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.

I agree.

I think it is inconsistent with how most adults have to run their lives, but I think that’s because we don’t have a system/society set up in the right way- people shouldn’t have to work so much they can’t do anything else (or very very little else), and have to rush about and be stressed all the time.

not even spellings? When do you think they should learn those? In primary school class? Do you think the children that can already spell the words should sit there in class doing nothing, waiting for the ones who can't spell them to learn them?

GCSEs is too late to be learning to spell!

Seondary SMT here - 16 years
I despise homework and no child should have to have it - primary or secondary
If we had a more forward thinking curriculum which was built around electives, skill building and different forms of assessment (timed exams are the worst) then there would be no need for homework. UNfortunately, universities are not ready to change their admissions programme to accomodate this.

I have no problem with reading, times tables and spelling practice at home but additional homework at primary age is excessive. Looking at what my children have had to do over the years for homework it often appears to be homework for homework’s sake rather than anything expanding or developing their knowledge or ability. It is NEVER marked either so no way for the children to know where they can improve.

Erm, differentiation is a normal part of primary lessons- there will always be variations in ability and achievement. Giving homework doesn’t realistically change this because half the class won’t do it for whatever reason and several will do it and have additional needs etc so you still have to differentiate.

Is homework the only way to learn to spell anyway?

It's a good question. I think the demand is often a step change higher at private schools and it's the reason I don't think my autistic child would cope there. I was looking quite seriously at one who told me they absolutely understood anxiety and were full of students who were too anxious to cope in mainstream state school, yet they had an expectation that prep would be set one day and due in the next. My child had no chance of meeting that - some nights he could hardly manage to eat and brush his teeth. But at the same time, I know that private school can work really well for other autistic and anxious kids.

Parents fall on a spectrum of how much work they expect/support and I think private school parents will, on the whole, both expect and support more. By "support" I mean "be in favour of it being set" rather than necessarily "sit with them and help them". Having been through public school myself and been pretty broken by it, maybe I was more wary of its demands than most.

Schools all have their own cultures though. My children are at different comps with very different homework expectations.

As someone who has both been educated in and had kids educated in both the state and private sectors there's definitely more comfort in the private sector around the general idea that homework is set and done.

My DD moved from a state primary where there was no homework beyond a weekly spelling test after year 3 (inexplicably) to a private secondary where they were expected to do an hour per night from year 7.

There was a very marked demarcation between the kids who had come from the "prep" schools and those from the state sector, for whom it was a bit of a shock. It's more or less evened out now (year 8) but the kids who had been through the independent sector were definitely more used to the idea that they had homework and had a head start.

Whether or not that's a good thing will depend on your perspective on homework and as is clear here a lot of people come from the starting point that homework is something which should be minimised and avoided as far as possible. I personally don't agree with this but I can understand the anxiety about overdoing it and not wanting kids to be drowning in it.

But when so much noise is made about the importance of narrowing the gap between the state and private sectors it seems an own goal not to encourage year 6 kids in the state sector at the very least to get used to the discipline of doing a bit of token homework. Acknowledging that teachers in the state sector have horrendous resourcing and workload problems and much bigger set a little homework for year 6.

Secondary Teacher here - primary homework with the exception of reading, spellings and times tables (knowing them really supports a lot of maths topics) is pointless!

If I'm honest so is a lot of it at Secondary, it foes build good habits though.

Schools stuck with it as they get parental complaints if they don't issue it! Classic can't please everyone!

@Noodledoodledoo what good habits do you think it builds?

I feel like it feeds the attitude that people ‘should’ be ‘working’ from dawn til dusk, which leads to so many people doing hours of unpaid labour for their employers and negatively affects their life. Especially when the homework is just busy work for the sake of ‘doing work’.

Not that I think that’s purely down to homework obviously, but I do think that in high school it would build better habits for the future for the children to know for example, how much coursework they need to hand in by X date and to be encouraged to manage the workload themselves rather than being told to do an hour a night or whatever.

