Teachers, do you make your classes write about "what they did in the holidays"

[Takver]

on the first day of term? DD says she hates going back to school, because they invariably have to do this on the first day back. I remember hating the same task when I was at primary school.

Admittedly dd hates writing in all forms, so maybe other children don't mind doing it? But is it the normal thing to have to do? And if so, why?

That happened to me, Jemima. My German teacher asked what we had done in the holidays in September of Upper 6th. My mum had died, so I just said I didn't want to talk about it, and she said "Nothing?". No, nothing. Insensitive cow!

I let the chn talk about what they did, as invariably some haven't seen each other for 6 weeks, and if you don't let them share their news, they end up trying to chat in the lessons! However, I don't make them write about it. I'd be too jealous! My class are quite affluent and my two weeks in a caravan in Scarborough just can't compete with their holiday in the Italian Riveria or Turks and Caicos, (with 2 butlers!)

Back in the 70's my sister's teacher made the class write about their weekend every Monday morning. Dsis always wrote "We went to the pub." Apparently, this was because it was the shortest sentence she could write.

Another friend always wrote "We had chips for dinner." We questioned by his mother about why he wrote this as they didn't have chips all the time he said "I know mummy, put I can't spell potatoes!"

Shame when the children were supposed to be writing fact not fiction

My friend's daughter made up a totally fictitious father, stepmother and brother with names she could spell when she was in Y1

my dd told ds's speech therapist that she had 17 brothers...she regularly has another mum that she talks about in the supermarket and several older sisters. she has not written about them yet.

in reception/y1 news was and easy way to get the children to think of one sentence to write, when they could only write one sentence. I think it was one of the things that the school had decided to do too. I think I could come up with a few more interestiong ideas now, but it was normal when I began teaching.

I love reading my own children's news books. They are my favourite. Things along the line of
"My sister's hamster died. It was sad." and a picture of sad sister and dead hamster. Always makes me smile and are the highlight of parents evening for me.

We used to do weekly news in my school. It was an easy way to always have e.g.s of unsupported work that the SENco would occasionally ask to see, or for us to see their standards of writing. Pressure on the curriculum means I no longer have the time to do it whether I wanted to or not.

I did once get a letter of complaint from a parent who was concerned that their holiday exploits nowhere matched what she perceived other kids holidays, and who said I was irresponsible and unprofessional to ask them to do so. As a parent whose hols are as exciting as a week away in Devon, it had never passsed my mind....AND they had been given the choice of writing about a favourite day of the hols OR a day trip OR a holiday, it wasn't even an accurate observation.

Occasionally we still do it at the start of a term for the same reasons, but I usually ask my children to tell me something they did do and something they didn't do to give a bit of variety. We then share what they wrote and have to guess which is fact and which is fiction.

DDs had to do this with a "list of all the places they'd visited"
Better than that was after Christmas though. They had to do thank you letters to Santa. DD2 was sent back to her desk to write more three times because she "hadn't listed enough presents"

my dd always writes 'I watched telly' or 'I played on the wii' even if we had spent 6 weeks travelling the world

The school must think we are right slackers