To not make DD6 (Year 1) do homework?

[Thesnailonthewhale]

She was 6 in December, an she's above age related expectations in all areas. Reading age of 8y6m.doing Year 2 maths etc

School are getting a bit uppity about her not completing the set homework each week. (Spellings, some maths sheets etc)

She reads every day without being prompted and is incredibly inquisitive etc helps around the house, plays creatively, is active.
She counts coins at shops, does puzzle books, can tell the time to quarters and halfs and (still working on 5 mins) - weighs and measures ingredients for cooking and baking etc. (all applied maths)

Should I make her do the extra stuff? I can't see the point personally.

She does occasionally have meltdowns at school, more towards the end of half-term.

If you are doing it in a different way, then give the teacher that? So hand in the puzzle sheet or whatever.

I would want to know what she's finding so hard about it. Have you tried doing it in a different setting? It could be a wish to keep school and home separate. We often do homework while the other DC has their swimming lesson. Are some parts ok but not others? My DD hates doing spellings, but will do maths or writing tasks fine, whereas DS hates writing tasks. I bribe strategically when I need to. Sometimes we do homework on a Sunday morning and they can watch a TV show after it's done.

I don't necessarily think it's vital, but I would be concerned about her reaction to it.

@Thesnailonthewhale Movement breaks, fidget toys and meltdowns do suggest some additional needs. It might be worth investigating, or at least discussing with the school.

It is a good routine to get into for when she moves through the education system.

So on a day to day basis she is happy to do the work at school? There is no reason she can't do the homework then. I would be encouraging and not communicate with her that you think it's too easy and beneath her. I've seen it with DD's classmates, all believing that they were so much more clever than the others. Their parents wanted them pushed, demanding to get harder homework, jump a year group... It turned out they were bright, but average bright. In the end, they scored less in their sats than my DD.

Some schools really like to take curiosity and give it as damn good kicking with routine and dross. Look after that enthusiasm for learning - feed it, encourage it and defend it!

I thought she was above in all areas ??

so a few spellings for her age group / year shouldn’t bother her

I've just had a long chat with her about it all, about why it's important, and how whilst it might be hard now, it's won't be in the future. Told her some things we just have to do, like brushing teeth etc.

She even talked about how it the same with her swimming, she's rather not practice but she knows if she doesn't she wouldn't be able to go swimming at all, and I only make her practice for "her own good" (her words!)

she's agreed to try again. Draw a line under everything and start again.

Homework doesn't improve outcomes by much, but by not getting DD to do the homework you're sending a message that you don't think what her teacher says is that important and indirectly that education isn't that important.

My daughter's school doesn't set homework in Y1, which I appreciate, but they have a ridiculous phonics scheme which means all the children are on the same book band. DD can (and regularly does) read the books they send home standing on her head in about 5 minutes flat, but we read them anyway because we're showing her that we value what her teachers have to say, even though secretly we think that particular scheme is rubbish. We also read books that challenge her.

Please don't take this as me diagnosing your daughter - we have very limited information obviously so I'm really not but have you ever considered she might be neuro divergent?
I only mention it because being so capable of reading/maths but struggling when things are difficult and not being able to explain it is a pattern that is seen in a lot of high masking autistic/adhd women who get diagnosed later in life, myself included.
I really struggle to do something if I don't think I can do it perfectly, it causes me real physical anxiety and there's no reason why, even if no one else is putting expectations on me. I was well ahead of my age for reading, maths, counting etc., I was just labelled as chatty or the distractor. I think often girls who are polite and nice and can do most of the work will get missed because they aren't bothered like some of the stereotypes teachers expect.
It's normal for kids to strop if they don't want to do a chore or homework but that meltdown at spellings and not being able to explain it, then being ok the next day, it is something paired with your initial post that makes me think there's more to it and if there is, getting an understanding now could help her so immensely.
Mumsnet is really against neuro divergence being brought up sometimes but those of us who are diagnosed can really recognise it because of our own lived experiences.
Like I say, not trying to diagnose her or says he absolutely is but I wonder if you were to look into how autism/ADHD combined presents in girls and women if you'd see more similarities, especially inattentive ADHD which is more common in girls.

There is no evidence that forcing a child to do homework at 6 (6!) "gets them used" to homework at secondary. When she starts at secondary she'll be 11!

DH and I were complete swots at secondary and are both teachers now but had barely any homework at primary. Wow did we make up for that when DD went, due to her utterly refusing. In the end it turned into a bit of a joke between us and we figured out we could do almost anything through the medium of Lego. We excelled ourselves during lockdown with a series of Lego dioramas of scenes from Roald Dahl books 😂 although DH felt his cardboard Viking ship was his PB.

