I will find it SO HARD to insist on my children doing their homework because...

[emkana]

a/ I never did any homework at school and still did well

b/ from having been a teacher myself I think that often homework is only set because that is what is expected

c/ the time I have with my children is so limited by long school days anyway, I don't want to waste it by doing h/w...

I could go on.

It makes the parent spend some time with the child and understand what work they are doing at schoool. It makes the child understand the parent is interested in their school work and that learning is a home and school thing. Children who do homework do better. It gives you time to think about things at home adn lets the parent help explain things to the child the teacher may not have had time to. It gets parent and child talking about interesting things that are set like concepts of time, clocks, words and their structure, history or whatever it is. It makes lazy parents make some effort!

It doesn't make lazy parents more involved though. The 'lazy' parents just don't bother to supervise it at all, so any benefits of doing the work are lost anyway. Only the concientious parents help, encourage and guide the children with their work, and tbh, they are the ones that would rather be taking their children to museums, identifying the latest bug found in the garden, discussing the world around them

Exactly WriggleJiggle. I can and will get involved with my children's learning without homework, I believe.

Precisely, if you're that sort of parent, your child would be much better off spending quality time with you, rather than filling gaps on worksheets.

Xenia - I do understand the work that they are doing at school because I am a teacher. If my ds is left to his own devices he will play with his friends, build things, draw, make databases on the computer.We do insist that he does his homework because it has been set by his teacher whom I respect, but he learns nothing from it except that homework is a chore. It is not very well differentiated for his ability (that is difficult enough to do in the classroom, let alone for homework)and it is boring. I do not agree that homework helps children to do better in school.

I can't remember the studies I read but it does and that's why the state system went back to having it after a trend of not having it. Also ours get spellings once a week, reading every day. I don't think that's particularly onerous - to read every day is good for you. Learning spelling and tables doesn't do any harm. Then they have a sheet of something or other. It's not a huge amount at all.

Slightly off-topic, but DS1 and DS3, although different, both do well at school, and do their homework without any hassle.

DS2, however, is not academic and struggles with his work sometimes. Any homework he is set takes longer to complete, and that's after we've had the battle of wills to actually get him to complete it.

I read with my ds's anyway. I find the reading schemes provided by schools are not as appealing as the books I buy for them. Many chn find learning spellings frustrating including mine. I use wooden letters and play games to try to liven it up a bit. My chn aren't asked to learn tables but I do bits of them anyway now and again, as I think they are important. They quite enjoy that as they choose to do it. The worksheets are generally a waste of time, but we struggle through them. The chn who do well at school are those whose parents take an interest in their development and they would probably do so anyway without homework IMO.

I think schools should have a rule about the time it takes. Most of ours have said if it's taking longer than (x time) then tell the teacher or do what they can do in the time. Of course some children sit there eating their pencil for 20 minutes not even looking at question 1 but that's a separate issue. Do all state schools set homework now? They didn't used to.

I don't agree with homework, but we & the DC did sign a contract with the school, so we encourage them to do it
I may be obsessed with the school being sadistic, but this seems like another punishment for working parents.
Why can't they exted the school day buy another 5 mins a day & do it @ school? I would rather the kids played at home and worked @ school, especially in the summer.

Sorry, haven't had time to read every thread but I thought I'd lob my opinion in anyway...

I thoroughly disagree with homework. The school day is long enough, with so much information being fired at children which they are expected to remember and I reckon that they should be able to switch off and relax at the end of the day. They are likely to be facing a lifetime of work and responsibility - let them be kids whilst they have the chance. I'm kind of tempted to start a one-woman protest, except that of course it will be my kids who get it in the neck from the teachers!!

another vote against homework here. and yes, it does feel like a punishment for working parents.
If they only set homework that the children could do by themselves, I would be more convinced by the argument that it teaches them to work by themselves. Round here, it is just used as extra free school time, that the govt doesnt have to pay for. 65% of parents pay someone to help their childrne with h/w. mad.

