Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be a bit annoyed with teacher's insistence

202 replies

coffeeoverthekids · 27/10/2016 00:16

My son is five and has gone into year one this year.

They have started writing letters to pen pals at another school that the part time teacher has an affiliation with. She is semi retired but does a few mornings/afternoons at each school.

DS hadn't finished his pen pal letter and she sent it home with him attached with the note 'Will be perfect for X to finish in bed, need for tomorrow as am taking the letters for the children'.

I read it and it really annoyed me. That day he had his usual reading book and some maths homework, already an hour of work. AIBU to think that that is more than enough and if a five year old doesn't 'finish his letter' (she had made him rub out his name because he finished mid sentence).

OP posts:
myyoyo · 27/10/2016 11:20

Presumably as a teacher you realise that there is no evidence that homework is helpful for primary school children?

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 11:24

I understand the research and have already explained that I think the danger here is in teaching your child a shoddy work ethic. Do what you like with your own kids, obviously, this is just an opinion.

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 11:25

Why would I be specifically suggesting that, myyoyo? Obviously if a child has a learning difficulty, that is a separate issue. Like all children, their attitude to learning can be good or it can be poor.

myyoyo · 27/10/2016 11:25

If teachers didn't set ridiculous homework tasks for small children there would be no danger of a shoddy work ethic being established.

JoffreyBaratheon · 27/10/2016 11:27

I'm actually pretty horrified there's people on this thread who think an hour's homework would be reasonable for a 5 year old!

Why any homework? I didn't do homework at all til age 11 - didn't stop me going on to a Russell Group university. Kids of 5 should be having fun and resting at home - maybe reading/being read to - but only fun things to encourage reading. I'd like to see the educational studies that endorse setting any homework for 5 year olds.

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 11:29

But there are people here saying they think any homework is ridiculous and should be entirely a matter of choice for the child. All I can say to that is good luck.

myyoyo · 27/10/2016 11:29

I agree with Joffrey. Reading, playing, drawing or having a conversation with your parents are all far more valuable learning activities for a 5 year old than being forced to write a letter.

Cary2012 · 27/10/2016 11:29

I think 5 year olds do well to cope with a six hour school day, and shouldn't have any homework at all.

When my lad was five he regularly fell asleep for an hour after we got home, admittedly we did have a half hour walk from school.

I'm a teacher too.

Beardsareweird · 27/10/2016 11:32

As a Y2 teacher, enjoying doing bugger all in the half term, it really annoys when when young children are bogged down with homework. I only give out homework becasue it is the school's policy and I only ever give out a sheet of maths that would take 10 minutes to do. If a child is struggling with it, I encourage the parents to let them do as much as they can in 10 minutes and then if they can't finish, the parents add a note to explain. The expectation at our school is that children read for 10 minutes every night with a parent and then complete a reading diary. I was hugely unpopular at a staff meeting when I said that if I had to write a precis of what I had read, I would probably never read again as it would suck the joy out of it.

JoffreyBaratheon · 27/10/2016 11:42

Beards that's precisely my feelings on the subject. When forced to sethomework, I made it minimal and was quite open with the kids that I thought if they worked hard during school hours - it was pointless. But if we had to do it - yes, made it minimal.

Homework for primary aged kids - a bit like uniform - is one of those things popular with parents who haven't themselves got a training in education, as a rule. Not all but many I knew in the profession, thought both those things had zero educational value. Wink

Also worth saying, if the teacher is 'older' - she probably would have trained around the time I did. When the tide was firmly against setting homework. So this is not symptomatic of her age, trust me.

smellyboot · 27/10/2016 11:45

We don't get home work at that age and quite rightly so. A bit of reading books, 10 min a day and that's it.
I'd ignore any other requests

Naicehamshop · 27/10/2016 12:05

Agree, smelly boot.

Just wondering if you are slightly older than most of the posters on here trifle?
I don't mean that rudely, but you seem to be slightly out of step with current thinking on this issue.

