To think that teachers need to teach stuff and not me.

[caroline161]

DS has just started at Grammar school. Ridiculous amount and type of homework. For example: Learn about Archimedes principle, explain what you have found. AIBU to email the school and say, " I would appreciate it if you could teach him this instead of me and what the f are you doing all day which means that I have to teach him Archimedes principle"

Whilst I might have been teas about the bath, I remain convinced that science and maths are predominantly practical subjects and are best understood at younger ages through practical experience.
Get his old water toys out and a bowl of water in the bath. He can see Archimedes in real life rather than just read about it. Google will give him the words doing it makes it more fun and embeds understanding rather than simply knowing. The bigger the object the better as its easier to see the displacement.
Seriously bath time too. Get him to mark water level before he gets in and when he is in. Mark how much of him was submerged.Then do the calculations.

My ds’s first homework from a secondary modern school was exactly the same except the Fibonacci series, not Archimedes Principle. Sorry if that’s a disappointment to some! As I said, it’s “run and find out”

God, OP has had a really rough time on here! How rude some posters are.

OP, welcome to grammar. If it's anything liks dd's grammar, you will have years of lots of homework and expectations. There are positives too but it is a hard slog.

I guess the teacher wants to see what the dc make of the idea/what their knowledge is like before starting the topic. Google is your friend, as you know. It's good practice in independent research.

Hope your ds has managed to work it out and that he's not too stressed.

All of my dc went to grammar and there were plenty of times, especially in the first year, when I had to explain things and help them. They are clever children but they're not flipping geniuses that know absolutely everything.

It can take a while to settle into Secondary school and if he’s really struggling he needs to ask for help or you need to contact his form tutor. I think you misunderstand what teaching actually is though - we have a range of strategies to help students learn. Research will then be consolidated in class. Is he listening to all instructions in class carefully when homework is set? Does he have any relevant sheets etc? The problem is often lack of focus so then students claim they have no idea what they’re doing.

I feel some people have missed the point a little as to why the OP has had some harsh responses...her original AIBU was about emailing school to ask “what the f they are doing” not to ask for assistance with the homework her DS is struggling with.

From what I understand they do expect more independent learning at a grammar than they ever would at either a state or independent. More directed, less carried to put it crudely.

OP, I think you need to stop feeling the pressure. Try and ask your son to research, get it on paper and take it to school. Explaining the actual concept and finer details will be on the teacher. Your son is obviously bright or he wouldn't be in a Grammar school. Ignore the hate.

Letsgowalking
Well said.
She's ranting about how the school should actually teach him something instead of expecting her to teach him.
It wasn't a post seeking guidance on how to help a child who is finding homework difficult. It was a post ranting about the school because she doesn't like the homework set.

This is perfectly normal year 7 homework. It’s not super special grammar school homework!

@Letsgowalking but surely that would bring about responses along the lines of “you don’t want to be that parent.

Not the torrent of “maybe your child is too thick for grammar school” nastiness.

Actually I don't have a problem with this in secondary school. My youngest is at primary school though and we get a lot of this from the rubbish maths teacher - I do not want to teach maths, especially in a different language! We have complained but it tends to be ignored and the kids with parents who don't work and have the intelligence and time to teach are hugely advantaged. Those whose parents don't speak the local language very well and who get home late from work are bottom of the class unsurprisingly.

The grammar school here has less homework than the comp. The comp has an hour and a half selfquizzzing/maths/reading every single night and detention for equivalent time next day if not done.

Thetruth02
Much as I dislike those comments, they are making a valid point that this homework is not ridiculously difficult, is the sort of homework given in any secondary school so its fairly surprising that a child bright enough for grammar school has such an issue that it warrants their mother ranting like this about how she is doing the teaching.

Really the fact the child is at grammar school is irrelevant: school sets research homework = parent is annoyed and wants to rant about how they're doing more teaching than the school.