I suppose it depends on what the homework is and why they are being asked to do it.
I agree that sometimes it seems to be set because it has to be and it's more hassle than it's worth for the teachers and the children and the parents.
Sometimes it can be appropriate - either as a way of reinforcing a point taught in class, or as 'prep' for a new topic. Either way it should be done by the child not the parent and at primary school it shouldn't be more than a few minutes - if the parent does it it rather defeats the purpose.
I think the spellings that are set by my DS's yr 1 teacher are ridiculous as they are ones he would never use in his writing and they are rarely tested which makes the whole effort on his part pointless.
Reading to your child and your child reading to you is a whole different matter - I wouldn't consider that to be homework but something every parent should find time to do with their children - realistically this isn't going to happen every night - but it should be a pleasurable experience and not a chore.
When children are older I think the discipline of homework is important as it encourages children to take responsibility for their learning and not to rely entirely on teachers to just tell them what the answers are - it encourages independent learning and investigation which is a useful skill in its own right for life generally.
The reality of getting a 6 year old to sit down and do eatra work after a full day at school is nigh on impossible, for a 16 year old revising for GCSE's it should be a well formed habit. the question is when should it start and how should it progress from on to the other.

However much teachers may (or may not?) hate setting homework or marking it, surely it must be even more demoralising for them if parents can't be asked to encourage kids to do it?

At the very least, explain your reasons to the teacher.

I like doing h/w with DC (provided they aren't moaning about it). I would have much less idea of what they were doing in school, otherwise.

I was once told by a teacher that they have to set homework at primary level as the curriculum is so full they would never get through it otherwise.

Wonder if that is true? Any teachers like to comment?

I don't mind them having homework in juniors, I suppose it sets a good discipline for when it is essential in secondary but at age 5 I think it's a bit much.

Hard for full-time working parents to supervise at 7pm when the children are tired too. I work part-time and my two are none too keen on spellings in the evenings so I try to make sure all homework is done at the weekend and on the days I'm around after school so we get it done earlier in the day. They are too tired in the evening. Must be difficult to fit it all in. Anyway, that's another subject.

A contract isn't worth the paper it's written on because a child cannot be held legally accountable for anything it signs under 16. I totally disagree with the excessive homework regiment of today's schools. If I have children I will only insist on them doing literacy/numeracy homework at primary and English/Maths at secondary.

Can you insist on that in secondary school? If so, I will as well.

I agree with a lot of things already said in opposition to homework at primary level, but Xenia's first post also made sense to me.

Perhaps the school day at primary level should be much shorter ?

I don't make my dd in reception do her homework,someids in her class do some reading every night as well as the odd sheet. Dd does homework about twice a week and I think that is more than enough.

I ahve discussed this with dd teacher and as a fellow tecaher she knows that I take education very seriusly but I do not see how reading the Oxford reading tree every night will help her. Instead we play games as a family, go walking , make up stories etc, so she does do something broadly educational every night but the agenda is set by us, the people who know her best.

There was a recent thing in the press about kids having too much hwk, and they don't really need it.

I think they get too much and don't have time to be.....well...just kids...

My dd school has just been ofsteded and I fed back to the inspector my concerns about homework.

Agree, agree, agree a million times with emkana.

We do read every night , we just don;t read the Oxford Reading Tree. INfact when dd goes through one of her keen phases and aske for more homework her teachers won't let her take nay more ORT home as she wants dd to read things that will fuel her love of books.

My DS loves reading - but really find ORT dull - he reads all sorts at home and has developed so well that he reads proper books more challenging than the ones he gets from school. As a result he enjoys them and has progressed far further than he would have done if we'd stuck to the ORT. However whn he reads to people at school he is still required to read his 'school' books to them. I've sent him in with books we've got from the library , but he's been told he has to read his school books - so he just reads slowly and without expression or interest as he couldn't be bothered. IMHO it appears they are trying to slow his progress rather than encouraging it by insisting on the ORT. reading is supposed to be fun -ORT suits some children but not all.