Homework Learning Log

[ksld]

Sorry this is going to be another thread about homework - I have read the long thread but can't find an answer to my questions there...

DS is in Year 3 and has a 'Learning Log' where a homework is set on Friday to be returned the following week. My gripes with the homework are:
every task so far has been artistic and creative
every task has been a 'project' with no clear end
no information is given on how long the tasks should actually take, or how much parental supervision should be required.

I want to bring up the homework at parents evening, but don't want to annoy the teacher! At the moment 'good' homework gets housepoints, and those children whose parents give the most help are getting the most housepoints. So I feel that I am letting DS down when I ask him to get on with it himself, but I'm not at school anymore, why do they need to test how creative I am?

Any ideas what I can say to the teacher that won't sound like criticism, especially as (given the other thread) she'll have some parents coming in saying the homework doesn't take long enough etc. I am happy for DS to have homework, but would rather not have to spend hours helping him do it.

The point of a learning log homework is to be open ended in order to allow the children to go into as much or as little detail as they wish on the subject.

However, we found to get dd to get a decent piece of work done we had to guide her in certain directions e.g. you could do this or this, or how about this?

The learning logs only need to be artsy-crafty if you want to go that route.

The process did show dd that just writing a piece of text was not necessarily the best way to display her work and that a chart or graph may be better.

There is no wrong way to answer a question and you might only take 20 minutes to do something or 1hour if dc likes the subject and has a variety of ideas.

Personally I thought it required too much guidance and that it was a lazy teaching method as the teacher doesn't even have to mark it properly as there is no wrong answer.

Our school no longer does homework this way due to the level of complaints by parents.

Don't be afraid to complain the school needs to know that it isn't working for all families, we had one family with 5 children at the school - can you imagine the stress!