To not bother with weekly ‘busy work’ homework tasks?

[MissYouForever]

My daughter is in year 1. She has weekly spellings with a weekly test and of course her school reading book. Both of these I fully understand the importance of and we do always make sure these are all completed.

But we are also being set weekly tasks for English and Maths that I really, really do not have the time to organise and motivate my child to do. It is clearly to support their learning in whatever they are are being taught this week, but in all honesty it just feels like a box ticking exercise from the school/teacher.

AIBU to just not bother? She is 5! She is doing great at school, no problems at all. I know it will be brought up to me in the the parents evening and I hate that feeling that I’m letting my child down or not being a good enough parent to force these silly tasks to be completed every week. It’s just too much. I have a younger child, trying to manage work, the household and maintain my own sanity.

I just feel like it’s yet another expectation on the parents. Another thing we are scrutinised with and made to feel inadequate about. And I just find it irritating seeing an end of year report for my child with top ticks on all the ‘exceeding expectations’ criteria for academic progress and behaviour except a big red X on the homework heading because we didn’t do enough of the tasks (this was last year)

YNBU to struggle with this. I am shocked at how much homework small children have. The books they get are boring and take the joy out of reading. I think your attitude that something has to slide sometimes is ok given that your dd doesn’t need the additional support. Although maybe do it every now and again.

It's up to you whether or not you want to enforce homework at home but if you aren't going to do it then I would explain to the teacher and opt out officially so the teacher isn't going to the effort of providing the resources for you and chasing it up.

It is an expectation on parents and rightly so. She won't do 'great' at school forever with no extra effort, and it's not for parents to decide which parts of what a teacher sets they accept the importance of.

If you don't have time and just don't care enough to prioritise it, at least say so, but I don't think you can assume the maths and English that is being provided and there is an opportunity to do is completely unnecessary for your child.

Of course you can make time. My son’s homework takes 20 minutes. Usually a couple of English questions and some maths. He has all week to do it so he does a question each day when he comes home and has his snack.

We do reading at bedtime and spellings over breakfast. You can make time to do it but if you don’t want to, that’s a different story.

I think this is really poor, sorry.

At that age I genuinely struggled to fit it in. By the time we got home, cooked dinner it was bath and bedtime and there definitely wasn't time in the mornings. Throw in slightly reluctant child and there was no chance. Maybe I am just super disorganised

This

most schools have ed shed (spellings) or rock stars (maths) We do 5mins on each. So 10mins a day

plus reading

a little every day keeps their brain active and doesn’t really take long

All the evidence suggests homework at this age beyond reading is not of value to the child so you are not being unreasonable to not do it. Many teachers I know say the same thing but can't not set homework. I would just tell the teacher so your child isnt being asked and the teacher is clear.

I struggle too, eldest in Y3 and youngest in Y1.
Get home past 6pm, dinner, homework, bath and bed. There's no time for everything with 2 kids every day.
I try my best but sometimes it has to slide.

I loathe 'parent and child' homework with a passion.

If you are a teenager, fair dos, but homework that requires a parent just widens the life chances gap between kids with home lives of plenty and kids with crap home lives.

It also creates real tension at home and damages relationships with all the nagging required. Hated it as a parent.

When I were a lass we had nowt in primary school and it didn't do me any harm......

Ultimately it’s something you’re going to have to figure out because kids aren’t usually independent with homework until high school and it does build up as they get older. So I think I’d make the effort to find the time as it’s building good habits for both of you. But it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t finish sometimes. She is only 5 and homework has been proven not to have much benefit for this age.

I do actually agree with you. It’s too much. Learning during the school day should be plenty surely? A bit of reading and some spelling, fine, but making children do additional tasks after school seems too much. They need some time to relax, surely?

Plus I agree it’s a lot for the parents to organise.

My youngest has just started secondary school. He was never keen on doing homework at primary. At secondary he’s suddenly doing it all with no pushing whatsoever.

Why? Because the homework is communicated directly to the children by their teachers and it’s all easy for them to check and keep up to date with on their Chromebooks.

At primary, the teachers sent it to parents via a labyrinthine series of apps and passwords, and then we had to coax the children to sit and do it. My DS hated being confronted with tasks by me in this way. It was a nightmare getting him to do it. He does have ADHD though so it might be to do with the way he processes instructions.

My eldest is a very different kettle of fish and very motivated to get things done. When she was in the infants I don’t think they gave them much homework. She’s just got 10 x 9s at GCSE so I don’t think I’m a terrible parent.

I'm a teacher with a child who is also in year one and I agree with you. Reading and spelling practice absolutely but there is no evidence to support excessive homework and I make a point of not setting homework for the sake of it. It's often just something schools do to tick the home school link box and of no benefit to the children.

None of my teacher friends think there’s any point to homework at primary, or at least the early years. My DD is in year 2 and she’s never had spellings. Do most schools do spellings at this stage?

She has reading books and a maths app and that’s it. There’s very little buy in to the maths app, most people don’t bother.

All the research actually suggests the vast majority of homework at secondary also has very little impact on achievement! I did spelling and reading with mine and also got the x for other homework. I did not get upset or argue about this.
I say this as a secondary teacher who hates homework and thinks the vast majority of it is bollocks and normally done in the canteen or on the bus or rushed at home.

I dont believe in homework for parents. When the kids can do it themselves, then great, and it fosters responsibility and starts to practice skills like self-organising and discipline. Until then, nope, it kills the golden hour between childcare and bed and means WEs aren't for hobbies and family activities. My DD started being able to do her own homework in Yr 4 and now by Yr 5 is pretty much on it, and asks for help if she does need it. I genuinely think you can let it slide in the early years and isn't essential till secondary.

