To think academic success is 90% of the time down to the parents

[TameSacha]

Sparked by a conversation I had at the school gates last week about how another parent wouldn’t be bothering with half term homework (which was making a collage).

I have DS8 and DD6. I read with each of them daily (they read to me and vice versa, takes about ten minutes per child), we do five minutes on their maths apps each day, and things like times tables songs in the car. We try to do at least one educational trip a term that matches with what one of them is learning about (think looking at and drawing a bridge or going to the local museum for Victorians, not going to Egypt for Egyptians). I read their syllabus each term so we can talk about the topics at home.

To me this is a perfectly normal part of child-rearing and supports the education they get at school, where underpaid teachers are on crowd control with thirty kids, some of whom don’t want to or aren’t able to learn.

AIBU to think it’s a parent’s responsibility to support their child’s learning outside of school?

I think you're making the same mistake of confusing correlation and causation.

Parents who own a lot of books are probably parents who are academic and read a lot. People who are academically successful may well also earn a lot of money. The money and the books often come together. In addition to passing on a positive attitude to reading, there is also a genetic factor that parents who are academically intelligent are more likely to give birth to children who are academically intelligent. You think it's the money that makes the difference, I think it's the books (and the reason those books are there in the first place), but I suppose we'll never know for sure.

My own experience in attending an independent secondary school was that the children of lawyers/ dentists/ doctors etc. didn't have as much money as the children of footballers or builders, but they did better academically.

My own experience of teaching primary school was also that bookish parents who chose less lucrative career choices had children that were more academically successful than the children of parents in well paid jobs who were less interested in academics.

But as you say, anecdotes aren't data, so perhaps this is not borne out by wider statistics.

If you are equating worth to GCSE results then maybe private primary schools aren't good value- I haven't dug into the data on that. I wasn't referring to GCSE results at all.

I agree with this.

I don't have children of my own, so I base my opinion on my own upbringing where "homework" at primary school consisted of spellings for a once a week spelling test.

My parents read with me each night when I was small, but as I grew up they weren't able to spend as much time with me due to my sibling being ill and disabled.

My DF worked a lot, so much of the time it was just me and my Mum. She didn't spend this time nagging me to do my homework, in fact she encouraged me after the first term to forge her signature in my homework diary as she had neither the time or the energy to monitor my homework.

She did, however, show me the realities of life and school also helped me realise that if I wanted to do well, I had to study. I was loved and supported at home and my DM was an amazing sounding board to discuss the future with.

I did well at school - got good GCSE and A-level results then went straight into a training position in a local company before obtaining professional qualifications at 22. I became a director and owner in my employer business by the time I was 35 and became the youngest person (and first female) to ever do it.

Did I do all my homework on time or at all when I was at secondary school? Nope.

Did I feel loved and supported throughout my childhood? Hell yes.

Am I a lesser person because I didn't get homework at primary school? Of course not (my spelling is awesome though! 😂)

These arguments for not doing homework make me laugh.

Is there an age when we think children should take some responsibility?

The class TA or teacher will ask children to hand their homework and reading book in. They will then ask children individually who haven’t handed it in, but they are not going to go through 30 book bags/backpacks to look for it.

Our younger DD refused to read, do spellings or any kind of homework (she’s dyslexic). It caused us much strife and her many detentions whilst she was at school. Her teachers thought she was lazy too, but she was just exhausted with school. She’s also has ASD and ADHD so thought craft activities pointless 😂.

She’s now at Oxbridge (year 3) studying maths and works like a demon.

Eldest DD is a voracious reader and has finished a Master degree, but is not as academic as youngest DD.

In hindsight I think that homework is fairly pointless, but I do think engaging children in lively discussion and encouraging an interest in the world around us is vital as is developing a questioning mind.

It also depends on the child. Forcing children to engage if they are not ready/interested is not beneficial to anyone and harms family relationships.

You should feel fortunate OP that your kids are willing to engage and refrain from judging those with different circumstances and personalities.

The things our kid is good at are NOT the thing me and DH are good at/know stuff about.

Interest and brain wiring is what makes someone successful, you can batter someone over the head constantly if they don't get it or aren't interested it wont go in no matter what you do.

I am a natural at biology, it just makes complete obvious and logical sense to me and I walked into university level without ever even trying. I was the kid that constantly got accused of cheating because 'how do you know this without doing the homework/lessons' but I however can't learn foreign languages to save my life. I had 5 years of being taught french, I tried hard and I still cannot speak a word of it. My brain is just not wired like that no matter how much effort people put in or how much revision I'm forced to do by my parents. I have an interest in the arts. No 'natural talent' so I'm not great at it but because I love it I have worked at it an improved over my life and had some success through that.

