My ds refuses to do his homework...

[licketyspilt]

My ds is 5 and in Y1. If I try to get him to do his homework eg. keywords, draw a picture, do numbers, write letters/words - whatever the teacher sets - he gets really angry and flatly refuses. He says "that's what I do at school not at home".

Unless it's reading a book and then he is fine (which is great!).

I am trying to understand a. why he doesn't want to do it, b. why he gets SO angry and to figure out how i can help him.

He is young in the year and not as far ahead as a lot of the other kids. It took him a long time to settle into school last year but seems happy with it now.

Any thoughts and advice gratefully received.

I never did any homework with our dc until dd1 reached KS2, apart from reading. I only get her to do it because sh emisses her playtimes if she doesn't. And 'activities with parents' goes in the recycling as soon as it comes home. We do all kinds of stuff with the dc and we don't need the school telling us how to do it.

Both dds are well ahead and homework is neither here nor there. It would be different if a child were struggling but again I wouldn't push this until KS2.

sofaqueen what age did the doing homework himself start with your ds [hopeful glimpse into the future emoticon].

Homework at SECONDARY school does show a correlation with achievement, but homework at primary school doesn't, not in any study, that I have seen, so as far as I can see, results aren't mixed at all. And I want my primary aged children to know that schoolwork DOES stop at the school gates. Learning doesn't, of course, but learning is very different to schoolwork. Indeed, sometimes it is the very antithesis of it. And frankly, I am merely curious as to what they are doing at school. It's not important to know, which is lucky as my son in particular never wants to discuss it at all.

Perhaps we are reading different research, CCF. I follow papers published in the US which might explain the discrepancy, but no, some research does show benefit. The papers I have read have said that the results are mixed and part of the problem is doing the research is the quality of homework given. I certainly am not saying that you are incorrect, and will accept that perhaps my reading is skewed because it is not a subject where I have read all the research available here and the US.

I do like homework - it is only 5-10 minutes a night, never more. It introduces my son to the concepts of prioritization and time management, as well as developing a great habit. However, if it was onerous to do (longer than 20 minutes a night), I would think that that length of homework was not necessary.

MollieO, he is just starting to do his homework by himself now in Year2 (7 in nNovember). I think it is because he is taking 7+ exams this year and there is a school he really wants to go to, and knows that he needs to try his best if he wishes to have a good chance of getting in. That being said, there are still days where it is a push to get him started, just less of them now.

We've been in three school systems, the UK, the US and now Canada.

In the UK we had reading (which we did with dd but not ds), weekly spellings (which were a total nightmare) weekly maths sheets (no problem) and projects (again nightmare). As working parents homework was a real problem because the children were tired when we all got home and so were we, and none of us wanted to do homework. ds refused to do spelling because he said he always failed and absolutely hated reading. Anything to do with writing was also a horrible fight. The projects always got left to the last minute due to the battle to get him to start and because they always always involved something arty. We'd usually get it done in the end (dd often did the art parts) but then ds would forget to hand it in on time and get 'consequences'. dh sent in a very snooty note about that, and got the homework policy in return, which was all about how homework 'prepared children for the world of work'. For a seven year old??

Anyway fastforward to the States and both children (then 8 & 7) had two hours homework every night! As we had a SAH parent then that was just about feasible, and we certainly knew what they were studying at school, and what they were struggling with, but it was slightly insane. The only plus point was that it was consistent, so setting a timetable was easier (part of the problem in the UK was that you never knew when homework would appear).

Where we live now neither children get homework on a regular basis, they occasionally bring something home if they didn't finish it in class. The idea is that once school is over the children should be out and about, at clubs, doing sport and sending time with their families. Homework is for high school (at 13) and from what other parents say the children make the transition well.

In international comparisons Canada does better than either the US or the UK in both happiness and educational attainments. I think that homework is overrated and should not be set for key stage 1. 5 years olds shouldn't be made to be upset about school work at home being at school is hard enough at this age.

Yes countries with very high attainment such as Canada and Finland don't set homework (and don't have uniforms either!)

Looks like I should be moving to Canada!

Spoke to ds's teacher this morning about his reluctance/refusal to do spellings. She said it didn't matter and I shouldnt turn homework into a battle because ........ 'he can stay in at break time and do it'.

So now I have acquired the ultimate threat - ds would absolutely hate to miss his break.

Also found out he is playing up the SEN teacher - they have two and he doesn't like the one he has this term. The other SEN teacher came up to me today to say how much she misses teaching ds as he is a 'ray of sunshine'. Shame the other one doesn't think that!

I can't imagine what it would be like if ds had 2 hrs homework a night. It already takes us 2 hrs to do 15 mins homework. If we had 2 hrs we'd be up all night.

Your poor ds, if he is anything like mine was at that age then break time is the most important time of the day for him. Mine used to get break time taken away for misbehaving until they realized that without the release of running around his behaviour got a lot worse (sitting still was fairly torturous for him when he was younger).

Just to say that I had a talk with ds' teacher. She was very supportive and felt that there was no point in ds becoming stressed about hw and that that wasn't the point of it.

We talked about creative ways of achieving the same outcome but w/out the stress factor and agreed that I would communicate what ds and I were doing if it wasn't precisely the hw set.

All in all a very constructive discussion. I feel much more relaxed. Thank you to everyone for your advice, thoughts and experiences. :)

I dislike homework as a teacher so ask the children in my class to read for 10 minutes each night (silently, alone, aloud or to have a story read to them) and to practise their timestables to and from school. The parents are rather keen on homework though so I send home an optional maths sheet related to what we've been learning and have set an optional October project based on learning logs.

If the children want to do additional work then I've said I'd love to see it but have tried and tried to explain that they work hard enough at school and I want them to go home and play/chill/have family time. I won't keep children in at playtime but I will quiet reading time over to projects if a child wants to research something but doesn't have a homelife where that is supported.

My Y1 DD would love homework as she likes nothing better than playing schools but she's a bit odd!