How much homework does your child have at this age?

[ChuckGarabedian]

Just curious if my son has a ‘typical’ amount of homework for his age.
He is almost 5 so started Primary 1 in September (we’re in NI).
His class is set homework every night Monday-Thursday but none at weekends thankfully. It’ll normally be writing practice for a specific letter on a little Jolly Phonics sheet, a separate written maths exercise practicing a number, and a book to ‘read’ (one of the ones with just pics where the child describes what’s going on in each scene). As it’s a Catholic primary school there is ongoing practice of certain prayers as well.
He’s had this amount of homework pretty much since the second week of term. By contrast, I was talking to my younger child’s childminder and she said her little girl (same age as my son, different school) has only just started getting homeworks before half term, and it’ll usually be just one of the above type tasks a night, either reading, writing or maths.

Interested to hear if my son’s school has more than the usual amount of homework for that age, or does that sound pretty standard?

Ds was at a Catholic primary & at 5 only had his reading to do every night, he didn't start getting writing or maths until he was in Y3 & then it was only once a week, it only increased to more than that when he went in to Y6 & was preparing for SATS.

Dd is moving schools but currently they get a lot of Maths and English to do and they only have two days to do it. This has been since a Year 2, it takes us usually about an hour and a half on a Sunday evening. Annoying when all they seemed to do in class was craft!

My YR1 child gets spelling which we do everyday as have spelling test every Thursdays. Bring a book to read every week and we have to record and make comments. Maths and English on seesaw every Friday to be done by Wednesday. During lockdown, whilst home schooling, we had a huge amount of work to do and he was only in reception then.

DS is at a Catholic Primary and in Y1. Sounds very similar to his homework experience last year. Reading and a jolly phonics letter to do each evening. He also had a weekly homework task, but these were often more fun- go on an autumn walk and collect signs of autumn, draw a picture of something you are thankful for etc.
DS goes to after school club every day, so it was often quite hard to fit it all in. It seems to have calmed down this year. Two reading books a week and spellings to practice.

I wouldn't expect homework in reception (he would be reception where I teach) except for reading but having said that, some little sheets to practice writing letters and numbers would be ok.

My concerns would be a) how long does it take him each day and b) is this the thin end ofgl the wedge? Will they be doing full on worksheets by Easter? If it takes longer than 10 mins I would treat it as optional.

Thanks for your replies everyone. Yes @MyOtherProfile that’s partly the issue as there are nights that this can all take a while to complete, although that’s partly DS getting distracted/frustrated. He’s very happy at his little school btw, so I’m not bashing them, but hope the amount of homework he gets stays steady rather than increases year by year.

We do give to one of the local foodbanks via the Morrisons online checkout though bizarrely recently that wasn't an option (before the supply chain issue), but I wanted to say thank you to the other practical ideas people have shared, I'm now aware of several other options to try to help spread what little we can give.

I'm not a fan of the proselytising approach either, religious conversion attempts should be kept out of it, this shouldn't be about God points but about charity in the most genuine sense. I could go on about how astonishingly judgemental many so called Christians can be but I'll just shut up on that topic now.

I did have to laugh at the "let them eat apples" bit though, would bread and water be acceptable or is that too much of a luxury?! Since our local MP belongs to the party whose supporters and decisions have made food banks such a necessity, I also have real issues with Tory MP poverty porn, but experience has taught me there's no point trying to explain that to them.

Thanks again to those who've mentioned the Ocado scheme and others and the various non food banks too.

I am a TA in a mixed Year 1 and 2 class.

The reception children (the same age as your son) are asked to read each night. Nothing extra at all.
In my class we still ask them to read each night. And we also do spellings. Each week they have six words to learn which use a phonics rule, so if we are looking at ‘ai’ in phonics at school then the words to learn will be rain, maid, main, train etc etc. They have a test each week. We use it not so much to tell who can spell the individual words but to reinforce the phonic pattern. With the reading, we emphasise that they don’t have to read loads, or finish a book. Even a page would be good.