Apologies if this is not the case. Smile

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 12:19

There would be nothing to apologise for if I was 'older'! I don't know if I am older but I am in my early 30s. I am old-fashioned, perhaps, but I think a lot of progressive educational models don't hold water. The children I teach who make the most progress are the ones who work the hardest, hand their work in on time and don't have parents at home supporting their right to do whatever they please. If that is 'out of step with current thinking' then I hold my hands up.

Naicehamshop · 27/10/2016 12:26

I take your point of course about working hard, trifle, but we are talking about 5 year olds here! They need to be enjoying their learning, not struggling through an hours homework a night and then expected to do some letter writing!

In my experience, children subjected to this will either be turned off learning or will become stressed and anxious, bringing possible complications for their mental health as they get older.

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 12:30

Of course they should enjoy their learning and of course an hour of homework a night is batshit crazy for a 5 year old! But saying that isn't the same as accepting that they should only learn when they are enjoying it (aka when they feel like it) and it's not the same as accepting that it is a good idea to undermine the value of homework at the age of 5 by teaching them that what their teacher has sent home to be done is entirely optional.

Naicehamshop · 27/10/2016 12:51

That is the teacher's fault then for sending home an unreasonable amount of homework.

I would never say that to the child, of course, but I would be having a (nonconfrontational) chat with the teacher.

Naicehamshop · 27/10/2016 12:52

This sort of rigidity will damage a child's learning in the long-term.

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 12:56

Well, firstly, most teachers don't have control over how much homework to set - it is usually school policy. And secondly, the occasional extra task (something to be finished at home, requiring 10 minutes at some point in the week) isn't an hour a day of homework. It might be better not to make mountains out of molehills and just take the opportunity for the child to practise something he struggles with.

Enidblyton1 · 27/10/2016 13:02

YANBU
Pen pal idea sounds nice, but not after school - they should be doing it during school hours.
I have a DD in Y1 and the only homework we do is a reading book and then small list of spellings once a week. Max 10 minutes each morning - she is too tired/not receptive after school.
An hour after school homework sounds ridiculous!

BackforGood · 27/10/2016 13:02

I suspect she thought he would like to finish the sentence / letter before they went and was giving you the opportunity to do that with him - 5 mins, surely when 1:1, to finish the sentence.

The real issue here is the hour's homework you make him do every night Shock Poor little sausage. That's what you need to be looking at, IMVHO.

Naicehamshop · 27/10/2016 13:08

I don't think you've read the original post trifle.

The op said that her child had already had an hour of homework on the day that he was expected to do the letter writing.

In the primary school that I work in the teachers do have quite a lot of control over how much homework is set. If it was a rigidly adhered to school policy then I would have a word with the head, and I imagine that most sensible parents would do the same. Smile

Trifleorbust · 27/10/2016 13:10

No, I read it. There may well have been an hour of homework in total but the OP was clear that it wasn't all required for the following day. This particular piece of work was set on Monday. It's a sentence or two, max.

Ditsy4 · 27/10/2016 18:09

The OP is saying her son is taking an hour to do the homework not that the teacher has set an hours homework which is quite different. It was also given out on Monday if you keep reading OP's posts. This is quite different from the original thread!
Homework at our school is in agreement with SMT guidelines.
Don't forget that teachers have to mark all that homework.

Mummyoflittledragon · 27/10/2016 20:04

Regarding the reading and writing, he will get it when he's able. He's so little. My brother flat refused to read before age 7. He's a chartered account now. Let your ds be a little kid and have fun. If he isn't enjoying learning to read right now, I really wouldn't be concerned. A poster upthread said they didn't stress until their children were around 7. My dd is 8 and in year 4. She got below average on maths at the end of last year. All of a sudden this year she's ready to learn maths, blasting through maths homework and asking to do extra maths. Your ds will get to reading when he's ready. Please make sure you don't put him off learning.

Dinosaursgoboo · 27/10/2016 20:48

I don't make my yr1 DD do homework. We read and she can do extra bits if she wants. But if she wanted to do something else (not tv) then that's ok. My DD came home one day saying teacher said she had to do a piece of homework by tomorrow on a day that she had ballet. Much better for her to do ballet so I told the teacher in the morning what we had done instead.