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Original poster

What to do about dd's homework this weekend - opinions needed!

53 replies

seeker · 28/09/2008 07:35

We have a silly weekend going on. It was dd's school fete yesterday and dd volunteered to help. She was there from 10 in the morning til 5, working her socks off. She then had a party in the evening. This morning she has a trampolining competition, and this afternoon is a very long planned trip to the zoo with several other families we don't see very often.

DD planned to come home on Friday and get straight on with her work and get it all done. BUT the bus broke down, she didn't get home til 7, and so she only got about half done.

Whhat do we do about the rest? I realize I could have said no to the party, but it was with her old friends from Primary school and she misses them badly. She has to do the competition - she's part of a team. And the zoo - there's a baby elephant - she CAN"T niss that!!!

She will do her learning work at the competition - but she has two written pieces to do as well. I don't want her to go to bed late tonight - she'll be shattered as it is. So. Do I a) get her to do it and go to bed late? b) write a note asking her to be given an extension c) do some of it for her or d) say she can't go to the zoo.

I SOOOOOOOO hate homework. And I do think that if the school wanted help at the fete that should have given a homework amnesty to the volunteers! She's in year 8, by the way.

OP posts:
SqueakyPop · 28/09/2008 09:15

So, she got home at 7pm on Friday. That leaves about 3 hours for food and homework.

tortoiseshell · 28/09/2008 09:17

10pm is very late for a 12 year old girl, especially if they have a TEAM competition the next day.

seeker - I totally sympathise, and I think you are getting a rough deal on here. It sounds like your dd is usually really good about homework, it's not like she never does it and you send a note in every week. As such, I'm sure she doesn't need a lecture about the importance of homework.

Do half of it tonight, half tomorrow morning.

aGalChangedHerName · 28/09/2008 09:23

Does she normally do homework and hand it in on time Seeker?

If yes i would be ok with writing a note this once. The bus breaking down wasn't her fault after all.

She has had loads on imo. Makes me laugh actually at the teachers my dc have had who demand a lot of homework to be in on a particular day,then they don't mark it till a week later,or it comes back unmarked.

I would ask her to try and fit in as much of the homework as possible tho.

Umlellala · 28/09/2008 09:34

Well, as another Secondary School teacher I say let her write a note/explain politely to teacher before class and arrange to hand it in later (I did this quite a bit at school myself too ).

Gosh, I hate homework. The teacher probably only asked them to do a poster because it was homework day, and they had to invent a vaguely relevant task. Trampolining, a fete and the zoo MUCH more important IMO .

TrinityRhino · 28/09/2008 09:38

why isn't she doing it right now???

Hulababy · 28/09/2008 09:38

As an ex teacher I would say (b) - with a back up note from yourself. School is not the only important thing in children's lifes - they need to have more to their weekends than school work. If itt was an unusual event, and she normally, did homework on time, when I was teaching I would have had no problem at all with giving an extension in such circumstances especially when Saturday was spent at school anyway.

Twelvelegs · 28/09/2008 09:46

Perhaps give her a time limit on HW and write a note. So we allocated 1 hour for this HW but she couldn't finish because blah bla......

SqueakyPop · 28/09/2008 09:50

If homework is in excess of the school policy, then it is reasonable to finish after the 30 or 40 minutees (or whatever it is), and for the parent to write a short note (eg "this is as far as PFB DC got in 30 minutes").

I get these occasionally with my lower ability children, or with the children that go OTT on detail, and I just 'correct' myself for next time.

Twelvelegs · 28/09/2008 09:50

tee hee PFB

edam · 28/09/2008 09:56

Gosh, some of these responses are very harsh. She's 13, not 33! What a grim attitude to life - enough to turn anyone off school.

The busy weekend was foreseeable but seeker's dd had planned to squeeze the homework in. Yes, it's a lesson in not planning too many activities, and allowing for something going wrong, but blimey, this isn't the workhouse.

I'd go with b. Don't have a 13yo so I don't know whether dd should do a note as well as you. I'd make it a really polite and apologetic note. If she usually hands her homework in on time and the teacher is half-human, it should be OK.

Hope she does REALLY well at trampolining, seeker!

giraffescantdancethetango · 28/09/2008 10:04

As a one off its fine, could try to get one of the written pieces done if possible.