In Year 3 they start getting homework. As well as spellings and reading, they get one piece of homework each week - might be some maths questions or to write a diary entry.

When my dc were in reception they had three books week to read and a 'homework menu ' that we could two things per half term to complete. We never did any (some did everything)and nothing was ever said. They've since abandoned the menu thing. Year 1 was just reading too, my year 2 and 3 dc have a book everyday and 10 spellings a week. Do you think your dc actually gets anything out of the honework?

Ds1 is 5 and started p1 in august. From the second week we get 3 or 4 sounds/letters to practice writing and saying. We've also got a 'pairs' game with the letters to play occasionally.
We get no maths homework and ds loves maths so we do a bit ourselves just for fun.

When DS 10 was in reception, it was reading every night and all other homework that you describe once a week.

DD is the same age, started reception in September. We’ve just had the first homework set before the half-term (one sheet practicing her name and another with a phonics task on). Halfway through the half-term they started sending her reading book home which they change every week. But that’s it. Your sons seems like an awful lot for a child that age, DD just needs some time to chill out and play after school not to be doing more work.

Reception is reading - number of books given a week increase through the year. Year 1, so age 5-6, is reading and spellings.

Sounds very similar to what dd had last year (first year of primary) in Ireland. Towards the end of the year a little bundle of words were added for reading sight words.

We give out booklets with the sounds that children have learnt so that they can be reinforced at home. Research shows that one of the key factors in solid early reading is a good sound to letter recall. Once they have a good grasp of a decent number of sounds and letters we start to send decodable books home.

Can I rant for a second?? As a primary teacher and specialist reading and phonics teacher, I despair at teachers giving out books with no words. All it does is encourage children to look at the picture and guess rather than decoding. It’s such bad practice and one which the new reading framework states shouldn’t be happening any more. All books should be fully decodable with no scope for having to guess. Ok rant over!!

That’s interesting you should say that @ScarletLake. I did wonder about the value of the picture only books but as he’s my eldest I wasn’t sure if it was the norm now. It’s 30 years since I was in DS’s position but I do seem to remember little basic sentences in the school story books I had - ‘This is Spot’. ‘See Spot run’ etc. Very early 90s 😅

@InDubiousBattle with regards to what he gets out of it, he does seem to have come on very quickly in terms of pencil control, writing his first name etc. Wonder could the same be achieved by a couple of nights homework instead of 4 though.

Ooops, wrong thread! I am so sorry.

Definitely disagree about the wordless reading books being useless (eyfs and ks1 teacher). Reading isn't JUST about decoding, there are many other skills and techniques involved and if you want children to be real readers and not just decoding machines they should also be accessing picture books. Please keep reading them - if pictures were pointless there wouldn't be illustrations in any children's books.

I think we’re talking at cross purposes Maymaymay.

I completely agree with you - of course children should be accessing books for talk and comprehension. Quality illustrations and stories in picture books are ESSENTIAL so that children get used to talking about texts and gaining a love of stories.

I’m talking about children being given wordless reading books where the illustrations are pretty dire and not much is happening to talk about. The child is being encouraged to look at the picture, not for any discussion or comprehension purpose, but so that the picture is a cue for the word for when they begin to read (a la Biff and Chip ‘it is an elephant at a circus’ - where they are clearly using the image of a circus and elephant to help the child to guess as the only sounds the child has learnt are satpin).

Children need quality discussions and quality picture books not wordless Oxford Reading Tree books. The ideal at school (and recommended in the new DfE Reading Framework) is to send home decodable texts and a quality picture book. If we are sending home wordless books it has to be a quality text not some crummy reading scheme book!!

@Gilmoregale wrong thread perhaps? 😆

@MyOtherProfile Indeed - I could have sworn I clicked on the right link!!!