Homework madness

[emkana]

I read today that for 11 year olds the recommendations are that they should do between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 hours of homework a day. So if school finishes at half past three, then they go home, have something to eat, then do homework - they're finished at six. Isn't that complete and utter madness? When are our children supposed to have a life outside school?
It's still a long way off for my dd's, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to support such recommendations - even though I used to be a secondary school teacher myself.

agree with all hmb says.

Snap

Most of my homework set, at KS3 at least, is prep work for the next lesson. Collect this, find out that, type of thing. Normally 5-10 minutes piece of work. Othertimes it maybe a simple task to re-cap on work done in the lesson, as HMB says.

oooh i missed this thread somehow

I would rather have homework for my son than have him stay longer at school. It gives him a chance to work the material in a different setting and, I think, solidifies what he's learning in his mind. Plus, the prep work gives me a chance to talk to him about what's going on in school.

And, on a personal level, I found rote memorization, esp in the sciences extremely helpful. I don't have time to think about why 2x2 = 4, I just need to know it. That stuff is best done at home, I think.

That is eactly the sort of stuff that I do give are learning. they have to have that in lace if the rest of science is to make sense. We all know it isn't easy or fun, but it has to be done. I had a hell of a job getting dd to learn her tables but she did it in the end and is now very proud of herself.

Ooh, I've been showing my age, I did go to school in the seventies, and I do remember our class sitting and working while the teacher got on with marking. I did acknowledge that that might not happen now, but I'm presuming that the kids who turn up to a homework group will be the ones who actually want to do the homework.

Why it is impossible to expect today's generation of schoolkids to just sit and work is a whole other different thread.

True. It is often driven by the fact that
a. some kids have never been told 'no' and have their parents stand by it.
b. Far too many people know their rights and far too few know their responsibilities and this is coming home to roost in the kids.
c. Teachers have no effective dicipline unless parents concur, kids who need the dicipline seldom have parents who back up the school, until it is too late and the id has been arrested for something.

ah schools in the 70's - I'll throwing this in. And I'm talking about primary school children who need parental support to do their homework - Not talking about secondary school pupils who (hopefully) can be more independnet.

well, one difference is that in the 70's as I remember it, fewer families had both parents in full time work. If both parents don't get home till gone six and want to get their children to bed by 8.00 ish, then fitting in supper, bath and general relaxing AND homework is a real strain. I'm not surprised if some busy parents let their homework responsiblities slide. I find it really difficult to fit in all the stuff I'm meant to do with my two sons. If only I finished work in time to collect them from school, just as my mum did, how much easier life would be. And when I was at primary schools we never got set homework, so I get hammered both ways.

I agree homework clubs should not be the responsibility of the teachers, but IMO parents like me need support too.

One other thing which not many people bear in mind: many more children are now living in homes where there is only one parent, and they may have another part time home where there is another parent, and a different regime.

Where children have two different and in many cases opposing centres of authority in their lives, the messages they get about discipline, respect etc., may be conflicting - they learn the value of divide and rule very young, and that reflects in their general behaviour. If one parent is saying one thing and the other one is undermining that message, even where the parents live together, it's an uphill battle for everyone to get that child to have a civilised standard of behaviour. Where the parents live apart and the child can play them off much more against each other, that child has a vast amount more control over its parents and therefore teachers, than any child of the seventies!

Personally, I do think giving kids lots of homework at primary level is not on, as it does fall on parents to provide plenty of supervision/help. Oldest dd is now in Yr4 and I'm fairly confident leaving her to do her reading by herself. Youngest has just started yr3 (but is the youngest) and still won't read unless I sit with her. That takes 20 mins or so each night. Both girls then get spellings (10/15 words a week), and tables (1 table a week, repeated the following week). This is an acceptable level of homework. I still have to sit with both to ensure they learn their spellings and tables, but I do think this sort of work needs to be done at home (essentially rote learning really). I can't see the point of them doing more formal stuff, they both like finding out about things on their own anyway.
1 thing about h/w at secondary school is that it (should) teach children a lot about how to work at home, and under their own motivation. This will come in useful whatever they do in life, but only if the homework set is stuff they can do with a minimum of parental involvement.
BTW hats off to all you teachers out there - I couldn't (wouldn't) do it. Coming from a family of teachers I know the level of commitment that is required, and the level of flak they get.

And the child who has learned to 'devide and rule' at home will be even keener to try the same stunt at school! It is facinating to see the picture that some of the little cherubs paint to their parents and then to compare what actually happens at school. And some parents wil never believe that their kids will do wrong. Not ever!

I agree that parenting isn't easy. I work and so does dh. In fact dh is in the RAF so I spend lots of time as a sole parent. I also have zero family support. So I do sympathise. Who the hell wants to come the hard parent at the end of a long day? We all jsut want to have a nice time with out kids. Who wants to tell them off for bad behaviour if you haven't seen them all day? But this is the killer. If you don't , it so often comes back to haunt you. Consistency is the secret of happy kids, and we forget this at our, and out kids peril.

This has nothing to do with not wanting to tell children off for bad behaviour. I've never had a problem of any sort with bad behaviour with my stepdaughter. She's amazingly lovely, kind, polite and sensitive. I am still opposed to homework for primary pupils - I never had it - and do worry about the impact of it on families, on the children themselves - it used to make my stepdaughter cry - and the inequality of homework marked to the same standards but done in hugely different home environments with vastly different resources. I think bullying your very young children to do homework you actually think is excessive and overwhelming (the magnet thing, for example) is not at all the same as normal parenting.

No. I was saying that I think the rason that some children are so amazingly rude and badly behaved (such as the 12 year old who swore at me yesterday, or the three 13 year old that I had to stop from starting a fight), is that their parents don't want to spend valuable time that they have together getting them to behave in a reasonable manner.

Their bad behaviour is why a teacher cannot supervise them doing homework and mark homework at the same time (see the posts between meanbean and me)

Am I supposed to have bullied a child about a magnet homework? I'm lost on that one.

When I was in primary, in the 70s, we had to learn spellings once or twice a week, for a test the following day, I think, and that was it. If, when ds eventually goes to school, he's getting more than this I will be concerned. I can vividly remember how unjust I thought homework was as a child, because I didn't see adults bringing work home. So often mine was scribbled on the bus on the way to school. I actually think the several hours a night of homework I was expected to do as a teenager turned me off education. I resented it. Luckily I was good at passing exams, think I would have found it much more difficult with GCSEs.