Schools ask too much of families - AIBU?

[historyinthemaking]

My DS is aged 8 and in Year 4. Every week they upload homework and what’s coming up on Google Classroom. When they uploaded this week, I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of stuff being asked of families.

i know every dynamic is different, but for us, me and my DH work full time Mon-fri (PIL do school pickups) and we collect our DS from his DGP’s between 5 and 6pm. His bedtime is from 8.30-9pm. We get 2.5hrs with our DS in the evening (which needs to incorporate feeding & bathing too) and the homework just seems so excessive for an 8 year old! Nevermind the extra curricular activities he does too, like swimming on a Wednesday and football on a Friday.

And then there’s the sheer amount of money the school looks for, sponsor this and sponsor that, themed days, raffles, charity!

my best friend has 2 children at the same school (Y4 and Y3) and she’s also a full time working single mum (and she’s part time studying) and she said she simply doesn’t do all the homework because she physically can’t - not for 2 children.

Are all schools the same? Or is my son’s school the odd one out? I’ve started thinking I should skip some of the homework too just so I can actually spend quality time with my DS instead.

I think school is asking too much of us. AIBU?

I disagree. Unless your child has SEN if you do have time in the evenings, you should read, write, do homework with them when they’re young.

me and my husband worked full time. We picked the kids up from after school club, went home quick dinner, do a few hrs of work with them and straight to bed. It reaped dividends as they were ahead and motivated secondary school and are at great unis now.

as a country we need to invest in our children’s education.

I think you are looking at the consequences and symptoms rather than the problems itself.

Normally this feeling comes a combination of the parents being too tired/too much work/too stressed, and the general lack of funding/time/resources that schools have.

E.g.

If I took 30% of your work away, I'm sure you would have far more energy and time to devote to your child's education

And, If I gave the school more funding, better resources, better student/staff ratio, less paperwork etc. then I'm sure they could do more of the monotonous tasks in school, and reserve more engaging and fun tasks for parents to do at home.

All of this has been compounded by the need for our children's average level of technical education to increase, due to the way our modern societies and economies work.

The result is you have more of a demand on kids... less resources for the school to do it perfectly... so they give it to parents... but the parents have less energy and time than before... so they feel it is too much.

I was ready to agree with you but that just looks like a lot of words asking not much.
I agree grandparents would probably be very willing to do a least one of them.

Maybe you should join the PTA then you could make changes from the inside rather than just complaining to the about their free time and work they're giving.

To be honest I think it depends on how much spare time you have. If you finish work at 3 like I do and have all afternoon and evening, it's easy to set aside and hour a day to go this. If yout child is in after school club until 6 every day then yeah, it wouldn't get done.

I really hate the “days” thing, when Dd was younger I felt like I was buying something that would get used once every 5 minutes.

Mines 6 and her homework is her own responsibility, she does it, she knows it will be marked, we tell her to sit down and do it, one of us will check it over and thats it. Reading we take it in turns while the other one tidies up after dinner, times tables I would expect DD to practice herself with us doing quick fire quizzes in the car. Spelling would can also be done in the car or with a quick quiz.

I actually don’t think it’s too much. I have seen homework schedules that involve a lot of parental input (like find a leaf from the park and turn into a sculpture of the queen shit) that I thought was completely unrealistic for two working parents. This isn’t particularly bad imo. I get it feels like even more stuff to do but the best thing to do is to push that responsibility back onto your kids imo. Get them in the habit of as much independent study as possible.

YABU. To give some perspective my mum was a drug addict, we had no electricity sometimes and no central heating and she still did my homework with me every night when I was in primary school or made sure I had done it independently once I passed the age of 9. I’m 28 now and it has served me very well. There are kids aged 9 that can barely read and I do believe that this is due to lack of parental involvement. Parents believe that the school should be responsible for everything - except disciplining their little angels, of course.

Same level as mine but in year 3, except for the communion bit.

Since they tell us in advance and the system doesn’t change we just made a schedule of it. We do some in the morning since he typically has 15 minutes before we walk to school (usually math on my tablet and reading) and what we don’t finish we do when he gets home which is usually spellings and then he has 3-4 hours free in the evenings. Depending on how tired he is, I sometimes move one to a bit before bed usually reading and make it out like he is reading a bedtime story to his toddler sister and I and I’ll read a story back if he desires.

