Homework at primary - how much? Too much?

[GrumpyGit]

Dd is in yr2 and gets what seems to be an average amount of homework compared with my friends kids - i.e. each week she gets spellings/other English homework, a reading book, some maths. I thought it was quite a lot at the beginning of term, but as she's usually happy to do it and everyone says it's a normal amount these days I've not thought much about it since.

Last week we had one of those nightmare weeks where everyone (other than dd) was ill, both dh & I, plus the 2 ds were up in the night (you might've seen my other thread about the vomit) - anyway, just a week of surviving and the English homework got overlooked.

The note the teacher has written in the homework book irritated me a bit and got me thinking again - when I was a kid I first got homework aged 11 just before starting secondary - is it just me or do other people think there seems to be an unreasonably large amount of homework for kids to do at a very young age these days? And is it actually helpful to them in the long term?

PS I deliberately didn't post this in aibu btw!

Reading with children for 15 mins every day can really make the world of difference I feel. It's such a short length of time but can help their work within school blossom.

My son gets weekly homework and I think it has really helped him learn his times tables/number bonds etc.

Also just getting into the routine of sitting down for a short time each day is very valuable for future studies.

This is a real bug bear of mine. I cannot see the point of homework in primary especially in infants. Surely one of the purposes of homework is taking responsibility for doing it and getting it handed in on time? Infant school children can't possibly do that so have to rely on the parents supporting them to do it. It penalises working parents who don't have the time to sit with their kids and help them do it. dd (aged 7) sobbing her heart out tonight because she can't do some times table stuff in 3 mins - grr!! There is too much pressure on young children IMO.

To add to this though I must say that my son loves homework and finds year 3 very stimulating/exciting. He gets such a buzz from learning spellings/new words and reads library books idependantly as a daily hobby. He only does a bit every day though as he has lots of play and sporty activities he likes to do.

GG I thought it seemed a bit of a mad answer tbh. Mind you I had a friend querying why I let ds do a range of different activities as 'if he does everything when he is young he'll have nothing left to do when he is older'. As if I should limit things and introduce stuff as he gets older. I'm happy for him to do a range of things in the hope that something sticks and he becomes proficient. Homework in our house doesn't always get done and I'm not going to get overly concerned about it.

Yes, I do think that homework that challenged my DSS2, and that he had to do at home (as opposed to fitting in during lessons!) would have gone some way to helping him learn to apply himself.

I don't really understand what sort of homework children are getting that posters find useless. My DD's homework is essential repetition of things that have been learned at school that day - and memorising, which is a critical skill in the French school system.

Bonsoir - your son would have been better off learning to apply himself by playing sport or learning a musical instrument. Doing a hobby which he found difficult and had to work at would have taught him far more than extra homework.

Bonsoir there isn't the focus on rote learning here that there appears to be in French schools. There is nothing that Ds gets for homework that adds to or reinforces his knowledge in any way. I see every purpose for homework in secondary school but not in primary. If a no homework policy is good enough for a leading prep I looked at I dont understand why ds's school insists on it.

IndigoBell - actually, he plays guitar and tennis to a very high level - and speaks English very well too. And he's a champion table tennis player and has been kept busy with Talmud Torah these past few years... but none of that meant any effort!

I know there isn't the same focus on memorisation (which isn't quite the same thing as rote learning) in England as in France, but surely doing some reading/writing/maths that directly reinforces the concepts covered in class is no bad thing? And it ensures that parents are fully aware of what children are covering at school, and can act quickly (in concertation with the teacher) if they spot that their DC is missing something. It is quite hard for problems to linger with that type of homework (which isn't time consuming).

Haven't read whole thread sorry.

Benefit of homework for me is that I can give ds 100% attention to the work he is doing.

Does not mean I do it for him. Means I can see exactly what he has learnt and what he really struggles with. If he has questions he can ask and I will answer.

I love a manageable amount of homework.

Mrz, thanks for your post with the guidlines.

Up to recently, my dcs (at the time in years 1/4 and 6) had very little homework , only once a week (reading every night, but short).

Since the beginning of this year, after an Ofsted report that was a bit desapointing for the school, the amount of homework has risen dramatically. DS3 who is now in y2 has 2 books a week to read (I am OK with that) and on the week end he has spellings, maths (2 sheets) and writting on whatever subject they are doing in school. I think it is too much because they have gone from pretty much nothing to a lot in one go. Ds2 is now in Y5 and has more home work than his sister who has just started high school.

Bonsoir - if he is such a genius that everything he touches he can do with no effort - then you might just have to live with that fact.

