to say to my kid" if you can't do your homework then take it back in UNDONE"

[AugustusGloop]

rather than me trying to explain it?
Because that is what I ( very rarely) do.

Primary.

ManIFeelikeawoman, I and my husband also didn't get homework at primary school because it was before its introduction. It is no excuse for not helping with it and putting on a united front with the school, especially infront of young children. It is not the homework in itself more the message conveyed when parents don't value what teachers are trying to achieve.
It is a fact that if children do not consolidate their learning by homework or other means they may well not understand it. I have no problem with parents informing the school that a child has struggled or can't do it due to that. However, I feel it is completely undermining teachers to say 'J isn't doing his homework because he/I don't want to.' It teaches children that they don't have to conform to rules. This is a life skill. Conforming to societies rules, or lack of, has contributed to the unruely behaviour of many youths in todays society, resulting in the government needing to enforce rules through ASBOs.

I don't feel undermined because I said I am not a teacher. I am NOT a teacher. Wouldn't have the patience for one thing!

I think this thread has moved on a lot from the OP which was a basic question as to whether your would send your child in with their homework not done because they couldn't do it.

I feel that it is important that a teacher knows that a child is struggling with a concept so I will write a note to that effect. It does not mean that I am not helping or encouraging my child. I view it that I am helping him and the teacher.

I think homework can be useful for both children, parents and teachers in that way. It helps me see what they are doing in class. DS sitting down and doing it helps him to see that he can do it and re-inforces it and helps the teacher see that what she has taught has been learnt. Or not as the case maybe.

homework should be banned. It serves no useful purpose. if the curriculum is so big that the teacher can't fit everything in to the school day, then the curriculum needs changing. We put too much emphasis, as a society, on forcing education on young children who are not ready for it. I resent every minute my daughter has had to spend on homework for primary school, she could have spent it doing better other stuff. So no the OP is NBU, I would do the same, and I have done in the past. I think it is more important that the teacher has a true picture of my child's abilities and can give them more help if needed, than just to nag for not doing homework. BTW my DD is in year 7 and in all the top sets so hasn't done too bad and I haven't damamged her education with my views.

I totally agree

I think homework serves three purposes:

-it reenfores what has been learnt in school,

• it gives me a chance to see what my children are doing in school because they do not necerssary talk about the accademic side of things when I ask them how their day went,
• It gives me an opportunity to see how well thwy are getting on in school or not and help improving their performances if I can.

purepurple says : I agree to a certain point, but is it not essential that as parents we get that true picture too?

To just answer the OP, YANBU if it is really too hard and there is no way for youoto explain ( but I would write a note to the teacher to explain where DC was struggling)

YABU if it is just to make your life easier ( which does not actually seems to be the case from your OP).

Well said, Purepurple.

I think no homework is a good thing is homes were the parents input into their children's general education:

Talking about stuff, playing with them, reading together, cooking together; doing all that how many ducks are there?

I think the problem is that I see so many kids where there are no books at home, stimulation is TV/computer games and playing a bit with toys. I have been to homes where there are no toys as well.

In those situations where parents either arent confident in knowing how to play with their kids in a way that can help them learn homework can be a useful tool in giving the parents ideas of how to approach learning at home. The library books they bring back from school to read with their parents may be the only book they see.

Now some of those parents will not help the kids anyway, but in those that do the difference is immeasurable.

Noonki is right. If you're the sort of family where you play games with coins, get the kids to help measure things for cooking and wite shopping lists etc then homework is probably of marginal benefit anyway.

But let's face it, many, many homes AREN'T like this, and the problem is that a lot of the 'anti-homework' arguments smack of the defiant 'I'll do what I like with my child' sort of attitude.
Homework doesn't have to be dull and boring, and let's face it, most of it is only 15-20 minutes per night.

Isn't this whole argument much more about (once again) lazy parents abdicating responsibility for their children?

It might only be supposed to last 15-20mins a night but with a reluctant child it can take a lot, lot longer. Particularly with infant age children.

"Isn't this whole argument much more about (once again) lazy parents abdicating responsibility for their children? "

No, I don't think it is. Also, don't appreciate the "(once again)".

i am not a lazy parent and I don't abdicate any responsibility for my children but I do object to the early age that formal education starts. I object to SATs and the pressure put on children to achieve the best grades to bump the school up the leagues table. I could also argue that homework is used by lazy teachers abdicating part of their work on to parents, but I wouldn't be so cheeky. You only have to llok at the rest of the world, ie scandanavia, australia and New Zealand where school is so different and children do so much better than ours. BTW I went to school in the 70s and 80s where we had no homework at primary school and I think I turned out ok. I could read before I went to school cos my mum took me to the library at an early age. ch be children for as long as possible.ildren are under too much pressure at too young an age, children should be able to

I was never given any homework at Primary school (that was back in the Dark Ages, though!).

At home I read loads and wrote lots of (terrible) stories, and watched far too much TV.

I did very well at school.

I HATE having to do homework with my DC, especially those lengthy practice things like pages of sums or grammar exercises. Not because I don't want to help them, but because they are tired after school and the homework is usually boring.

I can understand the view that primary school children should not get or get minimal homework and that outside school time is family/chilling time.

My main problem with not helping a child who is obviously stuck and sending them back with homework undone is that it gives the wrong message to the child that you do not support their education, that whatever the teacher says, it is optional whether or not they listen.

If you do not as a parent agree with the homework policy, you have a duty to raise it with the teacher, beyond sending homework back with IMO passive aggressive notes. Whilst a measure of last resort, you always have the option to change schools or even home school.

I personally do not think my dd should be learning to read at age 4 and I disagree with the way that reading is taught by her school in that it is confusing.

