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?

God this thread is really depressing. So glad my kids are at a school where homework is voluntary and minimal (yet also ofsted outstanding) I'd much rather they enjoyed school than worried it was a place where they were punished!

Children f this age need time outside for their physical and mental well being. It is unhealthy for them to be inside not moving all day. My child wouldn't be kept in under any circumstances.

Also 6 and 7 year olds don't nee homework. It's stupid. Their at school long enough at their age, they need time at home to play with their siblings and build lego, not learn spelling or timestables. Personally I'd not send my DC to a school like this.

Correcting behaviour should never be at the expense of an activity which the child needs to do.

You wouldn't say - you haven't done your homework, so you are not allowed to do any reading at school today.
Physical activity is a need of children at this age.

I'll try one last time to explain how a young child's body works.

The brain cannot sustain long periods of fine motor skill work, eg writing, the brain is designed to work best when it has periods of large motor skills interspersed with periods of fine motor skill. The body and brain work best together if a child does some large motor skill work first, and then fine motor skill.
so -
sitting doing maths (fine motor skills with pencil)
running round playgournd (large motor skills)
sitting writing in phonics lesson (fine motor skills)

This timetable WORKS because of the alternating fine/large motor skills. The writing produced by the child in phonics, will be focussed and to the best of their ability. The use of large motor skills releases chemicals which enable the concentration and focus when using fine motor skills, and actually enable better pencil control.

On the other hand:

maths (fine)
sitting in a break doing homework (fine skills)
phonics (fine)

means that the body does NOT release those chemicals, and the child is LESS able to concentrate, and LESS able to focus and their physical ability to produce fine motor work (ie writing) is REDUCED.

There are countries out there with higher performing kids both academically and emotionally that do not insist that kids start school before 7 and do not insist on ridiculous amounts of homework and recognise the importance of play in improving academic performance and emotional stability - we really should be looking to copy their ways, not the ways of hot housing nations where creativity is stifled and suicide high.

ucant 100% agreed. I live in Korea and the way that any ambition or creativity is knocked out of the kids is depressing.

They may get high exam scores but they can’t actually apply that knowledge. They can ace an English reading exam, but ask them a simple question like ‘where do you live?’ and 90% of them can’t answer. They learn huge amounts of stuff by rote but it’s all gone the day after the exam.

The high school kids function on two or three hours of sleep regularly. It is fucking stupid. But hey, they get high PISA scores so yay!

Okay so a if a child does not do homework, what consequences should be enforced?

@fullofjellybeans

If a child doesn't deserve a break, they don't get one.

Why should any consequences need to be enforced for 6 and 7 year olds not doing homework?

@mostdays

If they are given homework, they should do it. If a child doesn't do as they are told it usually means a punishment of some type.

So it's not what they have not done that matters, simply the fact that they have not done it? I think education should be about an awful lot more than teaching blind obedience!

Why should they do it? What benefit is it to them? Why is it more important than physical activity?

This thread is disheartening.

I can't be arsed to go into it all but I've done a large amount of research into play based curriculums and technology on attainment and everything you are saying on this thread is incorrect.

Homework is not beneficial at primary age. Play is. Technology is.

Also, the Foundation Phase curriculum in Wales, which is entirely play based, goes up to the end of year two because we follow leading countries such as Finland. Children in England do formal learning too early.

It isn't about physical activity. Do the work they get playtime. The children will think what's the point in me doing it if he/she doesn't have to.

If a child doesn't deserve a break, they don't get one.

You do remember being 6, don't you?

I'm sure telling my Y1 child that he can't have a break to burn off all that pent up energy and improve his coordination/balance/social skills would really improve his attitude to school and learning .

Then you wonder why some children (boys in particular) just switch off and decide school is stupid, they hate it, they aren't clever... Just like my nephew whose school is like this. Their last OFSTED panned them for not engaging boys in particular with learning and not encouraging development of social skills and healthy exercise habits. My nephew has ADHD and is a bright boy, but is at age 9 convinced he is 'stupid' and cannot wait to be old enough to leave school. I fear that when he reaches secondary it will be far too late and he'll just start bunking off and getting excluded.

