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 feel sorry for so many young children now who attend breakfast clubs from 7-30 then attend after school clubs till 6-6-30 5 days a week , they have very little time to just relax and I can understand too much homework on top of that is very difficult . I do think reading at home has massive benefits particulary as so many children are glued to a screen in their rest times . It’s so sad that so many children now don’t read for pleasure , it widens their knowledge and vocabulary and is such a valuable skill .

@somanythingssolittletime because you are letting him just enjoy listening to a story and not letting him think books are just about school work. A love of books is a gift for life. So many studies have shown that children who grow up in a book rich environment do better academically. Also he will be exposed to vocabulary and sentence structures that he couldn't read on his own at his age and that will help develop his language skills.

If you are looking for genuine reasons …

My children are both neurodivergent/SEND. They mask in school and so seem like they are fine, so therefore woild seem to you like they would have no behavioural issues with doing homework. They do both struggle with spellings/reading and as a genuinely engaged parents I’d love to help them with that and you as a teacher would expect me to.

The reality is that we are clinging on for dear life at home and you are lucky they even make it to school. Life outside of school is a battleground as they let it all out having masked all day for you. I am drowning over here trying to get them fed, dressed, to bed and keep them alive. Adding in homework would genuinely tip us all over the edge and yes I do forget a lot of stuff … so to you I appear disengaged and unorganised, when it’s the opposite!

I don't know what you think I've said but I've been clear that:

1. Attendance was an example of an improvement objective and OP should focus on what is important to her school

(As indicated by "pick the things important to you, like....")

1. I've said I don't agree with attendance rewards:

"Fwiw I don't like the attendance stuff either and I massively disagree with certificates for it."

1. In addition to the above, I also said

"You'll also need to identify and mitigate any risks, like indirect discrimination due to a protected characteristic and make any reasonable adjustments, such as lowering scoring requirements or scrapping the PE requirement entirely for kids who cannot participate due to medical need." The same statement clearly applies in other circumstances.

Why don't you have a chat with the school about it then? Explain that you are struggling.

I'm a former teacher, DD is in Reception, and I'm even more amazed as a parent as I was as a teacher.

"Has anyone else seen the list of 10 words they are supposed to practise over half term? They were glued into their reading diary."
"HONESTLY! Surely they should be learning words at school, not bringing them home!"
"Well I WON'T be spending half term doing that, there's enough to do already!"
"It's hard enough to make him/her read those stupid books they send home."
"And they sent 6 emails last week, it's a nuisance!"
"Oh, I just send them straight to junk now."

I mean, really? Is it THAT hard? The only homework the school requests of us is reading. I make an effort to meet their expectations by reading with DD 5 times a week, including the books the school sends home 3 times. I'm a bit less "on it" with the ebooks, because DD really struggles to concentrate on the screen.

Surely you want to participate in your child's education as much as possible?

Yeah 6 emails a week and lists of words in Reception is definitely unreasonable!

I’ve always encouraged my child with his learning and backed up school where needed. That said, my son hates reading at home so I never forced it. He learned to read using road signs and billboards, etc. He does get spellings now (Y5) but never tells me but generally does well. His current teacher has commented about his writing skills so something is going right!
I have always worked with school and will do what I can when I can but working in a school myself, this is somewhat limited now. Thankfully, his school staff know I work in a school so arrange any discussions (including SEND review) after school hours.

10 words to practise reading over half term is NOT unreasonable. It took 2 minutes 3 times over the course of a week.

Some weeks we have lots of emails, some not so many. This week we've had:

• Reminder that children can wear PJs or a costume on WBD
• Special menu for WBD
• Invitation to come to a read-along session if we want to before school
• Notification that there is a road closure near to school
• Vacancies on the PTA
• The weekly newsletter

None of them are more than about 3 lines.

I have given up reading them tbh. We did the reading and spelling and kids are doing fine.
I don't think school noticed then I stop reading all these mails and apps.

You must be kidding.
Schools are useless at actually meeting the needs of ND children..most school staff don't understand masking and I would have more chance of flying to the moon than getting support and understanding from the school or LA

I no longer force my primary-aged child to do weekly homework. He's in school six hours a day with minimal physical activity, then once a week he goes to after-school club... he needs to unwind when he comes home. When he does do the routine homework, he rushes it and it probably reinforces very little learning as he can't engage with it.

I used to feel guilty about it and have brought it up with several of his teachers, but the school policy is that it's not compulsory and we've been told by more than one teacher that there's no evidence that homework helps those kids who are already doing fine in school (which our child is). I'm in Scotland though so things might be different here.

We're big readers in this family and he has a natural interest in maths, so I don't worry about him not reinforcing learning in literacy or numeracy. I know that these aren't things that are (or that can be) prioritised in every family though.

I do wish the school would send out some kind of weekly digest email for non-urgent issues though instead of 10 separate emails a week, all with the same subject line 😟. It's so hard to keep up and we only have one kid.

Here, you're asking parents to remember EVERY DAY to bring school books, or homework, or spelling, etc
Would it not be easier once a week homework?
One book for the week, parents comments on a reading book log.

Point aside.. homework at this age is ridiculous.

