At what age should children be able to do their school work without help?

[elliejjtiny]

Just wondering as we had an email from the head teacher at dc's primary school saying that there are too many children of key workers in school and if you work from home then your children shouldn't be in. It then goes on to moan about children fidgeting during zoom calls and children not doing enough school work at home. It says that parents working from home is no excuse as children from year 2 onwards can do their school work independently after a brief explanation from the parents.

I was surprised at this as I have to help my years 2, 3 and 5 children a lot and there is no way I could work from home at the same time. Luckily I'm a sahm so although I don't have time to do the baking/crafts etc that I would like to do with them we are doing ok, getting the school work done and not too far behind with the housework. I would massively struggle if I had preschool aged dc as well or was trying to work from home.

Meanwhile my mum keeps telling me how lucky I am that my secondary aged dc are getting on with their school work independently as long as I make sure they get up in the morning and check class charts to make sure they have done everything.

I thought what my dc were doing was fairly standard although my 2 youngest have SEN so I am probably giving more help than most. My nt year 5 child still needs help and supervision though which I thought was normal. His friends mums are giving the same kind of help as I am. A lot of parents working from home started off with their children at home but now a lot of them are in school. Year 2 started off with 5 children in at the beginning of January and now there are 15. Year 3 started with 2 children in and now there are 8. I know I have more dc than average but I don't think it's possible for most year 2 children to do 3 hours school work independently while parents do a full time job at home.

My year 4 child is doing ok on his own. My year 2 child needs constant supervision and support so I no longer sign into his online lessons. Sent an email explaining this to the school a week ago and they've not contacted me again. Which I think is ridiculous. My mum comes round for about 2 hours a day now to work on his maths and English in workbooks I have sourced myself.

Our school sent something similar. About the children working independently.

Yet then the videos are full of "ask your grown up to do this", "ask your grown up to help you with that" and are set essentially so that you have to do it together.

I have 2 nt year 6 girls. I set them up with what's been sent over. Myself and dh check in periodically and they sometimes call dm as well as she's a former teacher so explains well. I help them upload their work.

But mostly it's independent. Dd1 is very self motivated, Dd2 needs more prodding. They comfortably complete their daily tasks, watch a bit of bite size, kid me that horrible histories is educational etc within about 3 hours per day.

My biggest issue is PE. For sporty kids they've become dreadfully sedentary and it's an effort to shift them. Dh tries and we get them out in a walk or doing some ring fit every day but it's not enough.

My Yr5 9yo DD can do some tasks independently, if clearly explained and she has the chance to ask any questions to clarify. The problem we have is that the above isn't happening, it's just a chaotic list of worksheets and tasks with no introduction or help at all.

As DH and I are both working full time in KW roles, we aren't able to introduce and explain each task to her, so she's getting very little done.

We would get a long way with 3-4 x short topic/task intros (say 5 mins) from her teachers per day, but they refuse.

The kids who are doing well with it are those with a non-working parent, the rest are just floundering.

My DD (yr5) would be quite capable of working independently if the work was sent out in a consistent, organised format.
As it is worksheets, powerpoints, web links and various documents arrive at random throughout the day, which she can't access until I download them for her.
I spend most evenings sorting out what she's done that day, printing worksheets and writing out instructions for the next day's tasks. It's a pain but her dad and I both work full time so it's all we can do.

My Year 5 & 6 children are 90% independent with just some prompting by me to get started.
My Year 2 child does fuck all unless I am supervising closely.

Well I'm 39 and I'm dicking around on here instead of getting back to work.

My ds was in year 2 during the first lockdown and pretty much needed me to sit over him. He's in year 3 now and the change is noticeable. I explain what he has to do and make sure he has what he needs then he gets on with it.
What he produces will be right (ish) but not of a high standard, plus he's one of the older children in the year.
So I'd say somewhere between year 3 and year 4.

I think it's self-defeating to ask more parents to keep children off school and then moan about fidgeting and being helped too much. It won't exactly sell homeschooling to keyworker parents will it???

My year 7 in dyslexic and other issues. He needs help with spelling and punctuation etc, sometimes also with comprehension. He does most of his work himself but needs it checked over. My year 2 needs constant persuasion and supervision to do her work, unless it's craft lol.

My y5 needs constant supervision and support. He has an IEP at school as he has mild hearing issues due to long term glue ear. He finds writing and spelling especially hard. Both H and are key workers and though based at home sometimes have to do visits. I'm also part time so have dc2 in school 2 days a week, homeschool the rest. There is no way I could give him the support he needs if I was 'teaching him and working. The work needs to be printed, logged into various platforms and I still have to explain. At school I think they use partners a lot so the children share there ideas etc, this translates as you need a parent.