My kid has no real interest in biology (although he is walking it), he hates the arts with not a single creative bone in his body but was picked to do higher level language by the school lol.

I'm a teacher and in the broadest sense them yes parental support impacts educational outcomes. In so far as parents that willfully work against the school system massively impact their children's outcomes. Being a parent who creates the right, supportive environment for their child to learn is going to help that child do their best. That includes things like sensible bedtimes, providing balanced meals, modelling positive relationships and supporting school policies to an extent. The problem is that children are unique and what might be the right thing for one child might not be right for another. One of my dc has always struggled. Primary school set the same maths homework for them as all the other kids....no allowance made for the fact that they just weren't able to do it yet. I didn't support those homeworks because it made my child cry and was counter productive. What I did instead was pay for a tutor to help them learn the maths skills they were struggling with (but point blank refused to practice with me). There were times when we missed homework due to exhaustion or illness. On the whole they are now at secondary school and doing well and keeping up with homework. So, am I a bad parent for not doing those homework?

I also suspect that these parents don't spend too much time worrying about whether their kids are "naturally" academic but have high standards regardless.

That's quite a generalisation. I've taught in London schools and now teach in the NW of England in a school with a large proportion of Asian pupils. We do have many Asian girls with strict parents who are restrictive about what they are allowed to do, and drive them hard on homework etc. Some of them do well. Some are quite meek and obedient but don't really do well academically. Some rebel and make little effort in school. Often our real high-fliers tend to be the self-motivated ones with more liberal parents. The ones who have been allowed to develop their own interests and do the subjects they want to do. We have lots doing STEM subjects at A Level and applying for medicine who don't really want to. Meanwhile we have plenty of girls from other backgrounds who are high fliers without super-strict parents.

I wasn't read to as a child but I was a massive bookworm. Still am. I joined the library and bought books with my birthday money etc.

I read to my 3. I was still reading to them at night until they were 11/12 as we enjoyed it. Two of them were avid readers when young but ds1 lost interest in his teens. Dd still reads but doesn't have a lot of spare time to do so.

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My DC had lots of support and were well ahead of their ages throughout school. We did tons of stuff together and I wouldn’t have thought a collage in the Feb half term for a six and eight year old was at all constructive. They were on holiday.

We removed our DC from the state sector due to the lack of rigour in relation to English and Maths and fundamental misunderstanding of grammar and number rules by qualified teaching staff. Also we did not feel our work ethic and family values were being particularly well underpinned.

I could not see what reading an ORT book three times before moving to the next added to the education of my DC who were fluent reader as six.

What was interesting is how some DC who had lagged behind a bit, suddenly caught up and engaged at 12/13 and how some DC who had been high fliers struggled with 10 GCSEs and juggling the volume and others who had taken 10 A stars at GCSE started to flounder at 6th form when the need for critical thinking rather than rote learning increased.

Personally I think education in the UK has gone very wrong. We have a generation with outstanding qualifications who are sadly lacking an outstanding education.

They are set books they can read independently - that means alone by the way. There is no requirement they are the only books they read. And in reality they would benefit more from being read a book with a much higher range of vocabulary - children will understand words long before they can read them but they’re more likely to be able to sound out and read a word they already know and have seen. If the only books you read with your children are the ones they’re set for homework you’re disadvantaging them straight off the bat.

The best thing you can do is read children a wide range of books. My 8 year old never did school prescribed reading as said. Ever. Not once. In the last few months he’s read (alone) Harry Potter (hated it won’t be reading any more), Malamandar, some random book about pugs in the North Pole, the entire wild robot series and Safiyahs war. He’s about to start Malamandar. Reading is important. Not reading what school tells you to read and definitely not limiting to Biff.

When I was young, we didn’t have homework in primary school-just practising times tables. We played out most days and I read books. Parents weren’t hovering on the sidelines all the time. I was lax about homework for my primary school kids. My belief was that they should do that sort of thing at school. If asked, I would help, but again, I thought it was the children doing homework, not parents. But I did take them to museums and galleries, long walks and building dens in the forest, we’d chat at dinner about interesting moral questions and how enlightenment was good for western countries. They’re now adults with good jobs. I believe kids will thrive if the adults in the house are interested in them and give them attention but it doesn’t have to be spellings and collages.

Parental helps achieve the potential for a child. But if the raw material isn't there it won't give glowing results. Also parental help basically stops after primary school or year 7 as the content outstrips parental knowledge.

