AIBU not to do school work over the holidays?

[Franklyfrost]

Dd’s friend (7) mentioned that her and her brother (10) do a couple of hours school work every day over the holidays. Is this normal?

YABU- your poor children’s brains will be all dusty by the start of term: school work in the holidays is normal
YANBU- only freaky overachievers get their kids to work in holiday time: get back to doing nothing

God, no. My mum was a teacher and she thought the idea of continuing with formal school work in the school holidays was hideous. The things we all do as part of daily life- word games and number games and drawing and reading and so on- they count as education as much as sitting down with a pen and paper and completing a worksheet or whatever, although sadly many people fail to recognise that. I can take ds3 round Asda and try and encourage him to read labels and count up how many of an item we have and how many more we would need if the recipe I am going to use later requires x and talk about how much things cost and where all the different food comes from and so on- no need to make formal school work a part of our day at all.

Nope, we did it during the term time And kept upto date with it, but some ‘optional’ work was set for the holidays.
There was no way I could keep up that level of nagging for optional work.

Mine do 30 mins Monday to Thursday, unless we have plans to be out. Last year ds1 did an hour as he did the 11 plus in September.

@SantaClaritaDiet

without going into your extremes, YABU

Everybody I know makes kid do some kind of summer school work. Like everything else, there's a healthy balance between doing absolutely nothing and forcing your kids to study 4 hours a day all through the summer

I’m also another one where literally no one I know does this. There are good reasons for having holidays.

DD had a summer project to do which was (Is) quite hefty, from school.

Think she has done most of it. It helped when the weather was bad.

Otherwise I've focussed here on her trying to tidy out her room in bad weather and recycling, so that things will be ready for next week thurs. That is if we get that far...

@unmarkedbythat

God, no. My mum was a teacher and she thought the idea of continuing with formal school work in the school holidays was hideous. The things we all do as part of daily life- word games and number games and drawing and reading and so on- they count as education as much as sitting down with a pen and paper and completing a worksheet or whatever, although sadly many people fail to recognise that. I can take ds3 round Asda and try and encourage him to read labels and count up how many of an item we have and how many more we would need if the recipe I am going to use later requires x and talk about how much things cost and where all the different food comes from and so on- no need to make formal school work a part of our day at all.

This!! Life can be education. Cooking can be education. Learning how to manage money can be education. Doing some gardening can be education. As a parent you can include 'education' in your kids day without it being formal. You also dont need to go in holiday. You can learn at home as much as anywhere else.

Although, as a parent myself, if you need 30 mins of peace and you manage to get them to do some reading or some handwriting, go for it! It just doesnt NEED to be done.

My son is 6 and we don't do formal school work in the holidays.

I always read to him at night (the faraway tree books currently) and we talk about the books. He reads things like magazines/his own books as and when.

We do lots of things like baking, going on walks, taking his scooter out, playing games etc. If I go to a shop and there is a self check out he absolutely loves scanning the items (he's very good at it!). I figure he learns from all of these things anyway.

As a teacher, I really do think it's important that children get a chance to relax during the holidays. We make school as fun and interesting as possible obviously but the demands of the curriculum at all levels are massive now and children do work very hard at school so downtime is vital.

Mine have to read every day and I chuck random times tables questions at them sporadically but that's it. ]

They've learnt some history and science from trips out but that wasn't the purpose of the trips. They've also learnt about tides / moon phase / gravity because the tide on he beach where we were on holiday.

That'll do for me.

I'm a primary teacher. My DCs and I all hate home school so we've done nothing!

If they were behind in any area I would make them do something but we just do the odd bit of reading as they're both exceeding age related expectations.

My 6 year old has Sen and is behind so we are redoing a lot of Y1 stuff in the holidays on the advice of his ta. We don't do it all day, just a few exercises and things. I wish we didn't have to but he needs a lot of repetition. I didn't do much with my older NT child, though he does a lot of music practice and stuff. In our school there is optional summer work set from Y2 upwards.

YANBU. We did no proper school work over the summer when DD was younger. She would choose to read for pleasure, and throughout primary we often read to her as well, or listened to audio books. The rest of the time she was playing, on day trips, doing baking, having a family holiday, etc. so just your 'every day learning as your go' rather than sit down english and maths.

I teach and still did nothing 'proper' over the holidays. Didn't really know anyone who did tbh either.

Just reading. Read at least once a day. But I don't present it as 'School work'. Its just fun.

Things we have done-
Playing Scrabble and Quirkle, adding the scores.
Searching for creatures in rock pools.
Grandad talking to them about farming and different crops on holiday in the fields.
Visiting a car museum and talking about how vehicles have changed and why.
Going to a lego exhibition and reading out how many bricks are in each model (eg 122,743. Place value).
They decided to write a journal each day of our holiday (UK).

I’m also another one where literally no one I know does this. There are good reasons for having holidays.

