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!)

YABU the poor kid should be out having fun, not doing extra lessons.

If you want her to achieve great things, then instil a love of reading.

Or put the lessons she learns in school into practice - go to a museum, learn about the lifecycle of a plant by planting seeds, go for a walk and collect fallen leaves from trees etc.

Learning does not have to come solely from books.

As an ex teacher myself, I don’t even agree with homework, let alone additional studies.
Get her up and moving and exploring whilst having fun.
She will learn much more from actually doing, rather than just reading.

Is there any chance of moving your dc to a different school? We spent a lot of time with families whose kids went to high performing private schools, and I never felt that my state-educated dd was at a disadvantage tbh... we'd have moved her to private pretty quickly if we'd have thought this to be the case. Are there other state options that you could consider?

Sounds heavenly!
My mum wrote to my school stating i wouldn't be doing any homework as i had out of school commitments every day (ponies) so wouldn't have time (i got home 6:30/7pm every day so had to have dinner and go to bed) i didn't do homework until i was in year 9 and most of the time i did it in lunch breaks at school anyway. i sailed through my exams no issues so had zero impact on my learning.

They were absolutely fine with it, and my SIL has just done the same thing as my niece has a pony too.

If you think your child is capable enough, why isn’t she at a grammar school?

Honestly? I think there are better and more useful and enriching things to do after school than extra schoolwork.

@Christmascarolle "There seems to be a culture in her school to get all kids to "average" & nothing beyond that"

What does OFSTED say about that?

DD has tuitions outside school on some academic subjects but we don't talk about it because I know some people don't like to hear it. State schools are overstretched and we now we can't expect them to differentiate every child to meet their full potential, it just isn't a realistic expectation. We do whatever we think suitable for each child at home and this seems to work well for them.

If she was my good friend OP, I would take some time to reflect on what she'd said and really do some self scrutiny. You obviously have strong views about your DD getting ahead academically and that sort of ambition can be a lot of pressure for a child. Your DD will know you want her to do all these extras and that it wins your approval, so her desire to study doesn't exist in a vacuum. If this woman is a good and trusted friend, she may be speaking up because she's feels its in your DDs interests. I'd at least reflect on it before dismissing it as wrong.

Is your child 'advanced' in every way, or just academically?

Well a lot of educational professionals have published research stating that homework is not effective for successful learning. having worked on both private and state schools i can't really see much of a difference in the amount of home work to be honest.

However, if your daughter is thirsty for knowledge and wants to learn then ofcourse go for it.

I used to do a bit (and I'm an ex-teacher so I know I was using the same methods school were using) but only in terms of following interests or sorting out "we did X in school and I'm stuck" type drama where we'd go back over it and help them get things straight in their head. One of mine really needs that separation from "school" and "home" to keep her life in balance (probable ASD and ended up back in school during the lockdowns as she wasn't coping without that distinction between the different elements of her life) and the other can be highly anxious at times, so we'll go back over something that's worrying her, but I'm not going to pile the pressure on.

Both kids love reading and were early and advanced readers, they're good with maths when it comes to self-interest like how much pocket money we owe them, and if they're interested in something - we'll support that (usually it's art or music related - although the request for Taylor Swift tickets from an overly on the ball DD1 wasn't going to happen).

Fuck doing "make a model" type homework though - I'll happily phone that shite in for minimal effort possible whenever I can do. Utterly unashamed of that one as it serves minimal educational benefit whatsoever.

also wanted to say by the time they finish their A levels and go to University this school will be a distant memory and there will be no competing with grammar kids- you get into a university based on your results. 3 A's are 3A*s no matter how posh or rough the school....and no employer cares what school you went to realistically.

@jolaylasofia could you point me in gje direction of research about homework. I'm genuinely interested because DD actually says it helps consolidate what she has learned that week, enables her to practice it in her own time as a check on whether she has understood the lessons.
So is it maybe about the quality of homework and the marking/feedback part? I never saw the point of homework at primary but I do think it has some value at secondary if it is meaningful, marked and feedback given in a timely and constructive way.

