6 and 7 year olds being kep in at lunch time for forgetting homework

[DaanSaaf]

Year 2 ds just told me they have to stay in at lunch time and do extra work if they haven't brought their homework in.

Aibu to think that's a bit harsh at their age?

What PinkBassoon said. But it's a bit crap that those judgments about what is or isn't reasonable, appropriate and important to 6 or 7 year-olds are ever made based on whether individual teachers happen to have had their own children or not. It should be a matter of national policy. If homework (beyond regular reading) is not proven to be beneficial to primary age children, then primary schools should not be allowed to set homework.

Pengwyyyn - I suppose it’s my view that all these things should either be learned at school or learned in the fullness of time by way of reading books, watching tv, living life, playing outside, exploring the world - child led learning based on their own interests. I fully support school as the way to educate children but firmly believe that 35 hours per week of adult led learning is more than enough. And I don’t think you need to be able to spell ‘peculiar’ at 7, not least because it is a word that they are unlikely to use both in common parlance and in their 7 year old writing. The levels of achievement required have gone mad, become front loaded and do not support children using their boundless creativity because they are told not that their ideas are fabulous but that they spelt something wrongly. It’s so sad.

If anyone can find any evidence to say homework assists in learning can they please post it. And if you can’t find any, maybe think about that when your child is crying and wants to play outside on a Sunday instead of writing out spellings in a homework book. If your child loves it and wants to do it then fine, but if they don’t then consider whether to what you are doing is both unhelpful to their overall education but also to your relationship with them.

I would lodge a massive complaint were my kids at this school and were they subject to this type of punishment. It’s totally disproportionate, unfair and cannot assist with their afternoon learning so is likely to be entirely self defeating anyway.

I totally agree with Eolian.
My first year of teaching was before I had school age children - it is very different to actually experience home life with children who are tired at the end of a long day. Some families don't get home until 6pm, need to have dinner, spend time together - not a great time to be getting them to do homework, especially if there are multiple children to organise.

@PinkBassoon

They have 3 days to get it done, plenty of time.

Ha ha ha!

Curiousaboutchoices

I haven't said I have evidence of that, or made the assertion that it works. Instead, I have asked others for evidence for their assertions.

So, rather than saying those tasks are 'mindless' (which they obviously are not) you could just have said you don't think they are important. That is your choice, but hardly an attitude likely to be shared by educators!

Linzey - sorry, but you do not get it. 😣

And students don't get '35 hours a week of adult led learning'. They get (in general) 25: 5 days x 5 x 1 hour lessons.

Pengyyyn to me they are mindless weekend activities. To you they are not. Therein we differ.

They have 35 hours of being told what they can do, wear, say, behave, play They are entirely governed by school rules and norms, even at playtime. Outside those hours it is my view that children benefit from being relatively free to choose how they spend their time, within reason and family rules. Feel free to disagree but that is my very strongly held opinion.

Curiousaboutchoices

Why does 'mindless' have a different definition on a Saturday or a Sunday?

Because I don’t want my child to have to draw a Roman just because someone tells them to. It is mindless to them because it is entirely unconnected with their individual thoughts, desires, views on what they want to do. They might want to build a Roman amphitheatre out of Lego. Or they might want to just play with Lego with no end game in sight. It should be their choice, their mind, their motivation when it’s their own time. Telling them to do it when they don’t want to creates a throughly mindless and meaningless activity for that child

Curiousaboutchoices

I can see we are never going to agree even remotely, because you are further down the 'child led' rabbit hole than I care to venture. Best of luck.

And how big of a shock would it be when they reach secondary school, to have to start homework then? They need to learn young.

Nonsense. I didn't have homework at primary school. I had no problem whatsoever adjusting to doing homework every night when I moved onto secondary school. You might just as well say 'how big a shock would it be when they reach secondary school, to have to start going to and from school on their own then? They need to learn young'. We wait until children are the right age to expect them to do things that need a certain level of maturity.