I am sure it's true.

But it's also true that all the formal "holiday homework" packs tend to sell extremely well, so someone must buy them - and probably leave them at the bottom of a cupboard all summer

Most of the teachers I know strongly encourage students (who CAN) to participate in foreign experience and use their holidays to increase their learning and experience!

Having a foreign holiday is very different to sitting down doing school work. I would just see that as 'every day learning when you are on a foreign holiday, in the same way that reading a book or pleasure is reading practise and baking some buns is a bit of maths. But its not school work.

As I said before, because I also teach, I know a lot of teachers with children of varying ages. The only ones who get their children to do any school work in the holidays we those who had children in the exam years. They are also the only ones I know who set children any holiday work too.

I would worry about a child with so little interest that they are content doing nothing or sticking in front of a screen for more than a month, but each to their own

Do you know many teens?!

Of course many can be content with sleeping in late and then relaxing all day without getting bored and resorting to school work through choice. Relaxing doesn't mean sat in front of a screen - being out and about with friends, cooking a meal, playing cards or a board game with a friend, having a mock round the shops or going out for lunch with a parent, visiting grandparents for a bit of time being spoilt, etc...

A couple of hours a day???

Fuck that.

We have been reading and doing the odd few pages of the workbooks I had already (bought before I realised the school provided more than enough for them during the time they were off) here and there.

We also do things like word searches and maths mysteries (7yo loves them and it does't feel like I am making him work)

Not sure if this counts but we've taught the 5yo how to play cards (Pontoon and Rummy)

We do, about 1h per day. a bit of tricky reading, some writing, sone maths. he’s going to be in year 3 in September.

@Aragog

I would worry about a child with so little interest that they are content doing nothing or sticking in front of a screen for more than a month, but each to their own

Do you know many teens?!

Of course many can be content with sleeping in late and then relaxing all day without getting bored and resorting to school work through choice. Relaxing doesn't mean sat in front of a screen - being out and about with friends, cooking a meal, playing cards or a board game with a friend, having a mock round the shops or going out for lunch with a parent, visiting grandparents for a bit of time being spoilt, etc...

I have got 2 here and their younger siblings!

Apart from being with friends, all the activities mentioned would bore them (and me!) to death! They seem to need to spend a lot more energy than being content pottering around. Again, each to their own.

I don't get this reference to "cooking" - don't people eat during the year? That's not a summer activity, that's just life...they have to cook during the year, not only in August, it's not a hotel here

We work during our holidays, it's normal.

I do work in my holidays but I teach, so it is part and parcel of the longer breaks. You spend some of it working.

DH doesn't really work in his holidays though. He lets himself check his emails once a day for approx 10 minutes to forward on anything that needs attention and delete the rubbish. That's it. His holidays are his time away from work.

Nope, and never done. DD reads every night before bed but I don’t count that as school work as she’s doing it for pleasure - not sure if I would have made her if she didn’t like it...

The cooking I refer to is more the baking when she was younger. We don't bake day to day, so baking buns and cakes was a treat for holidays or special occasions.

Due to time pressures elsewhere I do the normal day to day cooking during the week and we are normally (pre covid anyway) out eating at weekends or have visitors. I don't mean that type of cooking. DD likes to invite a group of mates over and they cook a big 3 course meal together, for example.

DD is 18y now but has always been very sociable. She loves spending time with her friends and her family. She'd much rather be out and about with friends or visiting family and having day trips to places than being stuck in the house doing school work.

So she'd do things like catch the train to visit my sister and nephew and enjoy some time with them, helping to entertain her young cousin - or visit my parents (also 2-3 hours away) and have a day out, a meal and stay with them for a day or two. She'll visit local attractions with her friends or o out for lunch.

I don't understand how you'd get bored with spending time doing a variety of things over a few weeks (normally only 4 as we have a family holiday for 2 of them) such as spending time with loved ones, reading, or watching a bit of TV, visiting different cities, going for a walk with mates, having meals out, going to the cinema, bowling, skating, etc.

Why do you do in your holidays, besides work, if not doing those kind of activities?

We compromised. Everyone was exhausted after the term of home-schooling (and frankly I needed to get some proper work done). So kids had four weeks off where the only thing they needed to do was half an hour reading of whatever they wanted. As we're easing back towards school again, we've added in a daily half an hour of maths. We're not very hard-core - if we have an outing planned or something more interesting comes up, then we skip the schoolwork for that day.

If children didn't do anything during lockdown, then I would be concerned if they haven't done anything for 6 months.

DS's school worked them hard during lockdown. He is going into Y11. He has assessments soon after they go back, so he is doing some revision, as following the shit show with exams this year, it is possible that these assessments may count towards grades if exams can't be held normally in the Summer.

At that age, no, although ome reading of appropriate books is a good idea.

If they are starting or in an exam year (yes I know) then yes, without question.