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.

I absolutely don't force homework in primary and at our school there is no pressure at all. I have 2 DS, one is 10 and the other 7. My eldest gets homework once a week which he does diligently and we help but for my youngest he reads every day and does a lot of clubs after school and that's more than enough for him.

Our school uses Dojo which when you've got one child in juniors and another in infants is a nightmare to keep on top of. There's no search function or way to filter the messages so I have absolutely missed things as a result and find it exasperating. DH and I work full time and often joke we need an admin assistant for the school comms. It is relentless. Our school has the kids go in PE kit on PE days so no need to be packing a kit bag every week which works well. They also don't need their own pencils etc. it sounds like your school could make some changes to make things easier all round?

The only homework set at my child's school at that age was reading practice which I did every day with mine, honestly I think most of the people who don't bother just don't realise what a big difference it makes.
As for bringing in pencils that doesn't start until year 3 same as when I was at school

Teachers didn’t “just leave kids to it” during the lockdowns. I worked hard during both lockdowns to provide learning materials for home, get food parcels delivered and support the terrified parents of clinically extremely vulnerable children. I was doing the paperwork for EHCPs at 11 pm during the lockdowns. Schools were still open for the children of key workers and children with EHCPs. If I had a child of school age at the time, mine would have been in school.

We had to read reams of instructions from the Department for Education every night during the first lockdown. I got tired of the constant complaining that we were having a ‘holiday’ and left the profession for good in 2021, This attitude has influenced the crisis in teaching recruitment and retention. If you don’t think school is vital, you are welcome to home-school.

I also really don't think a forgotten pencil or some homework not being done in year 1 is a big deal compared to some of the stories I've heard from teacher friends like the kids who come in talking about their parents beating each other/the kids and seeing them inject heroin getting drunk etc. Not to mention the morbidly obese child who's parents apparently couldn't use their eyes to see how big he was and kept feeding him whole family bags of haribos.

Stuff like that is when the job starts to get you down not a forgotten pencil. Respectfully get a grip

There is a scheme to get retired people into our local primary to read with the children, a 90 year old was doing it. Get pensioners to run after school reading or homework sessions - helps parents pay less for childcare, elderly people get company and enjoy being around children. Everyone benefits.

Some people think they wont pass vetting because of youthful errors. You need to reassure those who might get involved that not every mistake rules them out. 1 in 4 people have a criminal record and may be reluctant to come forward for that reason even when they've been a responsible person for the past 50 years. Underage drinking or getting into a fight years ago shouldnt rule out people with a clean record since 50 years on.

Your kid may be able to wear £10 shoes, not all children can.

We donated our child's pens and pencils to the local primary when they finished education. You might be surprised by how much community support you could get if you asked.

Absolutely, the comments around covid are so frustrating, it wasn't the schools choice to close to most children, it was the government's. My daughters teacher did at least 3 hours online teaching per day, some social, assembly, PE type activities, phonics, marks, story time emailed us worksheets, dropped off laptops to families who didn't have one, and she was in reception. Older classes had pretty much a full day of online learning. Many TA's were in school with keyworker children.
It's completely illogical 'our children missed out and fell behind, so now let's not bother trying to catch them up'

Of course no one is perfect, there is always the odd missing lunchbox, pe kit whatever. And times when a family is overwhelmed with personal issues etc or shift patterns

One of mine was a reluctant reader, turns out she was dyslexic. So quality varied!

But on the whole you are not being unreasonable. You can fit in reading say 5 times a week ( x2 at weekends, every other night in the week), spellings ( similar pattern) and a homework ( again if timed to be largely tackled at weekends) if you prioritise it

To add to my point here, I think it's really important to give more than one night to do homework e.g. 4 worksheets are handed out on a Tuesday for submission on a Monday. I used to get in the door at 8 p.m. 3 days a week after a long commute. I really struggled where homework was given one day for submission the next. It became manageable when teachers started issuing work to be done over a few days inclusive of a weekend. I always did it though. I am quite shocked at reading some of the responses here. Request a change in schedule, reducing it or what not, but to just ignore it completely seems disrespectful to the teacher.

Thank you. I gave my all to teaching, including during Covid. There are new teachers entering the profession now who were 16 or 17 during Covid. How long will they be punished for the Government’s decisions?

The Government closed care homes during Covid too. I think it was the right decision. I said goodbye to my Mum in early 2020 - some care homes locked down before they were forced to. I hadn’t seen my Mum for seven months when she died alone in the care home. Not of Covid. Have some people lost respect for care workers as well, because care homes had to close? I haven’t.

