Homework?

[stitched]

My son is in year 4 (9 years old)and gets little if no homework from school!
I have been doing 20 mins (in all) each night of maths, english and a little verbal reasoning as I feel he should be a little more challanged.
Is this too much? What does everybody else do?

DS also in Y4. He is expected to read,learn times tables and do maths or research. I think they expect about 3hours a week. (Can't remember)
What is school policy? Is teacher not following it or do they not see it as important?

Haven't actually asked about a policy. Will do tomorrow. Thankyou.
I am having an ongoing struggle with the teacher to give him spellings harder than ..... OUT, MORE, EXIT etc!!!
I can't imagine why a teacher will not support a parent in trying to challange a child.
I am honestly not that pushy but we are in an area where grammer school is the only decent option so I am concerned!!

There's an interesting paper here reviewing the literature on the benefits of homework. I can't copy from it (not sure why) but it says that at primary age studies show 'either no relationship or a very small positive relationship' between time spent on homework and achievement at school. So it may be that your ds' school and/or class teacher believes that homework for this age group is not helpful?

I suspect that teachers can't win on this one - half the parents hate homework and wish that none was given, the rest want twice as much

School probably expects all kids to be doing so much tutoring out of school to get into the grammar school, that they won't have any time for homework :)

We do some extra maths as dd wants to, but I just find things in books, on internet etc. I don't know that a teacher would want to set separate homework, but hers is always enthusiastic if she brings in some work she has done at home. She does get reading books, some writing and some numeracy each week (yr 2).

I think though if you are in grammar school area and you want him to go there you may want to consider a tutor, or doing extra work at home anyway. Our school takes the view that they provide a good curriculum based education, if the parents want to go for grammar school and think their child needs a push to get there, then they need to do it.

Whether grammar schools are right and whether it is a good idea to see how many middle class parents can fork out money for tutors so their kid can go to a highly academic school which may not suit their style of learning is another issue. I didn't like being at a grammar school - too much pressure, poor teaching and you only stood out if you excelled in sport, music etc, but I guess I may see it differently in a few years time.

I give my Y4s about 15 mins per night. Tables are important as is basic number such as multiplying/dividing by 10/100, number bonds to 10, 20 & 100 (that is, pairs of numbers which add to those three) and bridging 10s such as 98 + 3, 199 + 2, 90+20 etc.

The most important thing to do with your son though is read. Read, read, read. Comics, novels, picture books, non-fiction - the whole range. Read with him and talk about what you've read together - what's interesting, what might happen next, why characters have behaved as they do, how what he reads relates to his own life etc. One way to encourage him to read longer or more challenging texts is to take it in turn to read a page each - that also gives you the chance to model good reading, with expression, different voices for characters and intonation.

Ah stitched

It's no help at all - but welcome to the club - our school was like this until this year (Ofsted is coming) and I suspect will return to form once Ofsted is over.

First off: Government guidance on homework here:

www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelopment/SchoolLife/DG_179508

Year 4 - They recommend 1.5 hours a week, but they don't specify in what. To be fair, the balance may depend on the situation - if you have a strong reader, but weak in maths, you might want to spend more time at home shoring up maths understanding than working on reading. So I suppose the division/ emphasis on what to work on is down to you.

There's also a nice guide with tips on how to support homework here:
www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@parents/documents/digitalasset/dg_187190.pdf

Basically I support by DDs by concentrating on the 3Rs -

Reading: Reading out loud with them
I still read to them - but select classics that they might
not tackle yet but are good stories (e.g. Charlotte's Web,
Treasure Island, etc...)
Look into recommendations on reading (as there are a lot of
great new authors out there).

 Some useful websites:

book trust list of books for children by age group:

www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/children/

The Guardian had an excellent insert about how to build a great library of books for children: www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/building-a-children-s-library

Kidsread has a 'classic' book list by age & reading ability here:
www.kidsreads.com/lists/classic-lists.asp

Finally with reading - it can help shore up other subjects in school - particularly science and history by reading more about an interesting topic. Libraries are brilliant for this - either public libraries, school library or class library should have a good range of non-fiction books/ children's encyclopaedia's (which are much better than in my day - many more interesting diagrams and photographs & all in colour now!). The internet can be really useful for this as well - although you may want to start your search through or on a trusted website: BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Kids, etc...
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Maths

Kind of depends on your situation. If your DC is struggling you may want to consider signing up to on-line tutorials to give them the opportunity to learn at their speed and get in practice. I've signed up to Mathsfactor for my DDs, but DD1 was seriously struggling. I hasten to add you have to pay to join something like this - so you do need to weigh up whether this will work in your situation and whether you can envision sticking with the tutorials after a few months.

