Do you agree with homework in Primary

[Toastiesforever]

I disagree with homework in primary school and quite frankly im amazed its still handed out and expected.

I have 3 DC in primary school and we have never done homework, my theory is that my children have enough education in school and as parents we should educate outside of school however we see fit.

For us this includes them reading books, Harry potter, Jacqueline Wilson, david Williams etc - we are lucky that my children love reading.

They will always participate in school talks/presentations and projects.

All my children are involved within the school Litter picking committees, School newspaper, music lessons within school.

And furthermore they are in competitive level sports outwith school which require substantial training hours.

Local days out like airshows, community days and city celebrations.

Ive noticed that most teachers my Dcs have had through the years really agree that homework is not required in primary yet we have this year we have came up against a teacher that says its required for my oldest DC.

I still said no, am i being unreasonable.

Idtyabu. I hate the homework. Ds is autistic and struggles at school as it is without extra work to do at home, it really distresses him.

It depends what the HW is.

Our school set reading and times tables as homework then have optional extras.

Asking a parent to listen to their child read 5x a week is perfectly fine. I have no objection to helping them learn their tables either as they're essential.

Anything else I tend not to so as we're too busy so we only do a couple of the extra tasks over the year.

We didn’t do it in primary school years - no time with being in after school club until 6/6.30

I disagree with homework at any level that isn’t revision for GCSEs or A Levels. Of course many jobs means taking work home but it’s certainly not something that needs to be taught to primary school age children.

Not all children's lives are equal. A good education system can balance things out. It pin points those children whose home lives are chaotic etc.

No i don't agree with homework in primary school.

Reading - yes. VERY important and there is sadly such a lack of parental engagement wrt reading with children.

Perhaps if there was no other work sent home more accompanied reading would get done? One task: read with your kid for just a few minutes a some point in the day.

I disagree with homework across primary and secondary schooling.

Define homework.

Reading books in reception when the daily practice helps cement the foundations?
Times table practice?
Worksheets?
"Art" projects which are more the parent work than child?
SATs revision books?

I would agree with some of those but not others...

I absolutely do, whilst we do our own learning I imagine many don't. It's also allows for much more structure in learning in lessons.

It's quite engaging here and rewards for homework. Eg. When learning spellings they either write them out and have a test later. Or if they're challenging G&T like my daughter she writes it into a sentence and gets extra prizes at the end of term for finding and using a new word similar to it.

It only takes max half an hour a day, and doesn't impact our home learning of reading at bed etc

I think YABU.

Like you say learning does extend into home life, and a gentle introduction into work being handed in through year 6 particularly is a good way of getting ready for high school.

Unfortunately not all children have the life and support you describe and need the direction of homework and to start experiencing the concepts of individual learning to come from school, not parents / carers.

It's really frustrating. My DS's (5) school has has the expectation that he reads 3x per week, which is fine, but they have limited this to only their books. They also set 2x worksheets and online tasks on the app. In the meantime, they're extending the school day by 20 minutes and on top of clubs, I'm not sure where we'll fit it all in!

Our daughter's primary school has just ditched the weekly homework requirement and simply ask that we focus on reading and spellings. I can't tell you how welcome this move has been. I totally disagree with homework at primary school, beyond reading.

My DCs primary has just ditched homework and moved the focus onto spellings, times tables and reading. Imnso pleased with this move. I HATE homework for primary aged kids.

So our Homework will include mostly:

Sums sheets, an A4 sheet with maybe 5 sections, each section has 15-20 different types of sums, a section will also include for example "claire has £4 and whats to buy 10 apples at 20p each, how much will she have left".

They will vary depending on what they are working on, money, times, fractions, etc.

A reading book that is normally pretty shit

And then spelling/words, so write out these 20 words 3 times, pick 5 of the words and write sentences for each.

Maybe once a quarter they will be asked to do a presentation or solo talk, we will always participate in these, my children will do 80% of the work with us always assisting.

I don’t agree with it. My dd is year 4 and has never had homework yet. My nephew just started year 1 and had homework this week to complete a full family tree including photos of each family member as a baby 😂I think his dad did it for him in the end.

You should definitely be supporting whatever the children are learning in school. Good homeworks is one way to do that. Finding resources of your own is another.

Appreciate the job your child's teacher is doing. If they care about learning, they will have a reason.

If you really know the homework is wrong for your child, find a substitute. Going to airshows will not help your struggling reader so I wouldn't sound off about that to a teacher.

I dont agree with any sort of homework apart from GSCE level revising.

Homework is not a magic bullet to replace parental engagement. A child who has had little or no parental encouragement in their learning is extremely unlikely to suddenly start completing homework independently. The kids whose parents value education, even if they do not support homework in primary years, will likely be the ones who do better from education.

Your point is invalid as my children are really excellent readers, so no we are not substituting airshows for reading 😂it was just providing examples of other aspects my children can learn.

I appreciate the jobs teachers do, infact im so thankful of the jobs they do because god knows i wouldnt know where to start when it came to teaching my Dcs how to read for example.

I'm on the fence about homework in primary school. I definitely don't think it should be excessive but if it was like a monthly task like 'make a drawing out of pasta and bring it in' or 'read a new book this month' then I don't think that's bad. My problem with a lot of is that it's excessive, when I think children should be playing etc.

I don't agree with primary school homework, especially projects that require large amounts of parental intervention. We had to research and bake a recipe recently as a homework item (admittedly this was from a choice of several options but was one of the easier ones which is why we chose it). We have had tearful, ruined evenings over homework at times too.

After school we go to the park or do afterschool activities then its dinner time / baths etc. There isn't much time left for them just to relax with homework added into the mix too.

I should have said I don't include reading in this, we try and promote reading as something to enjoy and a way to relax before bed rather than an item of homework.

Not for the early years but yes I do for years five and six. They will probably get homework in year seven and it's usually a substantial amount. It can be quite a shock to them if they've never done any homework before.

I have no problem with the homework examples you give - possibly the choice of reading book if an older and fluent reader but I am happy to support them to learn spellings, ensure they can use them in correct context and do a basic maths sheet. This is the only way I know what they are learning each day in school and a short amount of reinforcing at home helps me see if they have genuinely understood or are just getting by. It is all about balance though, I don't expect the sheets to take longer than 15 minutes

A very small amount of homework also instils some work ethic in the child for taking responsibility for their own work and I think by going against the teacher and saying your child will not complete it, you are setting entirely wrong example to them.

It is all well and good saying they should have no work until they hit public exams but how would they know what style of studying suits them or when to go about it if they have done nothing at home before this. I completely disagree with this.

(I absolutely despise the art/modelling projects which the parents end up doing most of and then another child inevitably gets a prize for something their Mum or Dad created.)

it's generally not the class teachers who decide about homework - it is usually a whole school policy, in which individual teachers will have no say.
There is very little evidence to show that primary school homework makes any difference to educational standards.

I think children should be focussing on reading, spellings and times tables at home - that is quite enough.