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)

I had a brief incarnation as a primary school teacher (was originally secondary English). I left after a few years because it absolutely broke my heart to see how the dead hand of the National Curriculum sucked the joy out of almost everything, but particularly reading.

I felt such rage. I was older than most of the teachers who had never experienced any other type of teaching.

Spellings and reading I agree with, but as a teacher I'd like to see the back of homework for tiny children. I feel sorry for year one children.

It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it? You send little children into schools that are sponges for information and love to learn and they soon start to hate it. Mine frequently beg not to have to go.

They devour books, however. We were talking about a scientific thing the other day at dinner (temperatures, and absolute zero being -273 degrees and what this means in terms of the matter - that all kinetic energy is gone so it literally cannot get any colder because there’s no energy left to transfer) and then I said “anyway, that’s enough science chat as I’m sure you’re both tired after a day at school” and my older child (8) said “hands up if you want to learn more science with mummy!” and then both children put both their hands up in the air. It was lovely but also kind of broke my heart because they absolutely LOVE learning things, and school has crushed this out of them so they don’t associate school with learning at all.

Last Easter I got a bedsheet, a football and a small bouncy ball and used them (with one of our nannies - needed four people to hold the four corners of the bedsheet!) to demonstrate to them how gravity works and that it isn’t actually a force, rather is bending spacetime. My older child then went into school and proudly told his teacher about gravitational time dilation, and what would happen to time if you were close to a black hole and why time is relative to the gravity exerted by nearby mass.

Children are so curious and imaginative and keen to learn and explore and somehow we not only want to shove them into an environment where this curiosity and desire for knowledge will be crushed but schools also want to extend the reach of this to interfere with the little time they have at home as well and make chunks of their evenings and weekends as soulless and uninteresting as what happens at school with yet more demands that they engage in more of the same boring activities, or the hideous excuses for books that they send home. It’s such a shame that we can’t implement a system that, as a bare minimum, at least follows what we know to be facts about child development and how children learn and what they should be learning at various ages. At 4 or 5 a child should not even be in formal education let alone being set homework, they should simply be learning though play.

I live outside the UK. My DSs primary school has kids from a range of different backgrounds. About 50% are Chinese and the rest come from a range of different backgrounds that generally have English as a first language. To cater to the wants of all the parents the school posts homework options on a website and families can decide to do the homework or not. We don’t do the homework.
Children don’t need to do homework all though primary to be able to do it at high school. They are older, more self-motivated and better able to organise their time by the time they get to high school. They can also learn the skills needed through sports, scouts, etc, not just by doing homework worksheets.
One of the first things our local high school teaches is how to study/revise etc. They suggest lots of different approaches so the children can pick one which suits them. They cover everything from removing distractions, time management, having the right equipment and the importance of sleep and good nutrition etc. They provide ongoing support, not just to learn the course work, but to learn how to learn.

As a teacher I do not think homework should be set that requires help from parents at any age. Homework that reinforces classwork and needs no resources or research is the only proper homework. Everything a child needs to 'do great' is the responsibility of the school, which should be using proven explicit teaching and extending all children in school time.
By this means those children without parents able to help or provide extra resources are not disadvantaged - they get all they need to do well in school.

At five the books will (should) be decodable at the level of the child's phonics knowledge. This is necessary if the child is ever to enjoy reading, which requires phonic automaticity plus background knowledge - so the school (and the parent if pos) should be reading lovely story books to the children. It is, however, no fun to struggle to read a book most of which you cannot decode, and that is really damaging to the enjoyment of reading.
I would not practice reading at bedtime - that's the time for an enjoyable story that the child cannot read yet.
I'm going to temper that prohibition with memory - I did do the school reading book at bedtime, in addition to a couple of favourite story books. That, I think, is ok.

Absolutely. I was that child who had nobody who would have helped me and the expectation that parents will facilitate things and fill the gaps, as I said earlier in the thread, is a huge problem because there are some parents who will not or cannot do this. Those children will suffer if schools try to push academic learning into the home environment. The disadvantage for children from impoverished backgrounds (in terms of wealth but also in terms of engagement and the intelligence of parents to teach them naturally just through normal interactions and conversations within the family) will never be eliminated but as an absolute minimum schools should focus on the academic learning within school time and ensure that all children have the same access to this.

Lots of people saying homework shouldn't require parental input, but everything is online from KS2 onwards at my DCs school. KS1 was easy. My DC are fairly motivated to learn. I sat them at a table with worksheet and rubber and checkered periodically if they needed help. Now its all online, they need my laptop. There is no app so they are on an open internet browser but, as its AI which 'chooses their learning path', we aren't meant to help at all. So I have to sit and watch them like a hawk, because when I leave them the internet temptations are too great, but not help them in anyway. It's simply not a case of being able to cook dinner whilst they do a worksheet. They also have a screen ban during term time and yet I have to hand over a screen to do homework, and then have the inevitable meltdown that they can't play a game on it after they've finished. I simply don't have the time to deal with that.

Exactly my point. With knobs on!

I would complain to the school. This is unacceptable and also disadvantages children who do not have parents with a laptop or other type of computer - which will be many. The school should be doing all necessary academic work in school, which is the only way the children without parents able or willing to help can prosper.
I agree with you about the screen time, too. The school should not be promoting spending time online.

It's not really an argument, nevermind the only one I can come up with. Regardless of the forum, there's never a good time to announce, 'Myself and other teachers have...blah blah blah'. Mistakes like that are not colloquial choices, but display a fundamental misunderstanding of how to construct sentences. That doesn't inspire any confidence, let alone indicate expertise. Even five year olds know the word, 'I'.

The school are also passing their costs on to you to save a bit of photocopying. It's not OK.

Yes, exactly this and what @Grammarnut said.

I'm not a teacher but do a lot of work with families living in disadvantaged circumstances and a scenario like the one @Amethystanddiamonds described would be particularly hard on many pupils who live in crowded conditions with limited access to laptops and often reliable wifi.

Schools should be focussed on lessening gaps.

and as I said the point is shared attention, building good study habits and conversation.

I’m out….you are a bit too intense for me!

@Amethystanddiamonds

It is you that’s choosing to impose an arbitrary and inflexible ‘screen ban’, so I don’t see how that’s anything to do with the school.