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 7yo year 3 dd needs constant supervision. If I left her to get on with it she would do fuck all and would cry about the rest saying she didn’t understand it. She needs me to photograph her work and upload to Google classroom and as we don’t have a printer I have to spend every morning writing the heading and questions down on bits of paper for her to then work on.

The school have done one live lesson so far and all the rest are a short explanation video and worksheets. I have to sit with her and go through everything.

It's not really a set age thing, is it?

And working independently in school or on homework is very different to remote learning, organising themselves, attending video calls etc.

It also depends how your school is operating. Online lessons with a teacher on tap and work being marked is completely different to no live interaction and little or no marking or feedback on work. My Y5 would be fine with the latter plus a bit of technical support. We don’t get that, so she needs a lot of adult input.

Former!!! Oh for an edit button!

Year 3 can attend meetings independently but I have to oversee their work or it wouldn’t happen.

Mine is 8 and can do it - both of us have critical worker jobs full time and she is at home every day except once a fortnight when we can’t make the rotas work. It depends on the child but I am so so proud of her.

It really depends on how the work is set put and what devices you're using. Da uses my phone a lot. If he's on my tablet he tends to get distracted and wander from his work screen. He struggles with the lack of a mouse on my laptop.
All online so no printing but they're lots of changing pages and downloading the videos and opening them then going back into chat and then into the activity... So I open the page, read it out to him so I know he understands and then generally let him do it. If it requires lots of typing, he talks, I type. No written homework

Our school expects Year 2 to be self-sufficient with logging in, downloading attachments, muting / unmuting when appropriate and following the timetable. Mine is so far from this standard I want to cry...

@DamnUserName21

I agree it depends on the child.

My DD (Y7) can only be unsupervised if it's a subject she likes or in the mood to do it. I still have to get her started. Most times, I have to sit with and motivate her otherwise she'll drift off and not write anything. Even in live streaming, she won't concentrate unless engaged in an activity.
Plus the fidgeting, going to the toilet, getting a drink, getting a different pen, etc...Attention span of a gnat!

I have the same problem. My Y8 son would not do anything if I didn't sit through most lessons with him. Almost every lesson is live, but he literally won't engage. He's up and down to the fridge, the toilet, doesn't listen, stares out of the window and loses the thread of what's going on, won't ask a question if he doesn't understand... It's fucking painful, and extremely demoralising to find that so many people have primary children who will work unsupervised.

@ReplacementPlasticUterus,
It's an endless source of frustration, isn't it?!
Please bear this in mind though--the work content is a lot more complex than what they were dealing with in primary (by a long shot!) and is likely a huge factor.

My yr 5 DS sits with me at the dining table while I wfh. He has three lives lessons per day and work for each. He needs poking/running through stuff occasionally and help with uploading stuff to Teams but I am fortunate to have an understanding employer. My yr7 DD has her own laptop and internet booster in her room and works totally independently. I am very lucky this time round to have enough devices (work provided me a laptop, I bought DD hers for Christmas and DS uses my personal one).

This lockdown has been much better than the last and the schools have both been wonderful when we have had issues. It depends hugely on the child though.

DamnUserName21 I know, but when I hear some of his classmates on the call really engaging and coming out with quite sophisticated answers I just want to shout "why can't you be like Toby and just bloody listen???!!!"

I love him dearly, but I also want to set his feet in concrete and chain him to a chair.

I don't blame my child at all for finding it all so hard
It's hard for some adults to work from home
It's completely different
It just frustrates me cos the pressure from school, that school must expect the children to be different from her and I don't want her to be behind that's all

My 7yr old (would be y2 in England) can almost manage his individual tasks himself but absolutely cannot move from one to the next independently so in reality he needs an adult every ten mins or so.