We don’t do homework on Saturday and Friday evenings he doesn’t have anything either.

He has three extracurriculars, 2 at school, after school but short so he is home before 4:30pm and cello on Saturdays mornings.

The hardest part is keeping him on task because he gets distracted so easily (he definitely is SEN but waiting for the assessment. If it wasn’t for that, it would go faster. Takes us 35 - 45 minutes total, would be less if not for constant prompting to stay on task.

The dress up days are optional and it is rare that more than 1/2 the class is dressed up for them.

Donations are optional since they know not everyone can afford them.

It looks overwhelming but I think it is more to whomever wrote it. It could have been laid out differently imo.

I am totally anti homework in primary. All the evidence suggests no benefit and children benefit much more from rest and family time. I would just do what you can and tell your child not to worry about the rest.

Other than reading, and practicing anything they are falling behind on (e.g. multiplications) we have always just not enforced homework at primary, except in yr6. But even that is only just to get used to it for secondary. The kids will do what they can do, or not.

Gosh, wait until your DC move to secondary. Then you/they will know what homework is!

Use the time with GPs. At Y4, they shouldn’t need much adult support with homework. Let them do it themselves and just check it afterwards.

Ah we don’t have this mandatory test in Scotland. Must be why I’m not familiar with TTRS

YANBU, especially on the homework. Especially at 8 years old.

Thanks everyone for your replies. A proper mixed bag of opinions. My son knows all his timetables, and quite comfortably (he loves math), so I know what you’re saying and we definitely skip over this because we don’t need to do it.

he struggles with writing (he’s getting glasses next week and I’m hoping this helps) but because he struggles this isn’t 5 min homework, it can take up to an hour to get him to produce his best in anything literacy.

I don’t feel I can ask for DGP to input with homework as they already pick him up for us everyday, and feed him and then they have their own sort of routine with him - walk the dogs, help in the garden etc (they are very outdoor based) and I do feel this is good for him for those 2 hours after school before he gets mum and dad.

we also can’t do anything on the “walk to school” as we live next door to the school 😅 and he’s in breakfast club from 8.10 so it’s a long enough day without homework in the morning

Tbh, I don’t personally “struggle” with the homework. My post was more just the sheer amount I feel schools ask of families. I can cope with this because I have a supportive DH, only one DC, and a routine job. My point was more is this is asked of every family - multiple DCs, single parents, shift workers etc etc.

Y4 - they should be doing homework without adult assistance. Just checking the work afterwards is all any adult should do.

My dc are In a private school and get FAR more homework than this. In fact I’m surprised that you feel this is a lot, this is the bare minimum. Do your kids not have a routine?
why is homework left for the end of the day and not built in during the day?
My dc gets in and has a snack then shower, and then gets straight to homework. He’s done everything by 5:30 and the rest of the evening till 8:30 is just dinner and playtime.
why can’t he do his homework at his GP?
We do only the big event days, Xmas jumper, world book day, etc. none of all the silly nonsense I’ve read on here.

I do think homework is a good habit. It just reinforces what they learnt so far, I’m able to see what they are doing at school and help if they need it. Surely most people think like this?

I'm in Scotland too OP but my daughter's primary school doesn't have a homework policy. When my daughter started school during covid, all homework for a few years was app-based and parents pushed back strongly on it, including me. It wasn't working for any of the children. Teachers can now set homework or not and most don't. I'm not opposed to homework per se as especially coming up to high school I do think there can be a benefit in knowing how to self-organise and self-discipline but I am opposed to it being set just for the sake of setting something.

I do go over things with her less formally though and she's the same as yours, absolutely no problems with times tables for a long time and has been a class and school maths champion. But we still do quick fire revision on it sometimes, literally just a few minutes of me firing times tables questions at her. Or sometimes words to spell. And I do make sure she reads. Maybe the list makes it seem much more daunting than it really is.