Umlellala · 28/09/2008 10:04

Why PFB?
I think the only PFB aspect is to worry too much about the school's response. They'll be fine, it's only homework . Don't write a note, let her do it.

ShrinkingViolet · 28/09/2008 19:37

seeker - think we were at the same trampolining comp this morning - Kent Closed?

roisin · 28/09/2008 20:04

What did you go for re homework? And how was the zoo/trampolining?

dilemma456 · 28/09/2008 20:36

Message withdrawn

cory · 28/09/2008 21:02

my mother never bothered to see if I had done my homework

perhaps because she was a teacher at the school...

I still managed to become organised enough to write a PhD. Perhaps you don't have to have all the virtues you will eventually need fully developed at age 12?

I do think the school policy should be upheld, but at the same time some of the posters seem very harsh to me. I would be less po-faced with one of my uni students tbh.

I would probably have either let dd stay up a bit late and do it, or else let her go in without a note and have the detention. Not the end of the world imo.

islandofsodor · 28/09/2008 21:10

You should definately write her a note. A child of her age should not have to give up family activities for homework and she will have worked hard for that competition.

Sometimes other things are more important than homework which will probably only have been set to satisfy some stupid tagets anyway.

You are not setting a bad example just letting the school know of exceptional circumstances.

Stuff them, there is more to life than school.

Original poster
seeker · 28/09/2008 21:57

Well, thank you for all your opinions!

We did everything and she's managed to do nearly all the homework. She can finish it off in the bus to school and at lunch time tomorrow.

I am really surprised that so many people think that homework is the most important part of a 12 year old's weekend. I really think that you should cut a little slack for a conscientious child once in a while. And it's not as if she was spending the weekend watching Friends! I was interested that the teachers who posted were generally more sympathetic to my dd than the parents!

I agree absolutely with supporting the school, and I am usually implacable about homework. But I actually think she got more out of seeing 8 week old tiger cubs than she did out of the Martin Luther poster!

ShrinkingViolet, yes it was the same competition - I will be wondering who you are for ever now! Are you prepared to tell em what colout your dc's leotard was? Mine was blue.

OP posts:
Original poster
seeker · 28/09/2008 21:59

Thank you particularly islandofsodor - I agree with you so much!

OP posts:
ShrinkingViolet · 28/09/2008 22:29

seeker we are also in blue with a lightning flash on the front (did fantastically well in the Novice Under 9 girls ) - which blue team are you?
Didn't find it too boring actually as it was DD2s first somersault in a competition, so we were all on tenterhooks for her. Plus it finished (mostly) on time, and we weren't evacauted due to a chemical leak like the comp two weeks ago .
Where were you sitting?

islandofsodor · 29/09/2008 11:59

It is a statistical fact that kids who are involved in sports/dance competitons and those who are involved in drama or music/other type pf performances achieve more at school than those who don't.

I find it very sad that I gave up performing during my second year of A levels but kids now are giving up before they even start their GCSE's dues to pressures of school.

We are raising a nation of burnt out kids who have no pleasures in life. I'm not into the competition circuit myself but can see how much discupiline it instills into kids.

mabanana · 29/09/2008 12:05

She's only 12 ffs, and she sounds a lovely public-spirited girl with lots of healthy, useful interests and a busy, balanced life. Making a stupid poster sounds like 'oh god, I've got to give them homework...oh sod it, give 'em a poster to make'.

BitOfFun · 29/09/2008 12:19

I have to agree with islandofsodor - the joyless pushiness of proritising homework over other activities is making us raise a generation of tired over-anxious little automatons. I think it's fair enough to let it take a back seat when there's a good reason - as the OP says, it wasn't skipped out of laziness, and I don't see the harm. I don't like these "school contracts" much - there doesn't seem to be any choice but to sign them, and they don't allow any flexibility in situations like this, where surely common sense is called for.

Litchick · 29/09/2008 12:32

I'm in two minds about this.
On the one hand I do think that kids have to know that homework has to be done and fitted in around other activities.
On the other hand life is very short and chores never ending...
On another point I wonder if the teachers here think hoomework does have any impact on overall academic achievment in the long run?

SqueakyPop · 29/09/2008 17:14

Homework is an important part of my teaching - it is when my pupils do 80% of their written work, and 100% of any research tasks.