Teacher setting homework about topics the children haven’t covered

[Whatsoccuringtoday]

I’m a private tutor (former class teacher for years, but not for 6/7 years now)
Recently, two students of mine (same school, but different ages) have brought homework home. The older child’s Science work was to answer the questions at the end of a physics chapter-11 pages, the child told me they’d done none of this work in the class, she had no idea about any of it.
The second child is younger and is learning about fractions, her worksheet was twenty odd questions about subtracting fractions. I asked her to show me the working out process she’d been taught (I’d brought my own planning, but didn’t want to confuse her if my method was different) she said they hadn’t done in it class yet, they hadn’t been taught about subtractions, I basically had to teach her from scratch, it was impossible to finish all the homework as we only have an hour lesson.
Is this standard practice in schools now? I always used to give homework to supplement the work already carried out in class.

My younger child has this problem in primary right now - with telling the time and fractions topics. It is driving me mad. Essentially I feel I'm teaching and the school is just revising the topic!

It's even worse for maths when I find they teach it a different way to how I've tried to do it.

Younger child is 8. Y4.

@GadgetDog Yes it’s exactly this!
I realise I’m a tutor, but to introduce the topic and teach it all the way through is virtually impossible in the short space of time we have.
I would never have handed out worksheets for areas I hadn’t even introduced them to yet, Joe are they supposed to know what to do 🤷🏻‍♀️

I wouldn’t teach it. I would email the school saying that my child is unable to complete the homework because they haven’t been taught the content!

*How

Depends why they haven't learned it, were they in school that day? Was the class messing around and the teacher said you need to learn this at home here is a link, did they learn it but wasn't paying attention? All are possible.
One of mine learned independently anyway (complex reasons) so just looked things up.

Ex teacher here and homework (especially maths) was only ever revision of work that had been covered.
Occasionally I would set topic homework ie find out 5 facts about.... but I would never set homework on skills that we hadn't covered.

However are the kids telling the truth. Our DC often say they don't know something/haven't done it at school, when they really have.

I'd maybe get their parents to query with the schools if the lessons have been covered. Many parents couldn't help with any work on mathematical sums with fractions.

I’ve had kids complain that I’ve set random homework before and actually I set the correct homework and they copied it down wrong or read it wrong so with the science I’d check for that first. Another possibility is the teacher wrote it wrong so I would email the teacher to check before doing 11 pages of unknown work.

With subtraction of fractions - had they been taught addition already? I wouldn’t have thought subtraction would take much extra teaching.

Sometimes we used to give children work to try that we hadn't taught them, to get an idea of what they already knew or could work out by applying related knowledge. It was a way of showing progress, to do a "skills check" before and after the teaching.

We didn't do this as homework, for obvious reasons. But maybe some schools would.

The science task sounds like it could be a pre-learning task to give familiarity before starting a topic properly in class. Depending on age 11 pages seems excessive, but also depends on the content itself.

My child would tell you the same, that they hadn't covered it. However, she would be wrong and once prodded several times and having chatted to the teacher would remember that they had... This has happened many times with maths especially 🤦🏻‍♀️

This is what I would do if I was sure it definitely hadn't been covered.

I'm also a tutor and sometimes you have to take things kids say with a pinch of salt.
They might not have been paying attention in class when a particular thing was covered.
They might have completely forgotten what they did a couple of days ago.
They might have not understood the work at all and rather than say they didn't understand it, they claim not to have done it in class.
They might have copied the homework down wrongly.

I've had all of these things happen before. One child had written down questions 53, 54 and 55 instead of 753, 754 and 755, and was absolutely adamant that this was the homework but of course it was on a completely different topic.

I currently have two children in the same class coming separately for lessons. One of them lies constantly about what they have and haven't done (and also deliberately leaves his books at school). The only reason I know that this is nonsense is because the other boy is very reliable and his school books are always well-presented and he writes the homework down correctly.

The homework should be to reinforce what has been done in class, rather than something entirely new, so I do see the point you are making.
But I wonder in those cases if the subtracting fractions followed on from adding fractions and the teacher had done a couple of examples at the end of the lesson and basically said you do it the same way as adding, but just take away. eg. find the common denominator, multiply the top of the fractions accordingly, and once that is done add or take away depending on what the question was asking.
The child might not have understood the addition and therefore had no idea where to start with the subtraction either.

As for the physics one, that does sound odd. Unless the homework has been written down one, or perhaps the teacher thought it was straightforward enough for them to read the chapter and answer the questions.

Yes, exactly this.

My eldest is year 3 and every week we get a sheet, including maths, that they will 'cover the following week'.

I do understand that 'pre-learning' does help DC (including mine), but it is pretty much doing their job for them and there's no guidance or explanation on how it should be taught (and they're learning particular topics these days at a much younger age than when I was at school).

I got an A in GCSE maths, so I'm still (just 😜) following, but I do struggle with knowing the correct way it should be taught....

And how on earth are some parents who don't even have any maths qualifications able to cope?

I get the impression the teacher will say we are doing the homework "too early". But it's given on Monday and must be handed in on Friday. They often cover the topic in question on Thursday or Friday. But my work and other after school commitments means we have to do the homework on Monday or Tuesday night.

This sounds like flipped learning. You get students to research and try something new, then follow up in the next lesson.

Yes, this has happened a few times with my primary aged children. Like you, I don't want to teach them "my way" if the school are going to show them a different method.. so I usually just send the teacher a message and find out which way they will be taught.
I have 4 in primary so Friday's (our homework night) are hectic but I'd rather get it all out of the way to enjoy the weekend!

Do their job for them? I really don't understand this, learning is a lifetime skill and shouldn't be limited to the classroom, our children are now doing A-levels but have helped them consistently along the way with homework, revision, extra curricular activities, relying on teachers to teach everything is not going to be enough, especially when teachers have 20-30 students to teach.

The teacher shortage means supply teachers, TA's or teachers of other subjects are forced to cover classes. The homework plan may have been set according to the way the scheme of work would usually be taught or how the management expect it to be taught. So possibly printed at start of term because this sounds crazy and bad practice as the OP points out.

Science Question: homework was 'read chapter/take what's been covered this week and answer questions at the end of chapter 5'. Kid doesn't pay attention in class/the class messed around/kid was hiding in the bogs and denies all knowledge of it, ignoring that the obvious solution to answering questions at the end of a chapter would be to read the 11 pages beforehand. Decides to wait for the tutoring session where the tutor can do it for them.

Maths questions: They'd done addition and either kid didn't pay attention or it was thought by the teacher that having listened and done addition of fractions, a bit of independent thought would lead to the conclusion that subtraction would be approached similarly. Kid however, is not a fan of independent thought when it means doing work, so better to wait for the tutor to do the thinking for them.