Is there a way of handling lack of homework?

[PastSellByDate]

Dear all:

I'm well known here for grumbling about unimaginative and limited homework at DDs' school. Thus my hesitation to go into battle yet again about lack of homework. So I'd like to explain our situation and see what you Mumsnetters think about this:

Since Gove announced that he was removing guidance on homework our school has been 'reviewing' their homework policy. We parents received a letter in September saying that they were reviewing what homework would be offered and that spelling would move from a weekly list of words to more investigative work (i.e. making words verbs or adjectives, learning rules for certain groups of words - i.e. -ough words), etc... They also announced that there would be a parent/ staff meeting one evening (which was well attended) to discuss what parents wanted from homework and what the schools views on homework were (that was nearly 2 months ago).

It's the last week of term and still absolutely nothing from the school about what their homework policy will be.

Both DDs get a maths sheet (~10 minutes work, if that) and regularly get library books to read from school. No written work (writing a review, a letter, etc...). No topical work: researching a historical period, learning more about a topic, etc... And no investigative spelling work - unforutnately.

The school is proposing a grid (5 x 5) with options for homeworks which are entirely optional for each child to do - but children would get a merit for completing 5 a month. Each month a new grid would be issued.

Am I being unreasonable (AIBU) to think this shouldn't be taking so long?

Are other teachers/ schools struggling to come up with homework policy like ours?

Are schools opting to offer less homework now that government guidance on homework is removed?

Thanks for any input - I'm really struggling not to complain - but I'm completely astounded this is so difficult to organise.

Pastsellby Maybe you need to suggest that the school use Learning Logs if you're so keen to do lots of homework!
Learning Logs

I was on a course the other day and someone brought a couple of amazing examples to 'share' that had been done by her Y2 class.

To do them properly, it seems like an awful lot of work for teachers, parents and children, and I wonder if there is benefit for all? Children from with 'less-involved' parents must be at a disadvantage.

Does anyone here do them?

I don't think 4 year olds need to be in school at all, but that's another thread.

I think it's a missed opportunity to a) normalise schoolwork at home (even if it's 2 mins of reading, as it was for three years at ds's school) and b) some of those pupils need extra time spent on learning spellings and times tables. Not at age 4 obviously .

I think most people are in favour of reading "homework" in primary

Thanks this has been a real eye-opener

Homework makes no difference to children's performance.

I hate setting homework, marking it and making my own DD do it at home.

If you want your child to sit down and write a persuasive letter, why don't you do it with her? Ultimately, she is your responisbility, not theirs.

If I want my DD to do something special, I do it with her.

I don't think that I can say it any more clearly:

• Daily reading, at least some of it with an adult: absolutely yes.
• Practising times tables: yes unless the school is using a Maths curriculum which incorporates daily learning of Maths facts.

• Small amounts of written hoework in the final year or so of primary: probably, but the aim is obviously nothing to do with the actual learning, more to do with starting to develop and teach the 'independent homework' skills needed for secondary.

• Large amounts of written homework in lower primary, especially that requiring input from an adult: No.

• Home-based learning of all the things which are hard to cover in a school environment: of course. Why anyone would complain that the school sends home no Maths when there is cooking and measuring and map-reading for long hikes to be done at home is beyond me.

As a full time working mother I really grudge having to spend the precious couple of hours I have with my dc's (on the evenings they have nothing else on) doing homework.

Homework was supposed to be handed out on a Thursday for the following Thursday. At least that way we could do it at the weekend but, invariably we don't get it until Monday or Tuesday and it ends up being a rush job.

---And don't get me started on projects. My child is in a class with 20 of the most talented 6 year old artists in the universe if the latest project is to be believed. A model of a lighthouse - some complete with revolving light and fog horn. Our painted smoothie bar cup and yellow tissue paper was somewhat lacking!

Like most, I would handle it by quietly celebrating, then recommending the school to all others.
School homework at Primary level (as in written assignments) is a waste of everybody's time.
I speak as both a parent and a teacher.

Hi Feenie:

70% stat is based on DD1 view - top table maths (which DD1 is now on thanks to mathsfactor - god bless on-line tutorials and being able to go off plan when school badly lets you down!).

DD1 says everyone on top table (6 pupils) has multiplication tables to x12. School expects only to x10.

DD1 says maybe 2 or 3 on 2nd table have tables to x10 and that all the rest are still mastering them - particularly struggling with x6 - x9 apparently.

Agree yes, practice at home is important - but Feenie (and other teachers) - do you think it might help if a class had a note sent home saying this week we're working on x7, please try and help at home and here are a few websites for practice? I ask - because I know other schools do this - but our school doesn't.

Are these other schools wrong to be doing this? Is our school wrong to not be doing this? As a parent I'm left deeply confused what is normal practice.