I also note that all the people on this thread who think it's fine for children to be kept in over break and lunchtime and to toil away in the evening on worksheets have chosen to ignore the very clear statement of the benefits of playtime given by steppemum way up the thread. Little ones need to have their day broken up into short chunks of sitting still, concentrating and using fine motor skills alternating with time to run around and let off steam. They need fresh air and exercise. They need time with their friends and other children to develop social skills.

H1omework has zero benefits at primary level. Absolutely none.
Marvel, where is your evidence for this?

People can't point to whatever dodgy studies they like to suit their own hippy agenda, but the fact is homework benefits children.

@CuriousaboutChoices Exactly. I fought my school to stop me having to set homework for my Year 2s other than reading and won other than a piece of homework over the Easter and Christmas holidays.

I set an A4 sheet related to the topic, where children choose one.

For example, when my topic was castles, children could choose to visit a castle and take photos of their favourite parts, build a castle on Minecraft, build a model of a castle, paint a castle, write a poem about a castle, do a project about castles, read a book about castles, create a presentation using ICT etc.

That way, it catered to everyone's strengths and interests. They all loved doing it.

CalF123 - I'd love to read your research proving that please. It totally contradicts mine.

No, but you should accept the policies of the institution you choose, provided they aren't illegal. If you can't accept them, you have the option of trying to change them, but don't just ignore them and teach your child to do the same. That's where the line is for me

So if corporal punishment was still legal, I should just have accepted it?

BS.

@ICantCope

This is from the Guardian-

"Spending more than two hours a night doing homework is linked to achieving better results in English, maths and science, according to a major study which has tracked the progress of 3,000 children over the past 15 years.

Spending any time doing homework showed benefits, but the effects were greater for students who put in two to three hours a night, according to the study published by the Department for Education."

ThisIsTheFirstStep

That isn't what I said. I said you could try to change it, or you could keep your child at home, couldn't you? I wouldn't send my child to a school where staff were allowed to hit them. But if I did, why would I complain that staff hit them?

That study was shown to be massively flawed.

Also,

"Sammons said: "That's one of the reasons Indian and Chinese children do better. They tend to put more time in. It's to do with your effort as well as your ability.

The study controlled for social class, and whether pupils had a quiet place in which to do their homework, but still found a benefit, Sammons said".

Think you mean Marxist educationalists tried to paint it as massively flawed because it didn't suit their agenda.

Pengggwn

I don’t have easy research on hand but I did the hard work of reading actual books and talking to the teachers and my kids’ school. I also volunteer at the school, keep in touch with the teachers and send messages of appreciation whenever I can. In my “career” as a parent I’ve learned several things as far as school is concerned:

First, school is not the enemy. We want the same thing. Parents and teachers alike love the children (if not, teachers are in the wrong job). I always make a point in thanking teachers if they announce they don’t give homework and to my surprise they seemed... relieved! My kids know they have to be respectful and helpful in class and I’ve had teachers praising them for their cooperation; they sometimes ask my kids to help out classmates who are struggling. This is to say that rejecting homework does not mean rejecting school all together. My kids love school and love their teachers.

Secondly, when you say what’s wrong in having them sit at the table for X amount of time, I say yes, it’s wrong for several reasons. One: this could have been done at school. Most of us adults would find inconceivable to be asked after a whole day at the office to do more of the same at home. Two: they can learn differently than by sitting at their desk completing sheet after sheet of homework. I bought an inexpensive clock with Roman numbers for my son when he was 8 or 9 - he learned his Roman numbers by looking at it every day. Dd comes up with ideas from her science classes and I have a couple of cups with her science experiments in my fridge (in case nobody ate them haha).

Thirdly, homework can actually be harmful. Whether you support it or not, most parents and kids find homework a chore. It can make kids hate school and fight with parents.

Now my son is in secondary school and I’ve noticed other benefits to our no-homework rule: he still doesn’t like having homework, so he prefers to do it before or after school and usually doesn’t bring it home. He also doesn’t allow me to interfere or correct his homework, he prefers to manage it himself (not to my liking, but...) I’ve talked to his teachers who said he could improve his organizational skills, but they are generally pleased with him.
So no homework actually helped ds to learn responsibility.

I mean to say ds gets homework in secondary and manages it himself.