DS (5) getting 6 peices of homework a week....a bit much????

[sugarbea]

DS comes home with 2 seperate peices of maths home work, spellings (test every friday) a reading book (for him to read alone), 4 literacy woorksheets (double sided) and some sort of art thing as well as a library book that must be added into his reading diary.
I don't know about him but i'm finding it hard to keep up. He's 5 and is doing very well with his work at school and started off quite willing to do homework because it made him feel like a big boy..But i think the novelty is starting to wear off.
Having spoken to friends with other children his age they don't get half the work he does, but he does seem to be a lot more confident academically and the school does have very good results.
Am I wrong in thinking it's a bit much?

Too much!! Some nights all we ahve time for is tea, bath & bedtimes tories
Are there low numbers of working parents at your school?

Definitely too much for a 5-yo - way above government recommendations too. My DD1 is in Yr 5 - she 'should' be doing about 30 minutes a day (is doing less than this most days but more on weekends as we both work). Sounds like your DS is getting as much as she is. Young children need to play, they need relaxing time at home, they need a decent bedtime. I'm very against homework in primary, but in this case I'd be really worried as to why the school thought this much was needed - what ARE they doing during school time???

Government Guidelines on quantity of homework per week for primary school children

One hour per week. Including reading.

On that basis, your son is getting way too much. Good results at the expense of robbing children of the opportunity to learn through normal family life?

Blimey, that's more than my 10yo gets.

dreamteamgirl

I think many of the parents at ds's school are the stay at home yummy mummy type..Always seem to be there to take and pick up in range overs x5s etc..(trying o hide the bitterness)
I had to oficcialy leave work full time in september this year after maternity leave because dd had some serious health problems..So if i'm honest we balance ds's homework bewtween dd's opperations (8 in 10 months)and oh being at work if i'm at the hospital..but i guess most of the othr parents have that time at home.

smithagain
thats interesting....ds usually finishes work quite quickly but we probably spend 30 mins a day not including reading.

Sugarbea - my eight year old gets less than your son. Mind you, it still takes her longer than those guidelines suggest she should spend! At eight, I feel she is ready to cope, but when she was five, homework became a real drain on home life. Fortunately, we had a very sensible teacher who was receptive to the idea that we spent a limited amount of time on it and did not complete anything that was taking so long as to put her off work for life!

It also seems to be very easy for schools to lose track of how much they are asking children to do. According to her teacher, DD1 should read out loud for 20 minutes every night. Frankly, I don't think I would have the energy to read out loud for that long and I bet her teacher wouldn't either. So we fudge the issue a bit!

Hi Sugarbee
We have the issue that working parents are not the norm at all at our school, and they assume we have 4 hours a night every night, after school to do things with them, which sadly of course we dont.
Makes it much harder when you only have 1.5hours doesnt it?
And they you have to factor in another child too
I hope your DD is ok, 8 ops in 10 months sounds scary & exhausting

DS (5) has one pieve of IPC topic work in 2 weeks to complete and one piece of numeracy in the same 2 weeks.
This week's IPC was to draw something alive and something which was not alive. So he drew a castle and a dog.

For numeracy he had to count lots of items in boxes and then write the number and say whether they were alive or not alive. That was all he had, other than his reading book each night.

That's loads - in reception and year 1 at our school it's one piece of homework (literacy or numeracy worksheet) at the weekend to reinforce the main topice they've done in the week, plus 6 spelling words. Reading books are changed as often as you like.

This carries on into year 2 although they get 10 spellings and sometimes have literacy and numeracy worksheets. They then increase very gradually throughout juniors, on the basis that it's only really year 6 that need to prepare for the shock of secondary school.

School does very well, kids are happy, parents have one less thing to stress about.

Can you talk to the school?

That sounds way too much, My DD is in Y1, gets 8 spellings to learn each week (v easy words) and changes books as and when she's read them.

As she also does swimming, gymnastics and dance 3 evenings per week, we could not do homework every night and I really do not think that she should at this age - the school have your child for several hours every day, that is plenty of time to teach him. Out of school time is for doing other activities.

I would speak to other parents then raise it at parents evening or before.

dd3 is in year 1 and she gets a reading book most nights and a maths game once a week (we have it for a week) and that's it

Eek. I'm horrified at the idea of a 5 year old having any homework at all. As parents it is quite normal to read to our children at some point during the day, and when they are old enough, for them to read to us. That surely negates the need for a reading book to bring home (assuming parent does read to child and child reads to parent throughout the week). But what it really boils down to IMO is...if a child is spending 6 HOURS at school 5 days a week (30 hours a week!!) why on EARTH should they need to do anything more at home, especially at an age when they should be playing more than sitting down?? This is a big reason why DH and I decided to homeschool from the start...

Hope your DD is okay Sugarbea, I can't imagine how you cope with all that and a ridiculous amount of homework for DS (in many ways all that homework is more effort for you than DS because you are the one having to make sure it all gets done and returned on the correct day. If a child is not old enough to be expected to remember and organize what is due when, they shouldn't be given homework, IMO).