Times tables can be done in the car, in the bath, whilst you are getting pjs on. Reading to you can be done in bed. Fifteen minutes independent reading is independent reading. Your child can do that before lights out . Grace before meals, you're at a Catholic school so that's part of it. You signed up for that. Song lyrics can be done anywhere anytime as can spellings. Your child can go over the words 4 times for each word ( look at it, write it , check it, repeat. ) Then you test.

Get him to type his work instead? It also doesn’t have to be his “best”. Just pick his favourite day and explain why.

Other than that, the “homework “ is just basic stuff. Reading should be every day . Timestables , DD just on TTR during breakfast club. Spellings, we only practiced the ones she didn’t actually know . We did it the boring way, but it was actually a lot quicker so she preferred it. I said the word , she wrote it down, if it was wrong she wrote it down correctly. 10 minutes, if that, on a really tricky week.

The events seem excessive but you don’t actually have to take part in all of them.

I think at 8 he’s capable of doing this independently anyway. My DS reads his school book in bed and then follows it with a book of his choice. I don’t need him to read to me because he’s been a ‘free reader’ for over a year now, he’s only in year 2 but his reading age is 10 so I trust he’s comprehending the basic books from school well.

Spellings and times tables can just be practised as chants on the go really. On the way to and from school or clubs but again, I’m sure he’s capable of running through both alone.

Then he literally just has one writing task which he doesn’t need much assistance with at 8. Maybe just a quick proof read after or some prompts to get him started.

I think you’ve got off easy with this in truth. My DS has daily reading, times tables and spellings plus 3 written tasks a week.

I don’t think it’s a lot. Practicing stuff like times tables etc can be done while on the way to school or activities or while out for a walk. Reading for 15 minutes a day doesn’t seem excessive at all and the other stuff is just bits really.

Im not in the UK so always confused with the Year levels but my DC is 7 and we do 20 mins homework every night. She does maths, writing, times tables, spelling and guided reading. She is pretty academic though and finds it all quite easy. If it was taking her twice that time I'd be upset and talking to the teacher about only doing half.

She has a childminder twice a week and she does it with her. Could the grandparents? The evenings that she's with me I do find it to be quality time actually.

on a weekly basis it's really not that much:
songs & timetables you can do in the car or on the walk to school
spellings you can read out while you're making dinner or maybe ask GP to do those on their evenings
reading do in bed before lights out
february's big question sounds like you've had 3 weeks to produce so that's a weekend task

add something to your shopping list for the wee box donations and notes in your diary about hair day / book day etc.

The "days" is the only thing that I think is excessive, do they really need mad hair day, wear something bright day, book day, easter bonnets and non-uniform day in the space of 3 weeks? At least they don't have to dress up as their favourite book for world book day and catholic schools don't tend to do comic relief! I'd be tempted to raise this with the PTA as it's putting pressure on parents, both time and financial and apart from world book day probably isn't adding anything to their education!

Some people think like that, but not everyone.

There is benefit in reading, but not the rest. Here children are encouraged to play, play sport, play an instrument, spend time with family and friends etc after school rather than spend it doing homework.

Where we are homework really starts in Y9. The children don’t need to spend years and years doing homework when they young so they can do it when they are older.

If I want to know what my children are learning then I can ask them, but often they will just share this information from time to time. I don’t need them to do homework to find out about what they are learning at school.

There are families here who require their children do a lot of homework afterschool. In terms of academic success, some of these children do very well, but so do others who didn’t spend their primary years doing homework.

I get that if you are use to your primary aged children doing homework it’s hard to imagine that they could simply not do it and they’d not be worse off, mostly it makes no difference other than reading.

I have only looked at the homework tasks and that looks pretty standard. Most schools ask for children to be reading at home, practicing times tables and learning spellings. In KS2 lots of schools do then set another activity (for my kids this is often a worksheet, and rotates through maths, English, science and topic).
The reading we always do before bed. Doesn't have to be long. Maths we also do TTRS and mine will perhaps only play a little. We do generally neglect the spellings though.
I agree with the comments about people saying they are too busy to fit it all in, especially during the week, but I don't see how if you include weekends there is no time to enjoy a book or to do some maths then. If my child reads a different book to their school one we just note that in the reading record.