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.

To be honest, I have a bigger issue with GCSE and A level exams than I do with homework in primary. Exams are truly a waste of time, it'd be better to grade children based on their work throughout the years rather than how well they can answer questions under intense time pressure.

Anyway, with regards to homework in primary - I guess it's partly to teach children how to work at home for when they need to in secondary school. I don't mind it as long as it's revision of things they've already more or less mastered in class so they can do it more or less on their own.

No school should really set homework, except perhaps at ‘A’ level. It’s not necessary. The school should be able to teach what’s required in the classroom. If they can’t do that, that’s a failure by the school.

Children’s general education and public exams - certainly pre-‘A’level - just don’t need research and extra learning. Covering books and finding some pictures occasionally, maybe. The rest, no.

So not 'your rules' then, just a little chat.

You think rules have to be produced in a certain way? My kids have lots of rules. They are almost all communicated through little chats.

Just admit that what you said initially isn't 100% correct and we can all move on.

I do not think there should be homework in the traditional sense of do this at home and it will be marked. I do think however that teachers should speak to parents of children who are performing below the expected level in subjects. Teacher can then ask the parent if they want to be given additional worksheets to do with their child at home. The parent can then decide if they wish to try and bring their child up to the expected standard or decline.

I don't have an issue with homework, they don't have enough time in school to get through sufficient material and practice. Other countries have far more homework and extra lessons than British kids and they do better in world rankings.

My dd hated me sending her to Saturday school at the time but she's pleased now we did so because she learned to cope with her dyslexia

Remember not all parents know how to support their kid's learning without homework. I homeschooled at one point and I knew exactly how to enhance their learning skills but my kids have two educated parents capable of teaching, not everyone does

I think that homework as an older child in Primary is perfectly reasonable, it will gently prepare them for high school where they will undoubtedly get lots of work to do at home.

some people work better after having some time for information to sink in so I think it’s good they go home, reflect on what they have learnt and check they understood it. If they didn’t it’s a good flag for the school to see what the kids a tree struggling with… it might be a while class doesn’t understand something so they might rethink their approach to how they teach that lesson.

I also YABU to undermine the things the school ask of you. In the long term it makes education more difficult for the child because the parents and school spend the whole time at odds… how can you expect them to listen to their teacher when you have already implied the teacher is wrong?

I also think that in general being rewarded for “achieving” is outdated and if the only reason they do homework is to tell them how many they got right/wrong then it’s counterproductive. They have to use that information to then support further learning.

my child’s school don’t reward children for getting questions right - they get points for meeting the schools core values instead eg. “You have shown a positive community attitude when you helped your friend tidy up” which I think is a much better way to do it.

I abhor hw. My kids have left home and gone to university.

At primary I can get behind spellings, reading and completing maths worksheets.

But I regret all the time we spent in junior school on stupid projects and research which were completely beyond their ability. I did the homework. I even told the headmaster that I was being rewarded for the top grades, not my children. I do not see the value in these kind of projects which cause busy families great stress.

But having said that, School can’t win. I have stood behind parents at parents’ evening, grilling the teacher as to why they didn’t give the kids more homework. I could strangle those parents. Until they are 14, I see no benefit from homework. And that is from us as a very academic family whose children were so inclined.

But one reason for doing the set homework is if you have rule-abiding kids. Not completing the homework might make them more stressed and I would not want that.

Agree that hw is needed at A Levels.

During my kids’ A Levels, esp Maths and further Maths, they whizzed through topics so quickly at school that some time at home practising the new concepts was time well-spent.

Also teaching them how to write well- constructed essays.

I don’t disagree with well-designed homework at A Level stage. It was much-needed really. But not at junior school level.

The homework at GCSE was geared to ‘how to pass this exam with maximum scores’. Depressing really but it served its purpose.

Have you seen the secondary curriculum? And the primary one too for that matter?!!

There's barely time to cover the absolute basics of what's required let alone revisit or embed anything useful.

The entire National Curriculum is based mostly on regurgitation of facts and info. Not genuine, meaningful learning.

No wonder the poor kids have to do homework & revise so much. They have a lot of info to cram into their heads!!! Especially at GCSE.

(For what it's worth, I agree. Homework is something I can take or leave but if we sacked it off, parents would complain!!)

It’s early in the year. When the teacher sees how your child is excelling in all
areas, in top sets for everything, actively involved in extracurricular school life, with a rich and varied programme of activities at home with supportive parents, she will probably ease off a little.

I don’t know if you’re bored, have difficulty with thinking flexibly or just spent too much time on homework as a kid to read widely and develop your reading comprehension to include contextual clues, but my first post was clearly a parody of the poster I was responding to.

The rest of it was you apparently thinking that my not sending a contract to the school (see, that is hyperbole, another device that communicates “tone” - information that isn’t just contained within the dictionary definitions of the words) before I put them on my application form was some sort of “gotcha”.

All I was pointing out was that school’s aren’t absolute authorities.

Another naive one! If all parents thought in this simple way then a school with 500 pupils would be operating 500 different sets of rules! The school sets the rules, if you don't like them then find another school rather than setting such a poor example for your child, telling them they can pick and mix their way through life,

I found it a shock going from having nothing apart from spellings and the occasional project to an hour a night at secondary, so I'm in favour of it in Year 6

As I’ve just pointed out to another rigid thinking poster - the comment is clearly a parody of the post I was responding to.

But actually, no. the school would not need to operate a different set of rules for each child. If their rules were not overly restrictive and parents’ rules weren’t overly restrictive, then most wouldn’t clash at all and lots of different rules could live in harmony.

I disagree. I think homework is a useful tool to help children engage, parents to be aware of what they are learning and fill in or support any gaps in their learning If my kid is struggling with a concept I'd rather know at the time than the end of the year. As a result I think homework should be based on what they are learning or have learnt that week rather than a completely new concept.

It's so much easier for us to get them reading fluently and quickly if they do words and read the books sent home at home. You can really see the difference in those who are read with and those who aren't.

We send home words, two books and a page of maths a week, in Primary 2. No art projects etc here.

My dd is year 3. We are asked to do reading for 15 mins a day and TT rock stars (tiles tables). We also get discussion points where you chat to your child about what they have learned but they don't have to write anything. Frankly that's enough, our school don't believe there are any benefits to more structure led homework and would rather the kids were involved in extra curricular activities etc.

Reading yes. Times tables and spellings, sure. Other than that, I don't think they should do any more homework until year 6.

I agree with age appropriate homework. Reinforcing what they've learnt in school with a worksheet or such won't impact extracurricular activities. It's good preparation for independent study. If anything, I don't think primary schools prepare children sufficiently for secondary, the gap in expectations is too large.

The problem with comments being parodies is that there are so many ludicrous ideas on MN that it's often hard to identity the parodies!

Well, this is it really. If you don't have a clue, you're not supporting. I agree that you can get away with a lot if you're reading to them and it also sounds like you're lucky enough to have children who are not particularly in need of extra support. My point wasn't invalid because it's not just about you. You're speaking about the value of homework in general terms and my comments are not directly relating to your children but to learners more generally.

There may come a time when you need to attend the parent's evening designed to give you a clue what they're doing and how to support them. To be honest, it's just luck that this attitude doesn't seem to have affected your kids - it could have affected them. It's great to learn outside the classroom but it won't necessarily support their learning inside the classroom unless you're covering the bases.