If you would like a bit of practice to encourage mental maths - I'd highly recommend Tux of Math Command. It's free. It's an open source video game based on the Asteroids format. You can select the skill level and the type of maths problem you want to review and basically sums come down the screen and you blow them away by typing in the right answer.

You can download the programme from here: tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/tuxmath/

The BBC has set up a learning website in BETA (so trial stage) here:
www.bbc.co.uk/learning/

This gives you direct access to teaching materials by Key stage and to BBC Bitesize.

If you select Schools on the right and then Teachers on the right - you can then select otpions from KS1 or KS2 as appropriate from the menu box midway down on the right. Now this lumps together all years - but at least gives you a good idea of what's avaialble. I find if you have a go yourself, you can pretty much judge whether you DC is ready for this or not.

In the menu box mid-left - you can select which topic (so say maths) and then the yellow tabs above let you select the appropriate Key stage. From there you get a list of topics (which you can click) - but there also are tabs for resources, activities and games.

To the right of the menu box on the schools or teachers page - is the Bitesize review games - this is geared up for preparing for SATs but has a lot of great games which can help tackle those little niggles and give good practice.

Cooking can be a great way of learning about time, weights and measures and is lovely time together. Teach them about reading a clock (digital or analog) to work out what time it will be when the cookies are ready. Have them weigh or measure the ingredients - to develop a sense of scale for these standard measurements. Talk about metric and imperial system of measurements.

From about Y3/Y4 - you can also have them calculate the change when you pay for things. So have them notice what a small bit of shopping totals and then ask them to work out what the change should be. Or play the game as you shop. If I have £1 and this can costs 74p - how much change will I get?
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Writing

Our school provides no homework on this at all, aside from the reading diary, which can be as little as saying 'I read a chapter'. So, I try to encourage as much as possible by sly.

Thank you cards (after birthdays, Christmas, special treats/ visits) are a good way of getting practice in.

I also have them write postcards whenever we go on holiday. Have them send postcards to their teachers, to their grandparents, to their friends, etc...

I get them to write in to competitions. Not just do the drawing, but write to the magazine or book about why they like it (The Rainbow Fairies for example has lots of competitions for girls - I'm sure there must be something similar for boys series' I just haven't come across it yet).

That transition to writing more than a few short sentences (my DDs are in Y2 and Y4) is still eluding me, but I'm starting to get DD1 (Y4) to write alternative endings or discuss what she would change about the books she's reading in her reading diary. She's currently written 2 acts of a play about a fairy tale. This all started from reading a rather easy book to her younger sister, but she's set out the actors played by her classmates, the props, etc... and has written about 10 pages in her reading diary. It really has captured her imagination.

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Learning when you least expect it:

Learning can also happen on holiday, outings, etc...

Have the children read signs at historic places or museums. Ask them to spot a Greek myth or bible story in the paintings in an art gallery. Ask them to find an object from Jurassic period in a natural history museum/ of section of a museum.

Get the guidebooks and have your child decide what to see and where to go.

Let them try and draw a copy of a painting or sculpture you visit (either there and then or from a photo).

Talk to them about your sports heros. If you DS is wild about some footballer now, talk to him about the footballers you admired as a kid and what they went on to do.

Talk to grandparents about what life was like when they were little or during World War II. Actually just talk to grandparents. They both love it!

Anyway I hope that helps stitched. You're not alone - a lot of schools don't provide much in the way of homework. To be fair if you google homework you'll learn fairly quickly that in primary school there is a lot of division about whether it is a good thing. However, it is clear from secondary school good study habits make a definite positive difference in terms of achievement.

However - primary children are just that - children - and they can learn as much by lying on their back and watching clouds and bumble bees drift by as they can reading a book. They also need time to imagine, develop phsyical skills and time to just muck about and day dream. That's important too!

Hope that helps

My 7 year old's this week include manager, player, sprayed....

sorry that should have read my 7 year old's spellings include...

The Homework Myth
Read this great book and then forget completely about the idea of homework for U11s.

roisin

I think this is only true if the school is doing a good job by your child.

