Anyone else not done any work during the holidays?

[Cortina]

I had high hopes of doing a little a day but so far, apart from reading every other day (very little, just a couple of pages at night), we've done nothing.

DS will be going into Y2 in Sept, am I the only one?

Beginning to feel like I should be doing more?

DS is more interested in making dens in the garden and having a long break doing, well, not very much at all really. That's ok, isn't it?

I had intended to do some work everday with my eldest due to fact he struggles at school with reading and literacy. But havent really manged to get round to it till last week(scottish schools bk mon!).
Just doin a page of maths work and reading a couple of pages of storybook so nothing too drastic. But 2 HOURS WORK everyday?! I wonder if that is really for kids benefit or your own?.

domesticsluttery I do like the fact that your school indicates the quantity of work too. Ours is always open ended (hmm, as a teacher I know this is a good thing, but as a parent it is very very bad! how much is perceived to be too little and how much will do?)

They could get away with doing a little bit less, DD's says "up to 4 pages" but she enjoys drawing so has split each page into 2 and is drawing a picture of a different thing that she has done on each half page, so 8 things in total. She then writes a short title (she is only 4.5, she has been in Reception since Easter).

The boys both have 2 sheets which have the days of the week printed on them and about 5 lines to write on under each day. It works out that DS1 has to write more sentences to fill teh space as his writing is smaller and tidier than DS2's

OoPs, just found ther holiday diary that eldest manky has to do for school!

so it looks like we will be doing proper homework after all.

Forehead - 2 hours a day in my view is ridiculous as is telling experienced teachers on this board that they should know better. My Dt2 9, struggles and he needs things reinforced so we try and do a bit on the days that I am off but I am talking 20 mins at a time to go over tables and mental maths, talking about a chapter he has just read etc. However if I'm truly honest I'm not convinced that even that is really beneficial to him, I probably do it for me more than him. Dt1 doesnt stuggle at all and refuses point blank to do anything. However although he will probably have forgotten a few things he has learnt I know it will all come back to him within a short period of time and he reads loads anyway. In some ways I am impressed by your ability to get them to focus for that length of time at home but it sounds like an unnecessary and futile military operation to me and i can do military operations quite well.

Forehead - you are in this for the long term, not the short term. You want your children to develop a life long love of learning.

I think it's very likely that your children will rebel against you and school work when they are teenagers or even at university because it has been pushed too much on them when they are young.

All teenagers rebel against their parents in some way (unless they are brought up in an incredibly strict, conformist way). But they don't all rebel against homework.

Private school kids who have been pushed to do very well at school often fail miserably at uni because for the first time they have a choice about doing work or not - and they're not used to having this freedom and choice. They haven't developed independent study habits.

A lot of studies have shown there is absolutely no correlation between the amount of homework children do and their grades.

2 hours a day is a lot. It might teach your children any of the following:

1. I'm not good at school work without extra help.
2. My work isn't good enough for Mum
3. Mum only loves me if I work hard at school
4. I can muck around in class and Mum will teach it to me later.
5. I hate school work.

You are probably right that in the short term it improves their school grades. And this is a very seductive reward. But good school grades in primary school is probably not what you really desire for your children. Most parents want their children to be happy, confident, responsible and independent. To enjoy learning and to learn.
None of these things can be measured by primary school grades.

I have done some work with 8y DD, as requested by school. It is just a simple diary/scrapbook which she does a bit of writing every few days. It is part of her Dyslexic/Study Support stuff, and the only thing sent home. TBh though she normally does a scrapbook in the holidays anyway, so it is no hardship and something she enjoys doing anyway.

She reads through choice anyway, so has continued to do so.

And she has done some piano practise, although not very much!

And she has continued to use Mathletics every so often - just 10 minutes or so every other day (when not been away on holiday or out).

So, other than reading - definitely less than an hour a week at the very most.

Rest of time has been family holiday, putside playing or days out together.

I have just logged on to mumsnet.
Some of you have NOT read the whole thread. I said that i am on leave for three weeks and intend spending two of those weeks brushing up on my dc's basic skills. My dc's are not going to spend six weeks studying for two hours a day.My dc's LOVE school, and i believe it is partly because they are doing well academically and therefore school holds no fear for them. I have heard of many children in my dc's school who dislike school with a passion because they struggle with the work.
I am not going to lie and say that my dc's want to study everyday, but who does.? Learning can often be boring, but it has to be done.
If helping my children makes me a 'pushy' mum then i am proud of this label. Too many parents rely on the schools and are frankly too lazy to help their dc's and then post on mumsnet about how schools are failing their children. If more parents took an active interest in their dc's education then we wouldn't have such low literacy and maths levels.

Indigobell, i want my children to be 'happy', 'confident', 'responsible', 'independent' and EDUCATED

and I thought I was pushy in getting dc1 to send weekly emails to his granddad to improve his writing...
and this comment about parents taking more interest in education, hm, it seems to me the parents on this thread are taking an active interest but in a different (imho more constructive) way

Just because some parents dont spend time doing formal teaching with their dc's during their summer hols doesnt mean they dont have an interest in their education. Nor does it mean that their children arent being educated during holiday time.

Domesticsluttery: DC3 getting Easter-hols Yr1 homework is the first time I can remember any of mine getting homework over a holiday period.

Homework for the child is in reality homework for the parents most the time, let's face it.

Forehead - but why do you believe that school can't educate your child? And if you do believe that why don't you send them to a different school? Or home educate them?

Must be very stressful for you to hold such negative views about your child's school.

No one is saying that parents shouldn't be involved in their child's education. Some people are saying that 2 hours a day in the holidays is too much.

How much extra work do you do with them during term time?

