Why do some parents not engage with school?! Asking as a teacher!

[Purpleturtle43]

I teach a Y1 class and have been a teacher for 20 years. Never have I experienced a class where parents are so unsupportive with regards to homework and providing what they need for class!

The majority of kids don't do their homework or do a really poor job of it. Most days when I ask the children to bring their reading books out at least 5 don't have them despite parents being told weekly the children need their books in school every day as we do daily reading. Many children also so they don't read their reading books at home.

Many parents don't provide their children when the necessary stuff for school for example pencils, indoor shoes, gym kits etc. meaning so much time is spent searching for spare things and we don't have enough supplies to go around.

I am a parent of 3 school aged children and totally understand the struggle, believe me the last thing I feel like doing when I get home all day from teaching kids is to do homework with my own but I always make sure it's done and kids have what they need for school.

I am just getting to the point where I wonder why I am bothering. It takes ages to look out reading books and to prepare homework and upload it online, it all just feels like a big waste of time.

If you don't engage with school can I ask why to give me some insight so I can think of some strategies that may work. I teach in an affluent area so money isn't usually a problem and the school I work in is very mindful of not asking for much, just the basics and we would definitely provide assistance when required.

My middle child is ND and makes life a bit of a struggle. Me and my partner likely have ADD/ADHD respectively as well.

With such young children, and with my son especially, I have watched them come home from school so tired. I haven't wanted to push them further as I have a personal belief that we start formal schooling too young in England.

So it's a combination for me of barriers and active choice.

I would never want to not send my child in with their equipment though, that's different for me. I drag myself to the kitchen at night or early in the morning to make sure bags are packed. If things are missing it's just a genuine mistake.

When my dd was in year 1 my dh was struggling to survive (literally) due to complications due to covid, he and I were trying to work, keep roof over our head and get food and I had had 3 miscarriages that year...roll on a few years we are back to mostly normal strength and support ing dd. Yabu to not understand that there are a 10000 other factors.

When I started teaching is was much more a case of parents and teachers United to support / educate / encourage / discipline the children.
Now it’s increasingly parents and children United to find as much as possible to be annoyed / anxious / moany at the school about.
@Covidwoes the consent forms thing is mad. I organise lots of events as part of my role and 50% of if is chasing up parents who don’t reply.
If you leave their child off an event there’s hell to pay but they cannot go without parental permission.

There’s also the kids who refuse to cooperate. One of mine was quite creative at hiding reading books or homework sheets if they didn’t feel like doing the work. My rebellious child turned out ok as they’re now a hospital doctor!

They’re selling stationery to kids who are not infants most likely! I’m another who has never yet had to provide stationery yet and my oldest is year 5.

Our school sounds v different than yours though, I wish ours did indoor shoes and come to school in PE kit. We send our PE kits at the start of each half term and bring them home to wash at the end of the half term! It’s not that gross though as never smelly and barely seems to need a wash (because they’re children not stinky teens), and actually probably saves me washing it weekly. But going to school in PE kit seems so much comfier - I wish our uniform was tracksuit bottoms daily!

How do you know kids aren’t reading at home? Perhaps for some kids it’s blindingly obvious. But DS1 reads for about an hour a day, I just don’t write it in his record thing.

This make no sense. You don't see the point in homework and want parents to opt out yet you think children will suffer if they don't do it?

The problem is that if you set homework they will do less reading. There's only so much time and energy. Reading is beneficial, homework isn't. It seems to me that homework is counter productive here.

“It seems that people believe teachers are judging them which they aren't.”

There are threads most days from teachers judging parents and children. I get it, it must be a very hard job.

The increased pressure on parents and on children, and teachers when you look at it, isn’t working.

Are our children really doing better than we were at their age? I’d argue that the mental health crisis and rising SN numbers suggests not.

Are parents doing better? No. In no ways are parents doing better than our parents were when we were kids.

Are teachers doing better? No. They are leaving in droves, they are stressed to hell.

This isn’t working for anyone. But we keep flogging away at this dead horse, whilst parents carry on blaming teachers and teachers blame parents and/or children.

At some point there’ll be a mass awakening and we’ll finally realise that we’re all being played, or just failed.

@Anonimouze is reading with your child 'work'? When teachers say reading, they don't just mean the reading books from school. More and more parents don't read at ALL with their kids. My DD's teacher was delighted I read bedtime stories with her! So many parents don't.

My kids are reception and Yr 3. I don't think they should have homework at this age, they should do self directed play when they are at home, and interact with family. They are both achieving the expected standard so I think there's no need to push them. We do lots of reading, maths, art, music, sport etc at home just not what they're doing in school because they need a break.

All of those reasons are true.
Theyve also always been there.

It doesn’t explain why things are getting worse now vs a few years ago.

Just curious why don't you write the hours of reading ?

All I can say is, as a teacher and a parent, read to your child, especially in the early days and years. Please. The amount of learning they gain from it is huge.

