Fucking Primary School homework.

[YippeeKayakOtherBuckets]

Ds2 is 8, yr 3. His teacher is new this term, I’m not sure if he’s an nqt or just new to the school but he’s a keen bean.

DS is expected to do homework every evening. He needs to read for twenty minutes to an adult, do his fifteen spelling words and do twenty minutes of maths. So an hour an evening. There are also two spelling projects to complete every week, ie write them with your left hand, recite them on a tape recorder (?!), write them in squiggly letters.

I think it’s complete overkill. Not to mention we just don’t have the time. We both work FT so he’s in wraparound care most days, he also does Beavers and swimming, I have one child in college and one doing GCSEs so they also need support and it’s just all too much. I don’t want to spend what precious little downtime we all have doing (IMO) unnecessary homework. We do read together and do his spellings and maths but not every single night.

I’ve been collared this morning again to query why he hasn’t had his various diaries filled in every day to show he’s done it. I said well he hasn’t done it all. We are busy. It’s too much. The response was that I really need to make time to do it as otherwise he’ll be behind.

I kind of think if he needs that much extra work outside of school then something is going very wrong with the teaching...although I haven’t said that to the teacher.

WIBU to escalate this? I know I’m not the only parent feeling this way. Is it worth taking a stand?

I should add that DS loses playtime if we haven’t filled in his diary so obvs there’s a lot of pressure and guilt on us as parents and we do honestly try to fit it in but sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

Recognising when people are lying to you and when it is prudent to respond accordingly is very much about knowing the difference between right and wrong.

If the World and all those in it were moral then there would be no point to Christianity because we would all already be saved.

Glad your experience teaching in Rome, Paris and Madrid/Valencia gave you more hols than me. Great.

Each region varies so much, as you will know. I can only draw on my experience and am deeply sorry it stuck a nerve.

Guess what? When my DD comes home at 5pm, we'll go for a dip, then start the homework. Happy days.

howabout

Teaching your child to lie isn’t anything to do with teaching them when others might be lying. Anyway, I think we’re done there.

Lola

So (just wanting to make sure I get this right, seeing as I'm 'from the continent'):

School from 8 to 3 (?), clubs after that, and the DC and will return to the care of the parents somewhere around 17.45 (the mother later.)

But before that? the child will have gone to school and a number of clubs / activities. So the child will be constantly expected to perform, learn, study or participate... In fairly frequently changing locations and with various carers.(=>stressful?)

After that clearly fairly full day (corresponding to the work day of the parents! So basically a full day of 'work') the child is also expected to do the homework and play the piano??

I don't understand why when we have a system where most parents have to work and are expected to work, we are also 'raising standards' so kids have to do more and more homework. It's like we are expected to parent as though we are staying at home and work like we aren't. And then you end up with exhausted parents and kids taking extra sick days as a result of the burn out (and that's not acceptable either!) We are (in general) living longer. Why the obsession with cramming so much education into just a few short years then?

No no no, that's utterly absurd! Way to put a child off formal schooling. There need to be limits on the number of hours a child spends on formal education daily. DS1 went to a primary that was almost the other extreme - hardly ever set homework apart from weekly spellings (most terms) and when I asked if there was a specific 'no homework' policy, they looked blank and uncomprehending. I think they just couldn't be arsed (they had form for not being arsed on a number of things, frankly).

DS1 is now at secondary and isn't always doing an hour an evening of homework in year 7!

I think if this is a school-wide policy, you have two choices really - get together a group of parents, preferably including a parent governor or two, who also think this is batshit crazy, and get the policy changed. Or move your child. I would not, not for anything, put a child of that age through that sort of joylessness, particularly in your family circs where his time at home is more curtailed anyway.

Oh, the UK education system is a total clusterfuck - and all this pointless, time-devouring busywork for small children is pointless and time-devouring for teachers as well.
The trouble is that state education is now being run by moronic bullies, hence all the wanking over tests, grades, anacronistic and overpriced uniforms, etc. The amount of surveillance involved in modern education is party the cause of so many staff and pupils having MH problems - it is very bad for you to feel that you are constantly being watched. And the insistence that children be forced to obey, conform and spend much of their time doing singularly pointless, boring tasks (to prepare them for an adulthood of compliance and pointless effort) is not going to do anyone any good, either.

At some point, people seem to have forgotten what education is for. Its purpose is not to make you a more obedient serf, but to help you realise your full potential.

@Howabout - the point of religion is social control - keep the masses in their place by telling them there's a better time ahead of them when they die. One of the many reasons to resist Brexit is that leaving the EU and cosying up to the USA increases the risk of them bringing their appalling, toxic, fascist superstitions over here.

Move schools. My kids are in y6 ie. SATs year and get about 20 mins per WEEK.

At some point, people seem to have forgotten what education is for. Its purpose is not to make you a more obedient serf, but to help you realise your full potential.

Couldn’t agree more. How many children are going to fulfil their full potential with a measly ten minutes of reading a day?

This is an outstanding school with v good results by the way.

Couldn’t agree more. How many children are going to fulfil their full potential with a measly ten minutes of reading a day?