Wow you are very defensive and your op seems very confrontational perhaps if the volume of homework is too much you or your son could speak to the school/teacher and get some clarification on the task. Flip learning is a great tool to use with high achievers but it doesn’t work for everyone the teacher should adapt their teaching style to suit the needs of the students. Neither you or your son are ‘thick’ but I would try the approach of you catch more flies with honey than vinegar if you speak to the school. If you send your original message it won’t help. Just ask calmly for clarification on the tasks and for more guidance, I would be very shocked if they weren’t happy to help.

Are you sure his not just lazy? And half arsing it to get his dear mum to help him?

As someone said the Archimedes principle can be explain in a few simple sentences...

This kind of homework is completely normal, my son is in year 7 comp and has had several pieces in several subjects so far. The first 2 he struggled with but we sat down and researched on Google together discussing as went went along. He then presented the research in his own words. Since then he has got on and done it receiving excellent research remarks his books. Like other posters have said this is not new, we had research homework back in the 70s 80s and 90s and used library's. At least our kids have the advantage of online research.

He obviously deserves his place. If not he will be retested and asked to leave so those rude people saying he doesn’t deserve a place need to do one!

OP in the kindest way YOU don’t need to understand the homework. You need to understand how to help him. Let him get on with it and pop back to see how he’s getting on. He needs to read and re read and again re read until it clicks then ask him to explain to you and then get him to write that down. At this age you should not be sitting with him. If it’s all overwhelming maybe he does need to speak to his form tutor. Is there a homework club as then he may have benefit of teacher input?

OP, are you sure you're not looking too indepth at things here? Google can be good, but it can also be a nightmare if you're looking at the wrong things. We found this with my son. It's very easy to look at the detailed/specialist websites which are aimed at much higher levels, i.e. GCSE/A or even degree level. What you need are the "noddy" standard websites for year 7, i.e. simple almost "childish" you tube videos or the BBC bytesize websites at the correct age level. At that age, he needs just the most simple basics, i.e. what it is and what it does, not the why's and wherefore's.

A prime example, wikipedia says it's "In simple words, Archimedes' principle states that, when a body is partially or completely immersed in a fluid, it experiences an apparent loss in weight that is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the immersed part of the body." Really simple!!!

Yet a youtube search of "simple archimedes for kids" and there's a simple youtube video explaining "why ships float"!

The latter is what the teacher expects - i.e. the basics of what it's all about. The teacher will then be able to hit the ground running to teach the detail.

I was a high achiever at school, but always had a bit of a blind spot for the understanding of the concepts of physics for some reason,so would often taken 3 hours struggling with physics homework. So don't take any notice of the snotty comments about your lad's intelligence. Hopefully as Bert said, the teacher is just expecting basic knowledge of the bath/volume story, and will explain more fully in lesson time.

She's ranting about how the school should actually teach him something instead of expecting her to teach him.

Which the school will do. This type of homework is just for introduction, to set the scene, etc. They don't expect the child to teach itself the formulae, etc., but just to get the gist of what it's all about, i.e. why ship's float. Far better for the teacher to spend the lesson actually teaching the detail and complicated bits than the simple basics a quick google search would provide.

I work in an admin role in a grammar school.
There are plenty of Year 7 pupils that need help getting organised with homework and new ways of learning.
Every lunchtime there are staff sitting with pupils individually going through things with them that they are finding difficult.
They aren't looking for the kids to know everything and setting them up to prove they deserve their place in the school.
A chat with the head of year or form teacher would be fine if you think he needs a bit of guidance.
Parents are ringing all the time at this stage of the new term because they and the child are worrying about not getting things right or 'getting into trouble ' about homework. Your son won't be the only one!

If he's genuinely not understanding, that's one thing.

If he's not sure how to approach a task, that's another & more easily dealt with.

Is there any indication of how long the homework should take?

Looking into something before it's covered isn't an unusual thing to do.

@LolaSmiles No child is going to excel in every subject and we all have things we cannot wrap our head around no matter how intelligent. It sounds like this is his mental block (and the op’s).

He passed his 11+ and got in, so of course he is “clever enough”. Op I think changed her response fairly quickly when everyone mentioned flipped learning and how it’s a thing.