And definitely NOT in a tablet... Completely grilled that screens aren't good for our kids then everything is tablets or electronic boards (ranting here!)
If school starts sending homework/reading to do on a tablet that'd be the point that I'd consider homeschooling!

They don't need to remember everything every day, just their reading books. They have a book for a week which they read a couple of times in class and ideally 2-3 times at home. We complete comprehension work on the book at school so it's needed to do that. I just don't get why it's difficult to take a book out a bag, read it and put it back in, seems a pretty basic task to me 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Quite surprised at the number of schools that don’t supply pencils.

Do you factor in families that have both parents working and arriving home late.
Young children will be too tired at 7/8ish to do much more than eat and go to bed.
Is the comprehension in school based on the books they read during the week because if they can only fit in reading at the weekend, for example, they will be unable to do that in class.

My point really is. Are these children missing out because their parents aren’t around early evening to support their homework
Why can’t weekly homework be given so families can factor in the time over the course of 7 days. So no kid misses out and feels upset they haven’t done their homework.

Multiple emails/messages on varying platforms per week is just poor organisation on behalf of the school. You cannot blame parents for not doing your admin for you.

We try our hardest to do daily reading and spelling practice, but our teachers and the head have been quite clear that there is no point pushing a very tired child to try and work more after school. They would prefer they rest and unwind, so they are fresh the next day (plus who takes in things when tired?).

One thing I would ask teachers to remember is that school holidays are often not a holiday for parents as we only have 25 or so days leave pa. I'm often greeted back by DD's lovely teacher with a cheery "Did you have a nice holiday, and get up to much?" He means well, but often the (unspoken) answer is good grief no, I've been hot footing it over the country to various grandparents with young children in tow, or shoving them in holiday clubs or sharing with friends, so I can keep working, and then my evenings are spent trying to persuade children to complete their holiday projects, before I go back to work for another few hours after they've gone to bed. My mum was a teacher her whole working life, and my dad in the civil service. Between them they cannot fathom how DH and I have so little leave (and ours is comparatively generous these days, at nearly 30 days each), and that no, we do not get time off in lieu when we work (daily) beyond office hours and work doesn't stop or get covered whilst we're off, so we often dip in to work whilst we are on leave. Modern life is truly damaging in many ways, so when I am on holiday, I really want to just BE with my children, not being dictated to perform certain activities by the school in my precious and very limited free time. I really value education, BUT in my time the mode of that education should be my choice (especially where children need a lot of parental input and are likely to teach their children in a different way to the teacher, and add confusion). My mum, with her many decades as a primary and middle school teacher, absolutely detests any homework but for reading, and fully blames Ofsted for all these "initiatives" to engage parents (seemingly based on one SAHP), which are just setting both parents and schools up to fail and resent each other.

Agree it’s a long day for kids but for working parents there are no other options.
Both parents in most cases really do need to work these days and not all jobs are right next to schools or finish before 3pm anyway.

Absolutely!

we got that all the time

”did you have a lovely holiday”……No! I was run ragged !

Perhaps more school Heads should watch Motherland because that is life these days

How about you give out books once you're done for a final read with parents? That's what our school do.

I would add that I have never made DS read books more than once and think it's a great way to kill love of reading. A couple of reads in school for comprehension is ok, but at home we give different stories.

You want parents to opt out of the homework that you don't agree with. But you don't tell them they can opt out.

Then you get annoyed with them for not opting out, or not doing the homework you don't agree with.

Seems like they can't win.

Honestly, just chill. It's no big deal at that age.

Year 1 children don't need spellings.
It's not always easy to read with your child at home. My son would read when asked to say school but at home I couldn't get him to do it at all. I could get him to sit with me and his book but he wouldn't even look at it and would just say random words. The more pressure school or in him too read at home the less he was interested in books altogether. He started to refuse to listen to stories I read too him and still hates reading now at 15. I wish I just told school no we aren't going to read at home so asking. He got all sorts of ridiculous homework like make a model of a Tudor house and one time his actual homework was to ask your parent to copy your favourite poem. I printed a poem out from the computer and he got very upset because his teacher said I had to write it but print it out but there was no way I was going to pointlessly copy something out!
My daughter had gone to a different school and they had no homework at all in the infants except to read their reading practice if we could do it was a bit of a shock to get so much homework.

Errr no it hasn’t!! Older generations didn’t have this much on their plate. You didn’t HAVE to have two incomes to own a home and pay the bills. Now you do.

I'm very supportive of DD7s education. She goes to museums a lot, the library very regularly, has a lot of books in two languages (English and my native language), reads for at least an hour every night, plays chess and other quite complicated board games, is teaching herself a third language, and she goes to music and swimming lessons.

Luckily her school does not require much homework. 10 words a week, but they practice a lot in school and she usually aces the test so minimal input is required from me. She has to learn the multiplication tables now, we practice those at home.

What I would not be supportive of is pointless tasks like filling in a reading diary 5 times (!) a week for books that she does not particularly want to read, when she reads so much already and has a reading age years ahead of her peers. That would be the way to ruin her love of reading.

Yeah it is, it's not even a good approach educationally.

That should have been one email.