I do also think that at times, from some schools, there isn't much thought going into how existing resources are used. WR Maths for example...the videos are fine and the worksheets are fine, but DD needs to ask for help and doesn't get it. And some days there are 2 out of maybe 10 questions which are 'discuss your answer with a partner', and of course they can't do that at the moment, so 20% of the tasks were not appropriate for solitary remote learning. It would make a world of difference for us if there was an intro and a debrief for the task, including 'what did you think about question 5b?', to give them a chance to discuss and hear other ideas. They really miss out on a lot by being expected to do all of it alone with no support or interaction at all.

I know other schools do it differently, but for us certainly, school say because WR provide videos and worksheets and answer sheets, that maths is 'covered' and no teaching or feedback at all is necessary. I could handle that explanation for a 2 week bubble closure, but not for 2-3 months.

Completely depends on the child, surely! Children aren't treated in the same way at school and shouldn't be assumed to be the same at home. Some y2s work very well independently after a short explanation of the task. A lot need much more teacher engagement and some work with teaching assistants almost constantly.

My y6 works Completely independently he has live lessons though so is able to ask the teacher direct if he doesn't understand something. He uploads the work himself etc the only thing he might ask me to do is print something out.
Y1 child totally different story he needs constant supervision no way would I be able to work and supervise his zoom lessons ( when hes not refusing to do them that is)

I think teachers are under estimating the amount of explanation and help that they give in class. In a normal lesson they would teach the topic, then ask questions, then set a piece of work which shows whether the child has understood. Then there would be repetition and clarification and another task. All differentiated according to ability.
Remote teaching is never going to do all that.

My children are grown up so I have no experience of home schooling but I did have 20 years of homework.
I can honestly say that until they were about 16 I had to have some involvement. This might have taken the form of cajoling , nagging, making suggestions or answering questions. These were both bright, able and well behaved DC but they were certainly not able to work completely independently at primary school.
Only when they got to sixth form can I honestly say that I didn't have to monitor what they did (and you only need to look at the secondary /further education boards on MN to see that not all DC work properly at that age.

From year 3 unless they have SEN children should be able to work independently

Really? Not in our house. Yrs 3&4 and supposedly a full live school day. Can’t log in, can’t find the pencil/ruler/rubber/ lined paper/plain paper/squared Paper, google meet not working, googlemeet working but teacher late/doesn’t turn up, don’t understand the work, supposed to be in a breakout room, but no supervision, sheets need printing, printer out of paper, printer out of ink, computer out of power, iPad out of power, no-one can find the charging leads, they are hungry/thirsty/board/hungry again, they need my phone to take pictures of their work and upload it, youngest doesn’t know how to upload from the phone, they need recycling material to build an areoplane, they can’t follow the youtube ‘how to make an origami bird in 572 steps’ video, they need plastic cups for music, I need to put towels under the plastic cups so they aren’t so noisy and disturbing for DH who is WFH........
So no, yrs 3&4 in our house not working independently. Fortunately I’m between jobs. There is no way I could do this and work.

My eldest is in year four. At the start of each day I print out his worksheets and open up browser tabs for all his work. Then he just gets on with it.
My youngest is in year one and its like getting blood from a fucking stone.

I have a Y4 and Y7. They are both completely independent with their home learning. Log themselves on at the right time, have a timetable printed out and check it to make sure they are back online at the right time after breaks/lunch etc. They do have live lessons all day from 8.30am-3.30pm so by now, I think they've worked it all out.

DD1 is in year 4.She does most of the work independently, but only after I’ve printed it all and found her the right stationery, and I upload anything that needs handing in. This is fine as all the work seems well organised this lockdown - in the first lockdown it was all random links, half of which didn’t work, with very little structure.

DD2 is in foundation. She needs someone there the whole time. If i wasn’t on maternity leave right now, she wouldn’t be getting anything done.

Ds2 was in year 6, when lockdown started last year. He worked 100% independently.
It went weeks before I remembered to check his app. It was all fine.

Then I worked from home. I listened to his lessons and I was loving it. I was doing algebra again! His RE teacher was a scream!

I was shocked that many of his peers mums said their dc couldn't. But I decided to never mention to anyone my shock! Wouldn't win any friends I'm sure!

My y5 ds needs constant help and guidance. My older would have been fine at the age though so depends on the child.

*older two

Cant speak for other people's children but mine would have been semi independent from Y5/6 and mostly independent (but still needing help with planning plus some encouragement to keep going) from Y7.

My Y1/P1 can do some of her set tasks independently and can do basic seesaw things, but I have to be there in case she thinks something is hard and throws a strop about it. She can submit a completed task and start a response, move things to boxes and has started understanding how to move to front or back if something is going behind the thing it's supposed to go on.

Still needs help with letter location on the keyboard (some apps are qwerty while others are alphabetical order).

Being 5 she's either not on task at all or easily distracted by younger sibling (who is being horribly ignored!)

Totally depends on the child, not related to age. My eldest needs the most help and supervision at times (despite being reasonably bright, he finds it hard to concentrate).