I have a child in year 5 that gets set 5 bits of homework a week. Two of them are timed online reading and TTRS even if they are 1 minute short, they will be kept behind at break time!
none of the other homework is done with traditional pencil and paper which is hugely frustrating, if it was my eldest would engage a lot more. Everything is done online. She reads actual books but that’s now allowed to go towards the reading she has to do on a Chromebook!

My youngest in year 1 gets set weekly spellings, reading and a homework task.
she doesn’t even get given a spelling sheet or a book with them in, it is homework for the parents to go onto the website to find out what this weeks task and spellings are.
My kids are often in after school club until 6pm or at activities. If the homework got set on a bit a paper I know they would get them out their bag to give it a go.
I don’t always engage with the homework as I don’t agree with it all being on technology.
reading book may not be read but other books would.

our school don’t allow ours to bring in their own pencil cases etc. everything is provided. Eldest got into trouble for taking her own in. Yet I know when she goes to high school she will probably struggle as everything has always been provided for her!

as parents feel like we can’t win!

apologies for the spellings/ grammar taken 2 mins out from work to reply. DH and I work full time around each other which makes it more frustrating and we can’t always tell what the other parent has done and we can got 3/4 days without seeing eachother.

Me too! Especially the amount of posts we see on here moaning about teachers and schools!

Absolutely no capacity. Homework is cruel!

The 'reading affects future outcome'

It doesn't. It did once in the era of social mobility. But now, your future is pretty much down to who your parents are and their wealth.

For the majority of children you can predict their life chances by looking at their parents. There are some exceptions, but fewer as wealth inequality grows.

Social mobility has died and so education doesn't really do anything to improve most poor children's future lives, so how about making their actual childhood one that is enjoyable full of play, adventure, activity and building relationships?

Teachers literally can't put a step right these days. They are consistently enemy number one online, in the media and in the WhatsApp groups.

There's not enough teachers, they're not doing enough work (too many holidays, school doesn't match work hours), they're sending homework that's unnecessary or too hard, too easy, too much. There's too many notes or there's poor communication. It never ends.

This is the reason why teachers are leaving. There is zero respect or understanding for teachers trying to do their jobs, just like everyone else.

I have never, ever found it an issue before this year.

For year 1 I'm not sure of the value of homework

I've said this many times - you'd be better off having the kids buy a grade 1 work book, keep it at home and then having the kids do two pages per week for homework. Optionally marked by teacher at the end of term

We got a message from DC’s school saying new research shows there’s no evidence to show weekly spelling tests help with long term word recognition so spelling tests are being stopped. They are so pointless and awful, could that be a contributing factor to parent reluctance?

It's so hard for teachers to meet the differing needs of all the children, who are at different levels, with differing learning needs, and parents with differing capacity. I wish we had been given more homework, it doesn't necessarily need to be something new, but maybe a worksheet consolidating something they did in class, it helps us to know what they are studying, what is easy or hard for them.

So you are doing it then.

so if a teacher asks for homework to be done such as spellings do you say no?
So if the teacher asked them to bring their reading book in would you send it in so they can read in school.
i think a lot of people have focused on the term homework and not everything else the OP has put on the post such as not sending a reading book in.

Reminders to bring back in their reading books for comprehension work in class and also for me to listen to them reading and generally just to return the book for the next child to use.

I was your perfect parent but I lost a lot of respect for the school when it only opened to working parents in January 2021. Two thirds of the class were in and mine didn't qualify because I worked in clothes retail not food. My kids were left behind by the system then and I did try to home educate but was fairly crap at it.

I agree with @glittercunt. I remember when I was in school there was a lot less demands and information sent to parents. My mum was a single parent working shifts as a nurse with no support so it was tough back then too, but I remember her dropping off and picking up and that was the end of it. There was the occasional harvest festival, bring in a tin of soup or whatever but I don't remember there being the sheer amount of events and requirements there are today. I'm not blaming you op, it's a government thing but it's becoming ridiculous. I have two children in separate schools and have 4 different communication apps. They have homework set on 5 different platforms. They never work on our tech. We are not a tech family and our stuff is old so we spend ages getting the apps to work, by which time it's time for dinner etc.. I joke that keeping up with school admin is now a full time job. There is something to remember every week, often multiple things, such xx as being a pound for this, dress in yellow, space day...it's overwhelming.
Children also do lots more extra curricular activities now. Back when I was a child it was brownies and that's it. There were hardly any clubs available. Now there are so many clubs covering so many different areas of interest. It's good for dc but it does make less time and energy for the whole family.
As a consequence homework becomes another thing where people drop the ball. Parents either miss the communication, are too exhausted, have too much on their plate or make a decision to prioritise something else.

Back in my childhood it was a letter in the bag and one sheet a week with homework on.

I do engage with my dc, school and I do read with them but I'm m not spending my evening trying to log on to various apps to find we can't access the homework anyway or we need to print it out and inevitably the printer is out of ink.