But if like me you find in March of Y2 - your child can barely read and can't take 1 from 10 - and you've held your tongue for 2 years because the first time you raised I'm a bit concerned about.... you had your head handed back to you by the teachers - then I'm afraid homework is the only solution.

For some of us state primary is merely day care. Very little learning takes place and much of what is being taught just doesn't seem to be making sense - to me or my DDs. So my job - and I didn't ask for it - is to put some regular time into supporting reading, writing and arithmetic because without it my DDs would be functionally illiterate & innumerate.

PSBD - Why don't you take your child out of that school? Either to a different school or to home educate?

Ooh! what a mine field.
Thankyou so much....I am going to study every suggestion and website suggested.

PastSellByDate - in that situation I wouldn't be wanting more work sent from school, I'd be looking at what I could do at home to fill in the gaps.

Indigo, there aren't always obvious alternative schools (or like here, the other viable option shares a head teacher, so not likely to be that different!), and home ed isn't always a great option either. While I think HE can be fab, if you have a very social only child who really doesn't want to come out of school then filling in round the edges can be the best option . . . (voice of experience here)

I HATE HOMEWORK!!!!

As a parent, I find homework cuts into weekend time and is pretty pointless - endless photocopied worksheets. I wish my children didn't get any.

Reading is fine and I do practical maths stuff - baking, telling the time and the odd computer game.

As a teacher, homework is pretty pointless, You are setting something to keep the parents happy, it isn't always done properly or the parents try to show their child a method that they did when they were at school. I like to set research tasks or finding objects to fit a criteria etc. Again, I do promote regular reading.

Hi all:

We are trying to move and hope this will mean we can change schools. I don't expect the new school to be better - but frankly I'm tired of working with an organisation that wastes so much potential.

I do fear this 'no homework in primary' view is utlimately unhelpful - if children do not develop the habit of doing homework young (pre-11), it seems like your setting yourself up for a battle to get them to do anything post-11. From everything I have read in secondary school doing homework does directly link to pupil's achievement. What I find astounding is that educators don't seem to see establishing a routine of reading with your child, maybe one small piece of maths work (reinforcing learning) and one small piece of writing (maybe writing about a character in a story or what you liked about a story) a week can develop good study habits, laying the foundation for good study habits in senior school, where it is crucial to learning achievement.

What I will say is that I wouldn't be doing as much as I do if I didn't really enjoy this time with my children. They're not forced - if they say No I'm tired, don't feel like it, etc... that's fine. I rarely push it - But they're now used to regularly reading, practicing spellings (and writing sentences using the words - which the school does not require), tricking them into writing (thank you cards/ postcards/ etc...) and regularly using Mathsfactor for their maths teaching (we've lost any confidence in school's curriculum - they're still teaching timestables in Y4). I have been evil and let them go a week without practicing spelling and see what kind of results that gets (1 out of 10 correct was a real shock to DD1, she now sees the point of practicing). We do it in small bite size chunks. No more than 20 minutes on something (usually Mathsfactor takes the longest because there is a lesson as well or writing out sentences, because DD1 is a slow writer). But I can see and track the improvement. More importantly they can see they're improving, work is getting easier and in the case of DD1 her efforts are being recognised at the school.

My belief in homework isn't about proving the school is doing it all wrong or teachers are no good - my belief is simply that some children need the time and space to review and reinforce learning. Certainly for DD1 doesn't always get something first time around. She works in groups and can sit back and let others do it for her and the teachers (who don't seem very clear on what individuals are doing) get the impression she's doing fine. The reality is she's struggling but effectively hiding it and it's our work at home that's grounding learning and ensuring that sufficient practice has reinforced that learning point.

I dont' know if this will work with every child - I don't know that I have it right - but I personally found it unacceptable to have a child who could barely read or add and was hopeless at subtraction at March Y2 (so after 25 months formal education) when I know that statistically with parents who are highly educated, and no sign of SEN, this simply shouldn't be happening.

What is wonderful is that in this era of the internet and resources like Mumsnet - parents do not have to sit idly by accepting 'verbage' from a school (and I've had everything from 'You shouldn't compare what we do here to other schools' to you must understand Mrs. X, DD1 simply isn't that bright' from the Head Teacher) or teachers that frankly show no commitment to education (in the sense of being fired up to educate the next generation of scientists, engineers, inventors, artists, playwrites, etc...).

