very importantly I needed peace and quiet to do my homework! So the argument that you need to have primary homework so you are prepared in secondary school isn't necessarily true. Most of my friends hadn't had homework before either and we all managed to cope with the introduction of it at secondary. In fact we weren't bored with it all already - it took at least a week for the novelty to wear off....!!!

My oldest two always seemed to get research homework in juniors, this involved them researching whatever they would be covering next week and writing down what they had found out. It is a cop out on the teachers part we as parents are teaching them whatever topic they were doing instead of the teacher! I am happy to do reading, spellings, maths or comprehension homework set by the teachers but feel research homework at primary age takes the piss! Even if they said find out 10 facts about something wouldn't be so bad but homework was worded as " Next week we will be covering Romans as our topic please research the Romans and write down all the information you find" wtaf!?

IT has been proven that homework for primary school children is futile, a waste of time, no be fit at all,
What does help more than anything is reading to and with your child everyday for 10/15 mins, I don't pressure my children to do homework, I will not let them have a detention for not doing it either, they are so young to be put under such a pressure.

Nope, I've worked in three different schools, that's pretty normal. It won't be as gigantic as it sounds though! Usually the maths or English will have one five minute piece and one longer. If it's taking too long just write a note on it explaining when you stopped and what they found difficult.. They'll have a week to do it in. Topic stuff is usually research or fun stuff like models or posters. Spellings and times tables should be done every day anyway. If your child is a good reader they won't expect two Chapter books a week. You only change them when they're finished! Two low reading level books a week is a good minimum. My Dd school used to expect page long comments on reading three times a week as well. We used to do one thing each night or sometimes just spend one evening doing all of it!

To all those lovely peeps who don't know when to practise Times Tables, try when they're cleaning their teeth or on the journey to school. Start with twos and then move on once they know them. Even five minutes makes a huge difference.

timestables when walking is a good time. the rhythm of stepping helps plus they don't notice they are spending time on them.

Yep I do !!!!! But it's key stage two ya know!!! Is what DS's knobheads teacher patronisingly told me!

Too much.

My year three has maths and English at weekend, weekly spellings test, weekly timetables test and shes supposed to read every night.....it's alot

Wouldn't it be amazing to be given the kind of homework that asked a 7 year old child to use their imagination? Like draw a picture of the most amazing sight in the world. Or design a machine that would fix something.. Pure fantasy of course :) like other earlier posts ,I am an ex teacher disillusioned by primary school life which is at best oppressive - at worst , abusive. Parents revolt!

Depends on what it is I guess. My ds was probably doing about that much in year three. The maths was about 15 minutes online on mymaths, the English was something like fifteen things in your house that rhyme, the project work maybe something like five facts about Mars (if the topic was space) and the books were just the standard every day reading books. It does sound a lot all put together like that!