Well at the very least she sounds extremely articulate OP!

Exactly. Of course she should do her homework.

Have you even offered them to her?

If she fancies doing them then fine. If she doesn't then that too is fine.

Can you do it with her, with her dictating and you writing, is that allowed? My (suspected ADHD) 6 year old struggles to sit to do her homework, but will happily dictate it to me whilst balancing on 1 leg, or sitting on a gym ball. Like yours, she finds it too easy, but will engage if we do it together. She then gets writing practice when she is writing a story etc and will take this in to show her teacher.

She can focus in class when sitting on a wobble cushion, but finds it harder to sit still at home

Piss off. It's not like I don't care.

Unhelpful judgement isn't productive for anyone.

Offered what?

She just sat down and wrote 4 sentences.

We looked at it together and corrected her spelling mistakes, she was upset with herself because she knew how to spell, but she had rushed it. So she just wrote the words again, slowly this time. (We have issues if her rushing everything!)

Nah I'll continue to say what I said and agree with the PP.

If you're DD starts crying over a little bit of hw, you should honestly discipline her better. She should do her spellings and do her maths.

She's not "crying over a little bit of homework". She's having a full on fucking meltdown, which never happens with anything else she doesn't want to do. This isn't a lack of parenting,or laziness in my part, or her trying to wriggle out of it by having a tantrum.... This happens at school too and the teacher agrees it isn't a tantrum or bad behaviour or being naughty... it's a regulation/ND type thing.

She tries to get out of other things, like most kids do, like...bed time, brushing teeth, wearing appropriate clothes, pushing for extra time in the playground...her behaviours at these times are entirely different to what we experience over homework.

I agree.
I taught in Primary schools for well over 30 yrs. I taught phonics long before the gvt decided that everybody must do so. I never set spelling tests, although I did sometimes do a 'quiz' based on spelling patterns.

I always taught children how to use a dictionary - a far more useful skill than learning words for a spelling test, imho.

If DD enjoys reading and is good at it I wouldn't insist on her doing the homework and doubt that she struggles to successfully complete a spelling test in class. Except in a few specific cases, good readers are usually good spellers.

Sitting learning spellings for a test is actually an ineffective way to learn to spell correctly anyway. And tests often cause unnecessary stress for those who arevnot good readers.

@ImImmortalNowBabyDollI know this is off topic, but why on earth don’t schools know some dc csn read and others cannot. I’m so lucky that my dc did some phonics in yr, but not much. DD1 really enjoyed reading and other dc in her year started school reading! Who on earth would think their needs are met by boring repetitive phonics?

As for homework, I think learning some spelling, tables, reading suitable books and practicing maths in everyday situations is useful. As is some writing. Yes, do it to please the teacher but don’t dwell on it.

in my experience, the maths curriculum in y1 is broadened for the brightest. They don’t get taught y2 curriculum until y2. If they are not giving her work that’s greater depth, they should be.

I understand what you are saying OP. My Dd used to be like this. She has always been extremely well behaved at nursery and in school. Never in trouble, good group of friends and never falls out with them. But homework used to send her into an absolute rage. She would curl up on the ground under the kitchen table screaming and shouting. Getting through the 20 minutes homework might take an hour.

She was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD aged 9. From my reading this is very common behaviour for children with ADHD and part of the issue is them wanting the separation between school and home and you’re bringing school into the home. Part of the issue was post-school emotional collapse as she’d been masking all day and trying hard and had nothing left. Part of it was she is a perfectionist and so got very angry when she couldn’t do it. And part of it is that primary school homework is very hard for children with poor working memories especially ones who struggle with handwriting which we also had despite her being a very talented artist. There was too much cognitive overload hence the emotional dysregulation.

It has got better as she’s got older. Do I think sitting through the hours of stress for homework in years 1 - 4 has been beneficial for her long term learning? Probably not. Can she cope with the year 6 homework now (and they are working a year ahead at her school) mostly. Using a laptop for written work has helped. Her dictating composition tasks to me has helped. Reasonable adjustments to the process that works for most children but not all is what she needed. Can she remember her times tables? Still no but her grasp of mathematical concepts is above average and once she’s in secondary school using a calculator I am confident she will be fine.

If she’s bright and interested in learning I wouldn’t worry about a worksheet which is causing huge upset. At 6 you can help her learn in lots of different ways.

Oh nah, I don't accept the "shock" of later on. We did absolutely zero homework at primary in the 80s and managed just fine entering secondary school and expected to do homework every day.