If he's so gifted maybe he doesn't need to learn to apply himself because he never will have to in life.

Or you can get him to do a hobby which will stretch him. Something he's not good at and will have to work at.

There is absolutely why you can't stretch your DS at home if you feel he needs that.

GrumpGit - did you write a note to teacher saying why homework wasn't done?

This is what my mum used to do. Sometimes she would write an excuse if she thought it was a waste of time. but she usually made me do it!

There is every reason why I cannot stretch him, IndigoBell, since he is not my son but my stepson and it is not my role to educate him!

Anyway, he has been in two different school environments since May, and both suited him a lot more than his previous standard French state school and he gets a lot more work and is beginning to learn the skills of application and endurance that are required for life.

I am just in the middle of reading 'The Homework Myth' by Alfie Kohn, which basically goes through every piece of research done on homework in the US and UK. It says there is nothing but an arbitrary positive effect and some cases a real negative effect on primary school children doing homework, regardless of how the data is dressed up in conclusion.
As far as the other benefits, good work habits, taking responsibility for themselves, etc., no research supports any of these claims, parents just seem to feel that it must be true, even though none of us were subjected to the level of homework that our children get now.
Giving children time to develop their own interests is far more important than homework.

The only exception to this was reading - there is a real benefit of reading with your child every day, as schools don't have time to do this.

"even though none of us were subjected to the level of homework that our children get now."

I grew up abroad and had definitely more homework than my Dcs do have now. But it was established gradually from the first day in school, not like it happenes here, hardly any homework for years and all of the sudden you find yourself with children having several sheets to do over the week end and without having gradually been used to it IYSWIM.

Did your homework start in primary??

Which country were you brought up in??

EalingKate - this is what is really interesting.

There are loads and loads of studies saying homwork is bad. And often has negative effects. Yet the govt, schools, and parents don't want to believe it.

Why???????

dd1 is y2

she gets set homework once a fortnight and has an exercise book that comes home in which she can write about the reading she has done - i think she is supposed to do `something in this book weekly but we have done it perhaps four times this term

if she doesn't do it nothing is said. The one piece she wouldn't/couldn't do I wrote a note saying she was very tired that week and I wasn't prepared to force her and her teacher agreed that it would have been a bad idea to make a crying child complete her homework.

but usually she does it happily, as its something fun and interesting. she got a headmaster's award for the model of the titanic she made over half term

she reads every night and we try to remember to recite times tables in the car on the way to and from school

there is no pressure from the school to complete the homework which takes the stress away from dd1 and she's therefore more likely to complete it

MollieO I'm actually rather shocked that your ds was made to stay in for not completeing his. I'd have been marching straight to the headteacher.

on three days a week we don't get home until after 6 which means we only get two days on which to complete homework, any more than what she gets would be difficult to fit in around our family life

i like dd1's school's attitude to homework. it seems to reinforce what they are doing in class in an interesting way and I particularly like that it isn't compulsary but that shewants to do it anyway.

Parents seem to think it will help, but based upon what?? Some of the research authors seem to want to make out that it's positive but this guy Alfie Kohn goes through and looks at their numbers and it's all a house of cards.

But I'm stuck, my DD1 have Discovery Time homework, to research a country of her choice. We already fell out out it, before I started reading the book and now I just feel like I don't want to push to do something that I'm not sure I value, it just seems like a competition between the parents.

I don't think I have a problem with HW if it's relevant and we thought out, and differentiated by ability.

I can see how it can be harmful or at least non-beneficial to many children, but surely if a child loves it (as I did) then it's a good thing?

Not sure there is much I can do as ds's teacher is the deputy head. I think it is pointless. There are 15 in the class. The school has plenty of time to teach them. The only benefit of homework is for the school to show the parents what they are doing with their children (and justify the fees). I am quite happy to find out what ds is doing at parents' evening. I do not need a nightly reminder!

Ealingkate I grew up in Switzerland and typical homework for every evening was :

• 1-2 math sheet

-a grammar rule to learn by heart with a couple of 10 sentences exercises to practice said rule -a chapter of a book to read( a few pages only until year 3)

We would very often have to learn poems by heart as well.

Another difference is that In my days {feel old emoticon] my parents used to let me get on with it and if I had not dome my homework, I would be told off by the teacher but they would not think that my parents were bad parents for not having checked I had done it IYSWIM. Now I sometimes feel judged by the teachers if my Dcs have not completed their homework. It is like the homework is there more to gauge the parents abilities than to help the children learn.I am probably wrong but it is how feel.