I am teacher and don't make my daughter do the homework she gets (reception). There is absolutely no evidence that it improves outcomes at all.
Most teachers I know (including me) don't care if primary aged children do homework. They have to set it as a form of parental engagement for Ofsted etc. They don't think it will actually help children learn.

Phonics and reading are important but busy tasks are a waste of time.

This is what I think too and it's worked well for my kids who are both now at secondary school, they just get on with their homework completely independently of me but know they can ask if they find something a bit tricky. Contrasted with some of my friends children who have been dragged kicking and screaming through all homework tasks from the beginning of primary and who now still need to be cajoled and sat with at secondary. Of course this could be partly personalities at play but I suspect it's also partly to do with the approach, sometimes you just have to drop the rope. For year 1 I would do reading but that's it, they learn so much from just everyday things anyway that I don't think it's worth putting pressure on them and yourself in the process to do extra work for very little actual benefit.

I disagree. It's good practice to find a routine for doing homework that works for you and works for your child, and then embed it in their brain so deeply that it becomes a habit for secondary school. Maybe I'm influenced by having an ADHD diagnosis and seeing many traits in my older child, but what it means for me is routines need to be embedded in a way which makes them second nature so they don't require any conscious thought or effort to carry out, we just do them on autopilot. Otherwise they don't work.

Our approach is to try to do homework out of the house. So we do it in a cafe before extracurricular activities or in the car straight after I've collected my DC from school before we even leave for home. If we're taking the bus, we do it on the bus. My advice to you would be find the easiest way to fit the homework into your routine without pissing you off too much. Then when we get home, the schoolbag is unpacked, everything is put away and any homework remaining is finished at the kitchen table before anything else is done. It's then packed ready for the next day. The reason for this is that we don't deal well with starting tasks in this house. It's easier to delay coming out of "on" mode for a little bit longer to enable the homework to be finished than it is to switch our brains on again when we've been in "off" mode, relaxing on the sofa watching TV.

You're not wrong that homework doesn't really matter for a Y1. But if you don't do it with her, you're missing a chance to start establishing and tweaking routines that are effective for your DD and your family before the point at which homework becomes more important.

We’re the same OP. DD moved schools between P1 and P2 and new school sets a lot more homework. She gets worksheets every evening Monday-Thursday (one night last week it was four worksheets), reading books with a journal we have to complete, a “have a go” book, Reading Eggs (I confess we haven’t even looked at this) and we’ve been told she’s about to start spellings. It’s far, far too much, we both work full time and this all has to be done when she’s exhausted after a day at school and afterschool care. There are tears and tantrums every fucking night and it’s not exactly fostering a love of learning or reading. One worksheet last night included “draw and colour sixteen strawberries”, and I told her to just draw sixteen triangles in red pencil and call it a day, just to get it done. I hate the message that’s giving her.

I don’t disagree with homework per se and I think it’s useful so that we as parents know our kids’ capabilities, but I’m now at a stage with the level we’re getting that I think it’s counterproductive.

I was a Primary teacher when my children were the same age as the children I was teaching. I was also a single parent and working full time. My eldest son hated homework with a vengeance and it was a huge battle to get him to just sit down and do something . They'd had breakfast club, school and then after school club, 7.30.to 5.30. I was exhausted and hungry and had hours of work to do once they'd gone to bed and they had had enough. I was required to set homework for my class. I hated it. It's utterly pointless. Interestingly my son had a friend, a girl, who was always doing extra worksheets and mini projects and other things whilst my sons wanted to take their clothes off and run round and round the garden letting off steam. The girl went to a crappy University and is now a primary school teacher. My sons went to Russell group unis and earn many, many times her salary. Homework in primary makes no difference whatsoever to life outcomes. Spelling, yes. Times tables,yes. Reading book, yes. The rest of it is a pain in the backside for teachers to set and for children to do.

I think it is more about habit setting in key stage one than anything else, I do think it’s worth doing for that. My eldest is now in year ten and was a child who threw her reading book across the room in frustration in key stage one, it took persistence from the whole family to install in her that homework is non negotiable. That time was an investment in her future, she now just cracks on with it.
In terms of making time for it, we picked Sundays straight after lunch. I sat with them and also got my work out, so they could see we all have work we have to do.
also it’s all relative, I have a friend who grew up in Singapore where she had to do another two hours of homework a night from the very start of school. She thinks the British school system is three years behind in terms of content.

look up the forgetting curve, I think it’s Masenov who researched it?! All about how quickly we forget new learning if we don’t practise to strengthen neural pathways and move it into long term memory. Yes, the homework tasks might seem pointless, but they help your child remember their learning ready for the following week.
fair enough miss the occasional week if you are on holiday etc but otherwise you should do it, it helps your child.

I try as hard as I can but I can't keep up with it all. My eldest had reading, handwriting (because this is now a Y5 thing?) and 26 modules (each one roughly equivalent to a one page worksheet) on their online home work system. We both work full time, there are music and swimming lessons to fit in and they do need some time to decompress at some point. Occasionally we absolutely don't have time to fit it in and school will have to accept that.

Rather than just not do it, I’d explain to the school your feelings on it. If enough people do so they may review the policy and do away with it! My daughter’s school did last year. She gets reading and from later in y2 a times tables rockstars login but that’s it. Oh they do put up some ‘busy work’ stuff online half termly but it’s optional and so ridiculously easy it’s a waste of time. Another school I worked in also made all homework optional.

My nephew is the same age as my daughter and gets loads. My sister gets really stressed making him do it cos he’s reluctant and finds academics tough.

Btw reading is valuable, my understanding is that spelling practise at home is generally not…they learn the words for that week then instantly forget. It seems like a valuable activity but I believe research suggests not.