I think it varies by child. DD would’ve been fine in Y1. She’s in Y9 now and structures her day/ sorts printing / does all her work on time and to a high standard by herself.
My eldest DS is Y10 and is doing fine though needs a lot more prompting! He’d probably have been similar in Y4/ Y3 if he’d had to be.
DS8 is Y4 and he can watch a pre recorded lesson by himself, or do tt rockstars/ my maths/ reading plus etc. However, if confronted with a set task he has a bit of a meltdown and says it’s too hard/ he can’t do it... I end up “teaching” the topic and having to guide him through the work.
DS7 is Y2. He had speech problems which had a knock on effect on his reading (learnt to read just under a year ago) so needs a lot of support as he hasn’t much confidence and all his work is written (no live lessons or prerecorded). Again, I find myself having to “teach”. (He’s coming on well though and is finally meeting year group targets... if it weren’t for confidence issues I think he’d be fine)
I think what makes the difference is whether they have confidence in their ability and whether they enjoy the work/ challenge. All 4 of mine are NT.

At school children rarely work for a long time without talking to anyone. That's called an exam when you do that. I think it's normal to want to have some live communication at every age.

Adding to the chorus of "It depends on the child."

I've got one in year 3 who cracks on and gets everything done with zero input from me; she's done for the day by ten am. I'm being a childcare bubble for one in year 2 at the same school, who won't do a damned thing without a great deal of cajoling, and even if she could focus without getting distracted she hasn't yet got the reading comprehension skills, or the computer skills, to work independently. There's only six months between them, but they're at very different stages.

Depends on the child and on how the work is swt. Our school is using Teams. The tasks are set as assignments, with a long complex liat of instructions which my yr2 DD cannog read herself. You have to click through 2 pages, then download a pdf then print it out to get to the actual worksheet. She can complete the worksheet on her own once its printed.

Y2 and Y4 here. Y2 gets on but cannot navigate Google classrooms, Y4 can but he pretty good at looking like he doing something and not.

From year 3, last lockdown Ds was year 2 and needed my supervision most of the time. He's now year 3 and having live lessons and I can't believe the difference. I do check on him regularly and he comes down most lessons to ask a question- delay doing work. But generally gets on alone.

@ReplacementPlasticUterus

DamnUserName21 I know, but when I hear some of his classmates on the call really engaging and coming out with quite sophisticated answers I just want to shout "why can't you be like Toby and just bloody listen???!!!"

I love him dearly, but I also want to set his feet in concrete and chain him to a chair.

LOL. I completely feel your pain! I feel the same re other kids who seem able to sit, listen, concentrate and produce without complaining and moaning and without me nagging (shouting), assisting or doing half the work!!! (sigh) I've even had to swig a mouthful of wine before to settle my homeschooling nerves!!!

Our school says from Primary 4 onwards so 8 year olds turning 9 this year. Mine just turned 8 a double days ago and is the youngest in his year and still needs coaxing and support.

To add though barely any online lessons (his teacher demonstrating a science experiment this week but that's been it) so he needs help accessing the right tasks etc

My Y5 is doing work without supervision. Occasionally something might need clarifying but on the whole it just gets done. However, the class get an introduction to the work each morning explaining what each piece is and introducing the concepts. They didn’t get this last year and she needed far more watching from me.

They also don’t have a mess of work. Maths, English and one other. All neatly organised on a straight forward website. It’s been made very simple. She does have SEN, but because it’s the same format every day it’s working for her, if they threw in unexpected stuff that would cause problems!

I long for a pack of worksheets or indeed a text book to work through. Instead, the live lessons always start late so I have to sit there waiting while the clock of patience of DC starts ticking. The teacher’s home WiFi is not sufficient. Registration takes an age, it feels like wasted live lesson real estate to have to get everyone to mute and unmute themselves sufficiently (year 1). DS wriggles about for the entire lesson, he doesn’t like being on camera (don’t blame him). The work appears on Google classroom in fits and starts. I kind of wish the internet didn’t exist so we’d have to go back to basics but at least achieve something tangible within an hour or so instead of spending much of the day pissing about and wasting everyone’s time.