The best a parent can do is build good study HABITS for independent learning. I have seen kids forced to work all the hours that god sends and not get the expected A grades (or equivalent now). The kids end up with battered confidence.

Parental involvement obviously is great if done properly with appropriate expectations - otherwise more harm than good.

I think as parents we can decide what is worthwhile. My children get lots of assignments (involving screen time) that we don’t do. There’s this online reading program that the school really pushes. I allow my child to read a book instead.

For the question in your title: Absolutely not
My sister and I (18mo apart) had the same parents, same schools until 11, same upbringing
I was reading at age 2, she never read a book for pleasure until her 40s
I won an 11+ scholarship to a good independent school, she was not allowed even to sit the 11+ and went to the godawful local comprehensive
Needless to say university was never even a consideration for her
It is far more down to nature - intelligence, aptitude, application - than any parental pressure or encouragement

For the question you ask in the body of your post (which is completely different from the title) Obviously
As a child, our house was full of books, all of which I read
My sister refused to have any books other than schoolwork in her house and her children suffered immeasurably for it
As children, we were both strongly encouraged to do our homework as soon as we got home
She never paid any attention to whether her children did homework or not, would never attend parent/teacher evenings, would not have any interest in what they did at school
Her children learned from her that school was pointless and meaningless
It wasn't until my parents took over their upbringing that their lives changed for the better

It's ALL about foundations. Just like a tree or a plant. Most grow their root system first. With children, it's the foundations. Literacy and numeracy are the key to virtually everything else. You can't teach a language if they're not confident and competent at English. You can't teach Physics if they're not numerate. Excellent reading skills, leads to better comprehension skills which is essential for humanities and general life long understanding/logic. Discipline and structure with the earliest days of homework will set good habits in place for secondary school test/exam revisions. All come together when it comes to University degrees or other further education/professional training.

All of the above said we are getting side tracked from what is ultimately some pretty unpleasant judgement and assumptions from you.

I would get off your high horse - it’s a long fall.

Ive not RTFT, however, when my kids dad walked out on us and didnt contribute a penny or a minute of time towards their lives, and my two youngest were primary aged and receiving these term long homeworks, i was working 60 hour weeks to ensure they had a roof over their heads and food on the table. So the little bit of time i had with my children was spent having fun, bonding, spending quality time together, not arguing with a 6 year old over some project that had zero impact on their long term education. Both children are now grown, one in uni doing amazing well, one sitting exams this summer, also doing great.

Bully to you for having the time, and funds. Not all families have that. Judging people for not doing some absolutely pointless in the grand scheme of things primary aged homeworks isnt a great look.

Well thanks everyone, this has been an interesting thread!

I maintain that:

• Reading regularly with children, particularly when they’re small, is fundamental and the majority of parents who don’t do this are lazy
• Engaging with homework, particularly in primary, is important
• Holistic education is very important (talking about syllabus topics, natural maths like measuring when cooking, reading signs, at least enabling things like doing crafts) and all parents should prioritise it unless they’re unable to
• Showing respect for teachers should be a given especially in front of children

I concede that:

• 90% was an overestimate
• Kids can succeed in many ways without parental income (it’s just less likely)
• Extra homework outside of maths and English including reading isn’t always necessary if kids are learning in other ways, especially in KS2

Echoing a PP, if anyone has spare time to volunteer to listen to kids read in schools, please do!

Parents are the biggest influence of educational outcomes at primary level. At secondary level, it's the peer group, but that peer group is largely indirectly selected through the parent's choice of secondary school.

Academic success is often down to the parents. Academic failure can also be down to the parents. I grew up in an 11+ area, passed the 11+ and asked to go to the same grammar school as my friends. My parents instead sent me to the secondary-modern-in-all-but-name that my older sibling was already attending. It was fucking miserable.

I think it's well known that parental involvement has a big impact on educational outcomes. Although I did once have another school mum tell me "jokingly" that my dc would be thick if I hadn't been a sahm, which I don't agree with. You can't force a child to want to learn.

In my experience parents who are behind their kids too much produce kids who can’t think for themselves and are lost when they have to. Growing up nobody read with me or ever asked whether I had completed my homework. Everything I achieved was off my own bat.

Good habits start young. Why not encourage the child to complete ( or at least attempt) homework in primary so that they are in a good routine?
Making a collage is hardly onerous, it would be fun and they would learn something about the topic.
Parents should support the teacher, not openly scoff about the task. What does that teach the child? Buckle up for the teenage years!

@TameSacha I didn't have kids, I had children. Standards darling.