I assume that's alright though, because he 'deserves it'

My own Y1 child gets very little time to just play after school, as once we get home and eat it is usually gone 6. His bedtime is 7pm - he can't stay awake any longer and can't focus at school if he's up any later. I have to really make a big effort to cram in the reading and homework as it is. And he isn't on an ipad or xbox ffs! Those who have parents who work later or just can't be bothered to do homework shouldn't have to suffer falling behind in other vital skills too!

I'm so cross with that comment I could weep for the poor children subjected to it. And I am a qualified teacher so do have some clue what I'm talking about I hope.

If a child doesn't deserve a break, they don't get one.

and if they don't get a break they PHYSICALLY CANNOT learn as well after playtime.

These children are 6 not 16. If you don't create the right context for working then you are setting them up to fail.

The distance between last nights homework and todays breaktime s too long for most at 6. The punishment is too distant and anyway at 6/7 it is the PARENT who controls homework, not the child. Poor kid, mum didn't have time, so kid loses play.

Honestly sometimes I read mn threads and I despair at the parenting going on in our country. We have forgotten all the good practice that we used to do as standard. Icantcopeanymore is right. We should have more play and less homework.
Every single homework study ever done has shown that homework at primary school doesn't work, apart from reading.

But what is the point in doing it?

@stepmun

Last week a girl who is very capable wrote only one line (ONE LINE). She stayed in to do the work during her hr lunchbreak, I'm sorry if you disagree but to me that seems fair.

@mostdays

Any extra work they do is beneficial long term.

Linzey we already know that if they're primary age it is not beneficial. Neither in the short, nor in the long term.

It's literally punishing them for nothing.

So I have what would be a year 2 child most nights she is heading up to bed at 7 in the uk most moms work so lots of kids would get home from primary school around 16:30-17:00 so in that time I would have to fit in her homework, dinner, sort out the older sibling’s homework who has learning disorders (ADHD and other problems), bathtime, school reading and bedtime reading. Also my 6/7 year old would like time to relax and play.

Sometimes my 6/7 year old child is just too tired and one line is all you would get out of her. Surely it is my decision to decide enough is enough, to be in charge in my own home and for my child to not have to worry that she will be punished at school for something that is not her decision.

@Linzeyhun, that to me suggests that the girl perhaps had something else going on in her head that day. Maybe she wasn't feeling very well. Maybe there is trouble of some sort at home and she was distracted. I used to help in my son's class and I remember that the capable children who generally worked hard were consistent about that. I'd have been concerned about her rather than punitive in your shoes.

I vividly remember being a small child at school, actually. I started school just after my fifth birthday. I was one of the very youngest in the class at an academically selective school which I'd got into by mistake (long story!). I couldn't read. My mother was a primary school teacher and had made the conscious decision not to teach me because she thought it might be confusing for me if my teacher used a different method. She'd talked and read to me a lot, I knew my colours, numbers and so on, but I couldn't read.

Everyone else in the class could read, or so it seemed to me. My teacher was very clearly extremely irritated to find that she had a new child who couldn't read and couldn't keep up. I remember sitting in class wondering what I was supposed to be doing and how it was that everybody else seemed to understand. One day as I came in I knocked something over and she made a dismissive remark to another teacher about me, which I heard and which cut me to the quick.

Fortunately for me - very, very fortunately - we moved house at the end of my first term. I went to a bog standard local school after that. By the summer I was reading and writing so fluently that I wrote and illustrated a little book, which I still have. At the risk of sounding very bigheaded, I was a clever, bookish child who went on to do very well academically all the rest of my time in education. That first teacher didn't see that in me, she just saw a nuisance who didn't fit the template she had for her pupils. If I'd been in that environment for longer it would have damaged me.

One of the things teachers need more than anything, it seems to me, is kindness and empathy for children. They should like children. I'm not getting any sense from your posts that you like children. That's sad.

Mine didn't have homework until Yr 4. Then it was minimal and they quite enjoyed doing it. I never got involved and never packed a book bag. If they forgot it it was their problem - yes even at 9.

There's quite a lot of hand wringing on this thread. They can have a life and do spellings!

It is only a missed playtime at the end of the day. They will learn to do their work.

Teachers very rarely get a break at all.

I don't agree with homework for children so young apart from reading and spellings. However, I have always shown my 2 DS that I do support it and have made them do it. Every night I got them into the habit of checking if they had homework and doing it themselves. If you don't i think you'll make a rod for your own back later when they should be doing it - and you'll have to chase them constantly rather than doing it themselves without dissent.