My dd still has to do her reading homework - which is not substantial and largely fun so no hardship for me. Rather than leave her to flounder, I am separately going through the Jolly Phonics workbooks with her to counter the confusing teaching method. It is more work for me and I am not keen, but at least my dd does not turn in undone homework or fall behind - which would cause her distress as she does compare herself with her peers.

I have two children. A dsd aged 8 and a dd aged 8.

My dsd struggles immensely at school. She has behavioural issues icluding problems concentrating. Her reading, spelling, vocab etc are below expectations for her age and this adversely affects all her lessons such as maths, science etc.

We work very closely with the school to ensure that she gets the most out of her education. She is very talented at art and dance but will still need to have a good grounding the 3 r's if she followed an arty type career path.

Part of the school action plan includes various homework tasks to reinforce what is being taught in her focus groups at school.
We have had massive problems getting her mum to take part in these as she beleives that h/w is "wrong and ain't helping".

The truth of the matter is that if my dsd had 5-10 mins a day spent with her doing short bursts of maths/reading/writing etc she would improve her abilities greatly. Her self esteem would improve (currently very low), her general life chances would improve and also her attitude to working independently would improve.

I cannot understand how parents cannot see the benefit of helping a child to reinforce their day to day learning with a little h/w.

My dd's school has a traffic lights system, they get about 90mns h/w a week in yr4 spread out over a 7 day period which consistes of maths, literacy, a little project work and some science.
If the child has grasped the concepts well and worked independently you colour in a circle at the bottom of the sheet green, if they needed a little assistance at first but then went on to work independently colour yellow and if they really struggled it's red.
I think this is a good way of flagging to the teacher where children need a little help or can be stretched further.

The children are not expected to complete the homework task if they struggled but they are expected to have tried. I think this is a good learning tool that is a useful lifeskill.

With my staff, i expect them all to put in their best, if there is a particular task or project that they are struggling with i expect them to come to me or a colleague to get assistance. I don't expect them to simply not bother.

Talking to other parents at school i have noticed that the ones who get most stressed about tend to be the ones who do it all in one go rather than spread out the tasks over a few days.

The trouble is, many parents believe strongly that homework is a Good Thing and often complain if there isn't enough. So if the school has a policy of setting homework and some childrne in the class don't do it, it is mighty unfair on those who do.

Bruxeur - The fact that I am a sample of one is actually fairly irrelevant - one, because obviously none of my primary school classmates had homework either, and I'm not the only one to have avoided Borstal - but also because I was challenging those preposterous "=" signs. The truth is that a sample of one is enough to disprove this Daily Mail knee jerk fatalism.

Dilly, you make some excellent points. Mainly because what you are now saying is nothing like the tosh you originally posted and which I challenged.

It depends what the homework is, tbh. If the hw is to see if he can apply the knowledge he learnt in class, then he should really make the effort. If, after an honest try, he can't do it, then so be it. He may not be ready for this kind of work. It's important for the teacher to know if that is the case.

If he hasn't acquired the relevent knowledge, then he can't be expected to do the work unless he is a particularly motivated Google whizz.

If he leaves work out because he is afraid of getting it wrong, then both teachers and parents need to encourage him so that he overcomes this fear.

If you are learning a language or an instrument, little and often is the recognised route. No-one objects to a child who plays an instrument practising at home, why should it be different for maths? I was a very bright child who performed averagly in test scores, UNTIL my dad found out I was avoiding my spellings each week, the next week I can top, and remained top for the rest of my primary school life.

I have a responsibility to ensure that my kids (when I have them) and my SD do as well a possible at school, how else can they do what they want they they get older? Parents are responsible for the total well-being of their children, and ensuring that they can do as well in school as they can is part of that as far as I'm concerned.

Anita if a child wants to learn an instrument then little and often is great.
If a child wanted to get better at maths then little and often -again no problem.

What if the child wanted to learn an instrument but couldn't practice because s/he had maths homework to do which left no time for the instrument?

Or a child interested in maths with no time to do the maths homework because a parent was insistent that they learned an instrument even though it didn't really interest the child?

Or a child who really wants to go out and play with friends before it goes dark who can't because of the insistance of some kind of homework.

Scienceteacher - surely teachers can tell whether a child is ready for the work being given by looking at how they do in class. How would homework give this information in a way that classwork wouldn't?

I think if a child is in a typical state school class of 30, it is very difficult for the teacher to fully assess the child. Independent homework is a very valuable tool, and the teacher can use this to help with subsequent lesson plans and differentiation.

It is difficult to assess higher levels of learning for all children in a lesson, especially in a token plenary.

As for time management (music versus maths), you are only talking about 20 minutes of each per day. Surely a child has this amount of time, especially if you ban the Playstation.....

Scienceteacher Sadly what a teacher thinks should take 20 mins, takes some kids 1 hour. I was/am an undiagnosed dyslexic with foreign speaking, out at work parents. I know it was a long time ago but I used to work very hard at getting no where. My Mum went to my head of year at the time and he was useless. I think sometimes a note has to go back to the teacher so they understand that isn't 20 mins work for that child and parent. (TG for spellchecker)

If English is not your mother tongue, then surely it is understandable that homework takes a bit longer as you are doing both the hw and learning English at the same time?

If it is routinely taking a long time to do hw, the parent should write a note in the diary. It may be that the child has a learning difficulty that needs to be followed up, or perhaps the teacher has not been able to gauge the right amount of work for the class as a whole. Unless you know your child is dawdling, it is important to let the teacher know.

My dd takes a longer time with homework because she is 'multi-tasking'. She has to do a dance of joy when she gets a tricky one right. i don't think I will tell the teacher that . At her age (5), homework can be fun, if she is in the mood for it.