@CoffeeWithCheese the 'make a model' sort of homework was always our favourite - we loved being creative, and DS is now doing very well in creative subjects (Art for example), as well as more academic ones, at senior secondary level. Of course we all enjoy different things, but I'd take that over maths and spelling lists any day (though we, of course, did those too).

If I were being uncharitable, I would say that your friend knows that the children who thrive at school are generally those who do more than the bare minimum, and she doesn't want your child to thrive as much as hers does.

But, seeing as she's a teacher herself, I would be appalled if that were the case.

Some teachers don't like parents very much. When dd was in Y2 her class teacher told me off for teaching her vertical addition & subtraction - which dd had understood immediately and found much easier than the sodding number line they were still fucking around with in class. I was told that she absolutely must not do that any more, and she had to do ONLY what she was being taught in class.

YABU. If you want to do lots of extra study and your daughter is on board with that, great. But that is totally different from saying you don't expect the school to educate your child.

All children should get a solid education from school, if they are willing to learn and behave reasonably.

I completely agree and really well put.

As a teacher, she cares about education and parental involvement.

But if she thinks you’re doing too much, then perhaps it’s because you are.

My mum got a dressing down from my teacher back in the nineties for similar.
I was in tears trying to make sense of the BS method that was taught then, mum got fed up and showed me how she was taught in the sixties and I got it immediately.
Big trouble. So I had to go back to not being able to subtract. 😒

I thought it was hard to research homework effects because it's not always clear how good the homework is.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2019/01/03/why-homework-doesnt-seem-to-boost-learning-and-how-it-could/

But generally older the child more useful it tends to be.

But for my kids weekly list of words for spelling test were a waste of time - doing a course that helped them identify how to spell - how to split words up to sounds and parts and lost of practise writing making muscle memory made a difference with time. Unfortunately first primary wouldn't allow us to opt out of the spelling tests.

Same with maths regularly going over concepts with on-line program helped them massively - but a lot of primary school maths homework was coloring in which didn't.

We don't speak welsh - DC doing on-line language apps and hearing welsh on TV helped them and by secondary welsh teacher was surprised they were late coming to language compare to peers.

Making random models didn't appeal to them or play to their strengths and often felt like it wasn't teaching what it was supposed to - though as parents wed try and make it as useful as possible to them.

We often did 10 minute s in morning and 20 after school - little and often and very structured - always on here you get told that leaves no time for anything else and yet in practise it did for our kids and our set up.

@TripleDaisySummer yes that makes a lot more sense and I definitely don't agree with homework at primary school but both DD and I see the value of the homework she gets. It is marked within 3 days of hand in, developmental feedback given and extra effort recognised through merits. To me this is how homework should work, if it isn't marked timely or feedback given then there isn't much point in it.

My DP had similar with reading our school did whole word recognition left us struggling with reading and spelling.

We went for an on-line maths course that did all the methods for modern arithmetic which didn't always go over well but they went from struggling to doing well and DH -maths degree - says having multiple ways of getting to right answer isn't a bad thing.

It depends how you’re teaching it and if it will be confusing if she’s retaught it in a different way later. Generally reading around a subject she enjoys is fine.

The best thing for bright children is access to musical instruments, sport, museums, trips (abroad), conversation, interesting television, a range of reading materials, art materials etc.

This is what I did with both mine- but conversations would often include supplementary information to what they'd recently learned in school; likewise we always tried to do visits to museums/theatres or whatever that had some connection to their recent topics. None of it was done in a 'serious' way -but both dss were interested in a wide range of things so it was easy to slip into conversation without them realising.

Ds2 (16, in his GCSE year) now kindly tells me things about Physics, Maths and Chemistry about which I have no clue (he outstripped me in those subjects ages ago). I look on that as helping him with his revision 😁Occasionally I play the 'Baffled Mum' and ask questions so that he can explain further.

There are no grammars in our area.