Past Sell by Date, I and a lot of my friends did little to no homework in primary, and had no problem adjusting to doing homework at secondary. We actually saw doing homework then as a "right of passage".
If I had had lots of homework at primary school I wouldn't have had time to pursue my other interests and become as avid a reader as I was.

My children's primary school has moved to a "no homework" policy. It hasn't affected results, and my biggest regret is that I made my eldest do homework when he was there and they still set it (he would have been much better just working on focussed work to help his dyslexia).

However if I saw my kids school as just "daycare" I would be finding them another school, or home schooling them.

Oh don't get me started on the out of date notion that remembering 10 or so spellings a week helps children to be better spellers!! Arrrrgggghhhhhhh!!

I was just about to write what mummy time has already said. I had no homework at primary, and had no problems at secondary. It was part of it. Dd is in reception but homework is already a chore but home style learning will engage her for hours.

I'm not a big fan of homework with the exception of reading. However my DD in year 1 gets one piece of homework per week which takes about 15 mins. I like that as it gives me an insight into how she is doing at school and what she is working on. I would be unhappy if she got more than that.

I think it has no effect on preparing them for secondary school and to be honest nowadays by the time they get to secondary they are thoroughly sick of homework and it probably has a negative effect. (teach mainly KS4 and KS5)

How would you like it in your job, where you worked a full day, then had to take home an extra hour or 2 every night. (yes, I know many of us do, but we still don't like it)

Guys:

Those of you who wrote in proposing no homework - power to you - but it does sound like you were at a school doing its job. Not coming up with excuses in Y1 about why you don't teach subtraction until Y2. And in Y2 when your child can't subtract (and she wasn't alone) about how children develop in maths at their own rate and things will really pick up in KS2. And in Y3 being told the problem is your child's just 'a bit dim'. (By the way no subtraction homework was ever sent home - so you can see why I might link child has no idea how to subtract with child isn't being given the opportunity to actually practice subtraction).

As I have repeatedly said - I'm doing a mix of homework (which has dramatically increased because OFSTED is coming this year - so from virtually nil - to 1.5 hours per week, although lion share is reading) and home schooling (teaching maths/ grammar and writing as best I can - because school is failing to do much in that area).

But let me ask you no homework camp folks a few basic questions:

Should a Y4 student know how to go about organising a formal letter?

Should a Y4 student be able to write more than a few sentences?

Should a Y4 student be able to understand basic grammatical terms (noun, verb, article, adverb, adjective & punctuation terms)?

Should a Y4 student be able to recall multiplication and inverse division facts to x10 and understand the process (multiples of addition/ subtraction)?

Should a Y4 student be able to add and subtact numbers to 100?

Should a Y4 student be spelling more accurately and moving away from phonetically correct but incorrectly spelled words?

Shoudl a Y4 student have a reading age around 8 - 9 years of age, matching their chronological age?

I could go on - but I can assure you that without my assistance the answer to all of these questions for my DD1 would be no and in many cases is no for a large number of her class mates.

However I do recognise that there are two camps.

Camp 1: Intelligence is what you're born with and you can either do it or not (no practice is involved).

Camp 2: Knowledge and skills can be achieved through endeavour and practice.

I fear I'm camp 2. I admit there are children (and I suspect I was one) where things come easily and you just get it very quickly and that Camp 1 attitude will work. But there are also children that need more support - which is the situation for my DD1. I honestly believe it's possible for every child to access primary education - there are stumbling points and they key is to catch it early and help them to grasp the concept and move onwards.

sillybillies:

How would you like it if you and your DH worked a full day and paid taxes (plus worked with 5 other childless colleagues who take great interest in your DDs and are all Aunties and Uncles & pay taxes) and then find yourself coming home after doing your job and then doing the job of the teacher all 10 of you are paying taxes for.

And yes sillybillies we actually regularly take work home - we don't have the kind of job where it is just 9 to 5. So again - another reason for anger - because we don't have a lot of free time.

This has been our situation for 4 years +. We're not just hacked off - our 5 colleagues and their partners are also furious to hear what an awful job our school is doing. They see paying taxes into the state education system as an investment in their future as well - future doctors, scientists, inventors, engineers, educators, academics, etc...

