Teacher punishing 8 year olds for not handing in homework on time.

[Bellbird]

Homework seemed to step up a gear in Year 3 and I reckon was far more than the 1.5 hours per week as recommended by the Dept of Education. We put up with it, because the teacher had a fairly laid back approach and gave house points for effort.

The Year 4 teacher, however, is using a stick rather than a carrot and not only expects the children to do more than the recommended amount but punishes children for handing in homework late by not allowing them to have their break time. She also uses emotional blackmail and will only 'reward' the class if each and every one of them hands in homework on time. This seems incredibly draconian to inflict these rules on 8 year olds that at this time of year are quite run down! Any advice to sort this out?

Oh right, that makes rather more sense (sort of).

I think finishing undone homework at break time makes sense - I sent DD in with instructions to fess up and do that after one appallingly recalcitrant weekend, but I don't think that whole-class punishments are the way to go. DD occasionally comes back seething that she hasn't had golden time because a few kids were messing about in the lineup but that's bad behaviour en masse, when the rest of the class are there to apply peer pressure, and hence some kind of group responsibility is not too unreasonable. Homework is quite different - the only way the other kids can affect the refuseniks is by threats of ostracism or persecution.

Phew. I was worried that these kids were working till midnight! I thought maybe that was the cause of Italy's financial woes. Lack of sleep when still growing.

I hate my sons y4 homework. The spellings are not differentiated. He is a terrible speller and is given words now he would never use in his writing and barely knows the meaning of. He had tedious worksheets and when some other parents we got 2 tedious ones instead! We rarely get topic research or tables.

I believe in fair play and I don't think some teachers are playing fair with kids' emotional and intellectual development. If I had the chance, I'd be off to Oz where they work hard and play hard and nurture talent... and don't have petty rules. It was refreshing to hear one poster MrZ say that he doesn't reward nor punish and that kids just get internal pride for their work rather than be trained to feel entitled to any extrinsic reward.

I'm actually a she not a he

Well I've come around to your way of thinking, anyway Mrz and I like you. Really because unlike the confusion the kids are experiencing at our school, you are being consistent and in many ways helping to prepare them for secondary and student life. Good one!