Quite a few pp have said something like 'maybe a bit in year 6 to get them ready for secondary' and so on. But surely it's better to have a gradual increase than a sort of cliff edge?

Often to me it seems like complaints about homework are less about genuinely feeling that it is in some way detrimental to the child and more about parents who cba supervising it. It's not a big time commitment in primary. If lone parents with several kids and a full time job can do it, anyone can.

From dawn til dusk seems like a stretch. Surely no primary school asks for more than 20 mins per night?

And what you suggest for secondary is already don pretty routinely.

Yes there is typically differentiation in maths in lessons.

But spellings? I'm not sure that these are typically differentiated at school.

In England there is a list of words that all pupils are expected to know to spell by the end of year 6. They might be run through in class, but then the pupils are typically expected, as homework, to check they know them. Some will know them, others will need to work harder to learn them. This is usually done at home. It's an easy piece of homework and theoretically it doesn't require any adult assistance (although obviously it helps).

Seconded.

We don’t receive homework, so I set it myself and I’m convinced this is why there has been significant improvement in attainment levels.

I didn’t mean kids do schoolwork from dawn til dusk, I meant adults get up early and do xyz home/family labour, then do a full days paid work, then get home and do xyz unpaid labour for their workplace then do xyz home/family labour. It’s normal for mums at least to find they don’t sit down til 9:30pm or so everyday (you see it on here all the time!).

Is that what is done in secondary? In my experience it’s more like do xyz task by Monday, do a draft by Tuesday etc- very little in the way of deadlines for coursework submission is x date in May- here’s what you need to do, get on with it. Obviously the younger the student the more help and checking in is needed, but I don’t think gcse/a level students need to be micromanaged to that extent.

A large part of why the first year of many degrees doesn’t count towards the final grade is because a level students are taught so few self study skills and don’t know how to manage their time, when to ask for support, and how to motivate themselves.

What happens if they haven’t learned them?

Going to be a bit of a shock doing none in primary and then getting homework in secondary. I don't see an issue with some spelling etc. Aren't you teaching your kids that they can ignore teachers and can do what they like. Rules don't apply to them etc.

If you don't have time for homework, then cut back on the sports. You have your priorities all skewed

We didn’t cut back on sports and music in primary years - important to learn the basics then. For DT’s homework started at senior school with a mandatory homework club. Worked well with continuing good grades in school and with out of school activities.

Yes that's completely fine if you have the time for all, but op says no time due to sports

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.

This. We just get 10 spellings & a maths sheet that takes 5 mins. The spellings are always themed to reinforce what they've been doing in school. Reading i don't count, we'd do it anyway.

If you don't have time for homework, then cut back on the sports. You have your priorities all skewed

This

Plus 2 older kids train 4.30pm-8.30pm.

So the kids are doing 20 hours sport outside school a week and you "can't fit in homework".

The chance of your kids having a career in their sport is minute. They will need their education. My friend has an olympic gold medal for her sport. Guess what she's doing now age 40? Working in an office.

Not sure whether you mean if they haven't learnt them by spelling test next week, or by end of primary school (year 6 in England).

If they haven't learnt them by the end of primary school, they will be behind in this area when they go to secondary school. Then I would guess they will probably never learn them, as secondary school doesn't seem to focus on spellings - that was covered in primary school. This will not help them in GCSE or future life.

If they get weekly tests and haven't learnt them, and they get them wrong in the test then the teachers will see they are struggling with spellings. I don't know what happens then. In first instance I would expect parents to be asked to help them learn the spellings that are sent home. Maybe school will try to give them extra time but TAs are so pushed that there is no guarantee. Over time the child falls behind their peers and then they are behind when they start secondary school. See above.

What do you think happens?

The habit of working independently to revise for their exams. In a class of 30 students I can do revision but not bespoke to individual needs, if they go on to university being used to work even more independently on some courses to do well.