Aibu to not expect the school to educate my dc?

[Christmascarolle]

Met a teacher friend for coffee, her child is 11 like mine & are in the same class both would be high achieving.
I mentioned to my friend that I do extra at home with my dd, she has extra maths, literacy, geography & history which she really enjoys doing & reads lots in her spare time.
My teacher friend said she shouldn't be doing this extra work that it's up to the teacher & school to educate the children in their care.
I disagree as there is 30 in a class & all different levels. My dd enjoys going beyond the basics & is thriving in school.
Aibu or is the teacher friend? (according to my child the teachers daughter does lots of extension work with her mum. She never mentioned this to me just criticised me for going the extra mile with my child!)

Just to add only 5 to 10 mins of homework given at most from school & dd wants more

Is this a humblebrag?

if I was your child that would have burnt me totally out. maybe extra maths or something If she was struggling would help, but extra numerous subjects is unusual and unnecessary.

@pikkumyy77 no not a humble brag.. If my child was in a private or grammar school she would be getting lots of homework plus extra during holidays.
I was basically asking aibu to not expect the school to be the sole educator of my child. The teacher who criticised me also has her dc doing extra work but didn't mention it!

I do this sort of thing with my 4 year old already.
He's got All The Questions so yes, often the "bedtime stories" are actually lift the flap books about space or animals or how weather works etc etc.
I'd not force him as that's counterproductive but he's interested so why would I be telling him that all he needs to know about the world is what his preschool teacher tells him?
If it's what she enjoys, carry on I say.

There's no right or wrong answer. Situations vary.
YABU just for asking the question.

I absolutely believe that education needs to happen in the home as well as at school, and I don't think your friend should be telling you how to parent your child.

Personally, though, I wouldn't go for the academic hothousing approach for a bright child. The kind of education that I would focus on at home would be the stuff that they don't do in school - stuff that provides breadth, variety and enrichment as well as opportunities to develop skills beyond the academic stuff that they do in school.

I can't see the point of doing lots of extra maths and literacy if the child is already ahead in school...you just end up pushing them even further ahead and making school really boring for them. There are so many other things that kids can learn!

My mother taught me to read and write before I was 4 (I didn't start school until April in the year I had my (June) birthday.

It was by far the greatest gift she could've given me. Parental input doesn't need to be extra lessons - read early, read regularly with your child and help her/him to love reading and writing. Practise their tables with them regularly until they know them.

Cultivate their interests and talk to them about these. Ask them when they come home from school to tell you about the most interesting things they learnt.

But hothousing and piling on extra work - this can be counterproductive.

I agree with @MrsBennetsPoorNerves . Ds was very bright so did not need extra maths or English. What we could give him was access to books, museums, the news, travel that gave depth to the stuff he was learning. He was lucky we could and he can now debate me under the table! He has a wide and varied knowledge and more importantly he is inquisitive.

I only realised this when my oldest dc ended up being significantly behind in maths. School really can’t teach everything, sometimes even at a basic level. There are plenty of kids who leave primary without basic numeracy and literacy. Sad but that’s reality.

I think it's a weird competitve thing. Dh mentioned once to my sil that I do extra work with my dd1 and ds and she have me a whole lecture about how kids learn enough at school. When we next saw them bil mentioned it again until I reminded him that sil did the same when her son was my kid's age and has only stopped because she struggles to make the time now she has 2 kids so feels guilty. Well I have 3 and I prioritise it but that doesn't mean I look down on those that can't (for whatever reason). For the record dd1 does 10minutes of comprehension, 10 minutes of handwriting practice and 10 minutes if times table practice a week. Ds does 10 minutes of spellings, 10 minutes of handwriting and 10 minutes of times tables. I make the time to do it. This isn't always sat at a table but more often on the go. Dd1 has issues with fine motor skills so needs support with her handwriting as does ds with his spellings. For us it's a case of supporting the work they do at school.

So in my view yanbu. With 30 kids in a class, some who will have sen and no extra help I do not believe any teacher can give each child the same level of attention. If your child is already very bright I'd work on breadth of knowledge which it sounds like you already are. If it gives her increased confidence, she is happy and you can make the time then why not?

Well it would be reasonable to expect the school to give her an education. But it’s not unreasonable to do extra if you want to/ think it’s needed.

It seems an odd argument tbh

I think kids who are struggling in school probably benefit enormously from extra parental support and/or 1:1 tutoring to help them catch up, and this kind of academic intervention makes sense to me.

But for a bright child who is already doing well at school? I would choose to stretch them in other ways.

I agree with you. The school provides the basics for learning but I personally believe to do well academically parents need to also do extra with their children. My parents did and it has set me up for life in terms of I’m in a really good professional job and lead a pretty comfy life. But this is just my view from my personal experience.

Neither are being unreasonable. Each child, situation is different and you have a difference of opinion about how much educating should be done at home.

I will say though that many people ‘educate’ their children at home without doing “top up” maths type activities. Teaching life skills, a culture of reading books, cooking etc are all educational in a less formal format.

personally I don’t do too much “work” at home with the children, however we do encourage their interests (eg get books linked to the animal they like, talk a lot when they have questions etc) and do broadly educational things together.

I wholeheartedly agree with others that if your child is bright and reaching/exceeding targets in school, then home 'education' should be on other things which the school might not have the time/money to do - obviously it needs to be age appropriate but taking them to museums, libraries, out on long walks/hikes, cooking and baking, swimming, volunteering, encouraging them to be creative (art, poetry, crafts), basic budgeting (can be introduced early on), and so many other things. An over-achiever in primary school doesn't always become a 'high achiever' (and that's a horrible term anyway, because we all have different skills and talents, and academic achievement is not the only sort of achievement).

I also feel like this is a humble brag, even if you don't think it is.

It's an interesting one especially coming from a teacher. The way I see it is my child will hopefully be competing for jobs with kids from grammar & private schools who would be going the extra mile in & outside school.
Our state school is anti homework & it's literally 10 mins a day & half the time isn't even collected.

Agree with this

I agree with others - I'd want to be spending the time on "enriching" activities rather than more book learning. Fair enough if your child is behind to try to plug the gap, but otherwise why not leave it to school?

I'm not sure hours and hours of homework is that beneficial at 11 tbh.

We have friends with kids at top grammers & private schools. They have longer school days, lots of homework & projects, Saturday school & set work over the holidays. Dds education is very basic in comparison & I'd like her to be on an even keel to children her own age however much of a wanker I sound!

Neither of you are right or wrong. If your dc likes doing extra at home and you have time to facilitate that then that's fine. If other parents/kids don't want to do that and just leave it to the teacher then that's also fine.

Where is this school. I wish my kids school was anti homework. Instead we get bland, unchallenging twinkle print outs, “spellings” that they already know and reading books that they have read or don’t enjoy as much as their own books.

Id much rather not have that homework and have more time to do engaging educational activities at home.

I can completely see where you're coming from when you put it in context. DD1 is in a grammar and gets lots more homework than her friends from primary school.

Yes and no, the problem with teaching your child things on the curriculum is that you could be teaching them how to use different methods which can cause confusion later. Your teacher friend will be more aware of current teaching strategies.

But teaching things that aren't on the curriculum or giving context without overlapping directly - visiting museums on a topic watching related documentaries is great

Neither of you are unreasonable.

School should educate your child.

A standard state school will not educate your child to the point they can compete with grammar/private school kids so if you want them to be at that level you need to supplement.