Have people lost respect for speech and language therapists and educational psychologists because they didn’t do face to face assessments or therapy? No. Just teachers then.

Some parents (myself included) don't agree with homework for children so young so perhaps that's a reason? The rest I totally sympathize with. Can they keep their things at school so they don't have to remember to bring them in?

ask them?

I think spelling is too much for year 1. Concentrating on the reading is better. Then no bits of paper are going back and further either.
Keep sending out reminders that books need to be kept in school bags

I only engage with school if theres a problem so very rarely, i also would expect the same of the school

In response to your question essentially i expect you/the school to do their job and teach my child - that's it. Just teach them.

Homework is pointless in primary school until around the year before secondary and that's just to prepare them for what to come.

My children are at school 6 hours a day, plenty of time to get a core education, why do i then need to add to that.

I focus on extra curricular activates, health and fitness, family time, cooking/baking with them and core family time.

Absolutely, as a health professional, no one has said 'I'm not going to listen to you now because you did video appointments during covid'. They may express frustration that their child didn't get sufficient support during that time, but they don't hold it against me personally, or my wider profession.

People will find any excuse, it's like the termtime holiday thing 'well if they closed schools then I'm going to take my child out now and those nasty warsty bullies wont stop me, I know my right init'.

Make whatever choices you want for your child, but own them rather than blaming others like a petulant child 'wasn't me miss, was his fault'

The overwhelming message I am seeing on this thread is that parents are overwhelmed and struggling to fit in homework. There is no evidence to support homework at this age improving outcome so why do schools persist with it?

We did what was asked of us but I didn't like it. Pre Covid we both commuted five days a week and didn't get home until 6:30pm, at the earliest. School started early and my daughter needs sleep so we needed to get her to bed by 7:30. That left an hour of family time in which we had to cram homework, her telling us about her day, bathing and getting ready for bed. With a tired child who had already done a school day I could have done without a battle over Doodle Bloody Maths or whatever.

But someone is looking after your child after school. At our after school club they do their homework.

But your kids education is important?

This. Parents have a responsibility to give their children the best education they can. School is a partnership. Some chn really need that extra practice. Reading for example. Theee isn’t time to listen to 30 chn in school every day but parents can do 10 minutes every night . Some of ours don’t even open their book bags. We find letters in there from months ago!

School is important but it’s also not the beginning, end and entirety of a child’s education. There has to be time and mental energy for other things, too.

Yes this.

Also many kids start off with a natural fascination for learning and school just bores and tires it out of them. There's such a thing as too much.

See this is it nailed. I work full time and don't get in until 7 every evening except for Fri when I'm in the house about 4. I'm utter exhausted and still have to make dinner, do the football runs, youth club etc . Now I always sit down and make sure the kids get their work done but the last thing I want to do is bucket loads of homework. My children are older so can do homework without needing any help. But it's something that modern families just can't squeeze in to their evenings. I remember my mum sitting every night with us when small but she didn't work so had the time to devote to us.

Some parents don't work and dont care either, they expect the school to rare the kids for them.

Honestly, I think your school has too many expectations of parents and pupils? Indoor shoes and gym shoes? Homework for 5 and 6 year olds? Pencils? My kids primary (outstanding with 3 form entry and the majority of its pupils arriving as non-English native speakers) does not do any of this. Why isn't your school supplying basic materials? Why do you have such a complex uniform policy?

Let the kids wear polo shirts, plain trainers/pumps and joggers. Supply PENCILS (ffs). Stop doing homework and focus on just getting parents to read to their kid.

This chimes with my experience completely

I think finding ways to engage with parents - to get them into school and the classroom or virtually can really help. Examples that helped me and other parents were things like - soft starts where parents and carers can join in the class first thing, evening info sessions with visiting speakers (there was one with an educational psychologist which was v popular) , fun events like school fairs, coffee mornings and parties. Online info sessions and weekly newsletters with reminders. So each week we got the info of which class had PE on what day and music tuition or any outings. I think that répétions was really helpful. A calendar or timetable sent once can be forgotten.

30 hours isn't even full time. As a PP pointed out, your child's teacher is doing far more than this.

No wonder we have a productivity problem in this country.

I can't understand some of these posts or parents who don't engage with school. Surely it's the least you can do to support your child. This country is in terminal decline and this thread just proves that.