It is totally unfair to say that children leave primary school with low literacy / numeracy levels because their parents are too lazy to be involved. There are many, many, different reasons why some kids don't succeed in school. One of the many reasons why some kids fail is because of too much pressure at home.

I had a pile of stuff for dd(dyslexic andproblems with numeracy too) and it has taken a lot of effort to do the up to 1 hour 4 days a week I have allocated to doing it. She doesn't want to have to do homework when none of her friends do - and if it wasn't that it will make a difference to her when she goes back to school next week I wouldn't bother. 2 hours a day - even for only 2 weeks - is an awful lot! I do feel school holidays are meant to be that. I did absolutely nothing during school holidays (apart from reading) either at primary or secondary and still went on to Uni. Holidays are about having fun and you learn different things from them.

I think it is essential to realise how much LEARNING children are doing in normal play situations and in normal day to day events. Formal st down learnng is not always the best way to do it, and I personally - talking both from a teaching (and now TA) POV, I personally would find 2 hours of sit down formal learning too intense, even if for 2 hours of the school holidays.

Forehead: just out of interest how old are your DC?

I take "work" to include learning through play actitvities such as cooking, growing things in the garden, trips to the sand dunes etc. My three are 4, 6 and nearly 8.

They have got activity books and computer programmes (both of which they think are "fun") which are educational. Some days they might spend an hour doing them, other days not at all. Same goes for books and the internet, the two eldest can both read well and so are reading around and researching things which interest them. I encourage them to write down what they learn to practice their writing skills.

I would count all of this as educational, work even, but I am not standing over them with a black gown on and a cane in my hand...

No formal learning here either. Both DC's (going into Y2 and Y3) are reading every day - assuming panini world cup sticker books count, right?! - colouring, writing (her), playing games, creating restaurants, cooking, going on bug hunts, visiting friends and places of interest. Oh, and sometimes they just veg out in front of Spongebob!

So you probably think they haven't learnt anything and I'm not trying to do my best for my kids...

No FORMAL learning, but if you look a little closer you discover..... DS has learnt 32 country flags, names, locations in the world and cultural aspects of these thanks to panini stickers. Both have learnt nutrition, planning, design, spelling, pricing through their chosen restaurant activitiy. They have learnt about nature and caring for animals through the bug hunts. They have visited some castles, gardens etc and learnt about the world and history. They have learnt to share, invent, empathise and play through meeting friends.

Still agree they haven't learnt??!!!

It's very important to show our children there is more than one way to learn. Neither of them have sat at a table with a pen and paper unless they have chosen too.

Oh, and they've also learnt that during the holidays it's absolutely ok to do naff all, freeze your brain and laugh like hyenas at Spongebob and Patrick.

Pretty rounded education I'd say.

Another teacher here who's children have done not a jot of formal learning over the holidays.

However, 3 weeks in a Spanish speaking country, learning to surf and snorkel, cooking, digging in Grandpa's garden, playing with their friends, reading, playing a bit on the Wii, helping with household chores etc is all valuable "learning" experience.

I too would be concerned about a child who tod me that their mother was insisting on 2 hours of sit down work every morning in the "holidays". Its a holiday!!!

Domesticsluttery, my children are the same ages as your dc's.
My ds is five in August and can read, most of his learning is through play(counting lego
, learning new words,practising his writing etc
My 6 year old and 7 year old dd's DO spend two hours studying, one hour literacy and one hour numeracy, The rest of the day they watch tv, play imaginary games, argue with each other, go on playdates. At the moment they are at the cinema watching 'The Karate Kid' with my dh who has a day off today.
From the tone of some of these posts one would think that my dc's are automatons
whose mother stands over them with a cane and gives them a lashing when they get things wrong. I thimk this attitude reveals more about the parents than the children, whereby parents don't want their little 'Johnny' to hate them when they are older and they believe that giving little 'johnny' some work during the school holidays will turn him into a juvenile delinquent or a university dropout.
As a parent, my responsibility is to ensure that i do my best to equip my children for the future. My children are lovely, well behaved, confident and happy children and i make no apologies for doing my utmost to ensure that they remain that way.

When did kids start working during the summer holidays? I'm a teacher in high school. The only kids we expect to work over the summer are in 6th form -and even then they have to try and fit it around their part-time jobs.

I've been working (obviously), but sure as hell won't be consciously educating DS when he's old enough; he'll hopefully be playing out with his mates and not coming in 'til tea-time. You live for holidays as a child!

He's going into Year 2 and you want to do schoolwork in the holidays - are you mad??

School holidays should be play, play, play. My oldest dd is going into Year 5 and we've done no work too - hooray!

Although I wouldn't go as far as sitting them down to do structured work for 2hrs a day, I can see where you are coming from.

I wouldn't like my DC to do no reading, writing etc all summer. I'm lucky that they would rather be reading than watching TV, and that they would rather be out exploring than playing on a Wii.

As for teachers not expecting children to work during the holidays, ours suggest areas that we could work on with the children in addition to the homework that they are set!

The school my DS attends does set work for the holiday - the teacher of the class he is going up to sent a very nice note (despite a spelling mistake !!) setting out a project; his previous teacher sent three reading books and writing practice. So not much, but certainly things to be getting on with - I add a few maths sheets that I find on the internet; plus library reading scheme.

I encourage mine to read and write and do a bit of maths, all the time, sure. In little ways, talking about cloud formation, getting library books, measuring out cooking ingredients, or writing a pen pal, don't we all do that kind of stuff whether it's hols or termtime? But I think OP (and Forehead) mean more formal/structured educational activity rather than ad hoc moments with an educational element to them.

Out of curiousity, Ragwort, what would happen if your DC didn't do any work set over the hols?