Now I'm not sure how much time you put into homework marking. But I can assure you at our school it only involves putting a sticker into the homework book at most. I take great pleasure in endlessly writing - NO COMMENT FROM TEACHER - in ink in my DDs homework logs because that is the norm and I'm hopeful OFSTED might see it. Not sure they'll have an issue with it, but it is a bit sad when kids go to a great deal of effort on something and get no comment at all.

One of my friends had a rant before Christmas about the fact her DD worte a story based on one of the characters from her book in November and the teacher hadn't even bothered to put a sticker on ~10 pages of writing in her exercise book. The child was devestated by the way. She thinks the teacher thought it was so bad she couldn't be bothered to comment.

Pastsellbydate your comments about perseverence and learning how to study are very accurate and certainly very passionate but they are tinted by your experiences with your child. The OPs question, and the question people have tried to answer, is should a Year 4 child have homework set by the school?

Homework set and 'work done at home' are two different things. If you chose to teach your child at home because you are not satisfied with school then fine, well done to you because many parents could care less. But this is not the same issue as homework.

Secondly, if you are not happy with their progress within school why do you feel homework will make any difference? By what you say the school is in fact failing to educate them. I know this wont make much difference and you have probably heard all this before but have you been in to look at their books? It may be policy that homework isn't marked in the same way as other work, it is just collected in. This may be the case in a school that sees homework as a way of developing discipline or just does homework because they feel they have to.

Back to the general point: I had the same discussion with a group of teachers recently and all the primary teachers hated homework and saw no point in it. The things it is useful for in my opinion are:
practising self discipline skills and time management and
showing parents what children are learning and engaging them in discussions.

I dont think children need to 'practise' doing homework for secondary school until Year 5 at the VERY earliest and to be honest would be happy with no homework until year 7. Yes they must learn to time manage and be in charge of their own learning. But why cant they learn this in the first year of secondary school? Otherwise you get the 'homework in year 6 to practise for year 7, homework in year 5 to preactise for year 6, homework in year 4 to practise for....'

Children who regularly do homework and are seen to progress are almost always also: from supportive homes, recieving adult help, have time and a quiet place to do their homework, fairly bright anyway or enjoying the subject you're doing...all these things which also indicate children who do better at school in general. The children you're really trying to reach often cant remember to bring it in, are NOT ALLOWED to do it because Dad thinks its bollocks, dont have time, dont have anyone at home to help/who speaks English and so on. The primary school day (and most of KS3 as well) allows all work to be finished. Children do not have coursework, revision or research to do. So really, it serves no purpose.

Wellthen:

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree - but I do take your point.

I suspect what you're saying (as a teacher who clearly thinks things through and is interested in best practice) is that if a school is doing their job right there really is little or no need for homework in primary.

I suspect what I'm not making clear - is that when you find yourself in a situation where your child isn't getting it (subtraction, sounding out multi-syllable words, whatever) and the school's solution isn't to roll up their sleeves and help the child through the difficulty, but to ignore the problem or at most move them down a group - you end up in something of a knot as a parent.

Pastsellbydate - yes, you end up in a knot BUT it is not a knot about homework.

If the class work isn't helping your child to progress, then the solution is not to say 'the school should set more homework'. It is to say 'the school should sort out its class work'.

The list of things a Year 4 child might be expected to do that you set out above - that is a list of the things that the school should be doing IN CLASS.

If they are not teaching it in class, then homework is neither here nor there.

If they are teaching it in class but your child is not meaking progress - they you need to be talking to your child's teacher and the SENCo about WHY they are not making progress in class ... and go on and on and on until a proper answer is found.

Homework should NOT be where a child learns something new. If it happens at all, it should be about reherasal and consolidation of what has been learned - for example daily reading aloud consolidates the direct teaching of reading that should be happening in school. Parents should not be 'teaching' a child things that should be being taught in class.

By pushing your school to set more homework, you are misdirecting your energy. All your energy and frustration should be being directed towards whatever it is happens in the classroom that is creating the 'gaps' you see appearing and that you want to fill. The only advantage of having done some work at home with your child is that you will have a good idea as to whether your child CAN'T do something (as in some barrier to learning appears to exist) or whether they have simply NOT BEEN TAUGHT IT but pick it up very nimbly as soon as you expose them to it - and that will dictate whether your first port of call at the school should be the SENCo (to start looking into what that barrier to learning might be) or to the head (to start understanding why what is expected for your child's age is not being taught in the classroom).