Possibly those children whose forte is not reading, or who would prefer to spend a couple of hours reading on Sat.

Even more cynical than me Reanimated although I am more sceptical about the benevolence of the EU and less concerned about the USA.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the State of English education policy atm but am happy to report that in this respect at least Scotland is and always has been an entirely Independent country.

Possibly those children whose forte is not reading, or who would prefer to spend a couple of hours reading on Sat.

Nobody fulfils their potential in something they aren’t good at by neglecting it. Reading isn’t something we can afford to say, “Ah well, not your forte” about. It’s integral to living a happy, fulfilled and informed life. If you’re not very good at it, the remedy is to do it more.

@PinkyU you do 1-2hrs of additional academic work every day?! Or did I misread that??

That's ridiculous. My DC's homework takes about 15 mins a week

cravingCheese
Not quite.

Typical primary school days are 9am-330pm (give or take some variation between schools)

After school clubs tend to be 3:30-4:30 (generally an hour after school)

Proper wraparound care would be a breakfast club before school (often opening any time from 7:30-8am til the start of school, depending on the provider) and after school wraparound often runs from the end of the day until 5:30/6pm depending on the provider. Wraparound care will also give them space to do their homework, a small snack etc. That's why it makes a difference between doing after school clubs Vs using wraparound care.

Clubs such as beavers etc are evening clubs separate from the school to childcare and are usually ran in church halls 6pm-7pm (again give or take)

What would be more typical for a primary child with parents working full time (in my circle at least):
Wraparound and school 8-5:30, with some optional clubs in, time to do homework in the wrap around along with playing.
Maybe 1 or 2 wider activites a week usually one night and one on a weekend morning e.g. beavers/brownies/football club/choir /gymnastics etc.

"the more you prioritise those things over traditional academics, the less traditional learning will take place."

All the evidence suggests that you have this exactly backwards. Why do you think private schools devote so much time to music, art and sport? Schools that put creative subjects at the heart of their curriculum see academic results shoot up. See for instance this school www.theguardian.com/education/2017/oct/03/school-results-music-bradford

We have noticed this with our DS. His maths skills have improved immeasurably since he started learning an instrument. Reading music and counting to a beat is an inherently mathematical activity, and it doesn't half improve concentration as well.

I despair at how blinkered the education delivered by many UK schools (reinforced by misguided parental atittudes like the one above) has become.

From an educational perspective, overinvesting work time gives lower and lower resturns, and stunts creativity. So the policy is bad from an educational pedagogical perspective.
From a family perspective, whether or not they think this is the "right amount" of homework to set, it's completely unreasonable to expect it to be done on a daily schedule. Things like projects where you have a few weeks to do them make much more sense.
From a societal perspective, this is more than extremely discriminatory. It seeks to widen the ability and performance gap between well-supported middle-class kids, and those children who have less support at home, free school meal candidates and looked-after children in particular. I would raise these points with the school and, if nothing changes, talk to a small local news outlet with the discriminatory point as key, bringing in two or three other parents from different backgrounds.

I should say that we prioritise music practice over homework, practically always! Learning spellings they'll forget straight after the test vs learning to play a new piece? No contest in terms of what gets more bang for buck educationally (as well as being more fun!).

And I think people are forgetting that reading and academic study are essential to their children not becoming robots and serfs. I hear so many people saying their child is a fluent reader so they no longer have to bother (essentially), and that their child ‘prefers’ ‘critical thinking’ and ‘being creative’. And I want to scream. I want to ask them whether their child has read and understood (and rejected?) More, Locke, Adam Smith, Hegel, Marx, Kant, Wollestonecraft. Because to my mind, until you are fully conversant with political philosophy, you haven’t finished learning to the extent that ten minutes a day is enough. I know I haven’t.

All the evidence suggests that you have this exactly backwards. Why do you think private schools devote so much time to music, art and sport? Schools that put creative subjects at the heart of their curriculum see academic results shoot up.

Those children are doing both. They aren’t neglecting their prep for music.

One solution is just to fill in his homework diary whether or not you have had time to actually do it.

It's not a fight I would pick unless several parents are prepared to make a stand.

To those discussing homework in Europe as elsewhere it depends on the school. My kids have both been at European schools since they were small, and at no point before lycée (sixth form) did they ever routinely have as much as an hour of homework a night.

We have noticed this with our DS. His maths skills have improved immeasurably since he started learning an instrument. Reading music and counting to a beat is an inherently mathematical activity, and it doesn't half improve concentration as well.
I agree but often those private schools do both academics and a really good broad set of enrichment.
Their approach to academic subjects is often much more academic than state school.

The private school near me I would love my children to be educated at. They really open time in the day for music and games and forest school in primary years, but their curriculum for academic subjects is much more rigourous overall as well.

@churchandstate

. I want to ask them whether their child has read and understood (and rejected?) More, Locke, Adam Smith, Hegel, Marx, Kant, Wollestonecraft. Because to my mind, until you are fully conversant with political philosophy, you haven’t finished learning to the extent that ten minutes a day is enough. I know I haven’t."
Ok, this just makes you sound a bit batshit, I'm afraid

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/oct/03/school-results-music-bradford