Interesting points JWIM - hadn't thought about requiring governor's approval and that may be the issue. I know that there is a school improvement plan - but the school have not posted this on the website. A parent asked openly at a parent/ teacher meeting why this wasn't made publically available and was told it was being finalised - that was 2 years ago.

sorry should be governors' (as in all of them) approval

But how does your dd know anyone else's reading levels? They are no one else's business other than the child and their parents.

Am impressed at her work in percentages though

Lack of homework has nothing to do with the school's overall performance. If you honestly thought that it did then that is serious cause for concern. Ds gets homework (year 4). It seems to me more to show parents what their little darlings are learning rather than any actual benefit or aid to their learning.

I, like others on this thread, had no homework at all until secondary (grammar) school. It didn't stop me achieving and I really don't see the benefit of it at primary age.

LaBelleDamesanspatience:

I do have my DDs write letters and send postcards. I've taught them how to lay out a letter, how to open it and how to close it. I've taught them where the address from the sender and the address for posting go. I've taught them where the stamp goes. My despair is why am I teaching this - surely this is kind of basic and should be covered in school.

I use opportunities like thank you notes for birthdays and Chirstmas and treats from grandparents to get them writing. (can I add that both DDs have been reduced to tears and shreak that their hands hurt after literally 1 card - maybe 30 - 40 words of text. They quite simply are not used to writing).

I must add that as a family we also enjoy of range of relaxed activities with the girls - all gathered around the tv watching Strictly, walking at the weekends, visiting friends/ family, cooking, going to the movies, etc...

However, my worry is that there is a basic curriculum they should be covering and mastering before senior school - and in a school which is struggling to do that (at least based on last 4 years KS2 SATs) and has chaotic homework - I really wonder what is going on.

Agree this is a broader question than just homework - which I don't think I fully absorbed - but agree this initiative to have some sort of homework policy post Gove abandoning weekly homework targets has been gloriously dropped by the head and/or staff at our school.

Ds has never been taught how to address a letter at school. He learnt when he got presents and had to write thank you letters for them. He learnt this before he started school.

If the school aren't covering the curriculum then that is a completely separate issue. How do you know they aren't covering the curriculum? If you are sure then I would take it up with the HT, governors and LEA.

I would expect if the school's entire homework policy is being rewritten that it should take a substantial amount of time. All the teachers of each year group should have an input and that sort of thing really requires dedicated inset time. Documents need to be drafted, consulted upon, revised and signed off.

At the same time, this is one of the busiest terms of the year.

"I do have my DDs write letters and send postcards. I've taught them how to lay out a letter, how to open it and how to close it. I've taught them where the address from the sender and the address for posting go. I've taught them where the stamp goes. My despair is why am I teaching this - surely this is kind of basic and should be covered in school.

I use opportunities like thank you notes for birthdays and Chirstmas and treats from grandparents to get them writing. (can I add that both DDs have been reduced to tears and shreak that their hands hurt after literally 1 card - maybe 30 - 40 words of text. They quite simply are not used to writing)."

Then, as I said above, the problem with your school is NOT their homework policy, it is the problem of what happens in school time.

I reinforce laying out a letter in Year 3, but it has already been taught lower down the school (as the letters to Santa displayed on the Reception board testify).

Also, virtually all of my class - and I have a very wide range of ability - produce a piece of writing at least 2/3 of page long at least once a week on average (sometimes there will be a couple of weeks of slightly shorter pieces leading up to a week where we write almost solidly), and I expect the middle ability and above to do at least a page of writing in their completely independent writing once a fortnight.

With high in-school expectations, the role of homework is neither here nor there. In my very non-MN school, we have many families without the facilities (space, equipment, time, adult attention) to do any written homework, which is perhaps why we work the children so hard in school as we can't take the 'lazy' way out and send longer tasks home for homework.

We use letter writing as a termly writing assessment in every year group from reception to Y6 which would be pretty pointless if we hadn't taught children how to write different types of letters informal, formal, letters of complaint etc.
As teacher says I would be more concerned with what happens while they are in school than worrying about homework!

I use opportunities like thank you notes for birthdays and Chirstmas and treats from grandparents to get them writing. (can I add that both DDs have been reduced to tears and shreak that their hands hurt after literally 1 card - maybe 30 - 40 words of text. They quite simply are not used to writing).

You could try to get them to write more at home (day journals, book reviews, stories). Or you could accept this as the procrastination technique it is: I did the same as a child because I wanted to play, not write letters.

I'm a secondary school teacher and I am routinely astonished by the number of children who can't address an envelope to their parents/carers. When sending reports home with my tutor group many didn't know how to write formal titles (lots didn't realise they needed a name and just wrote an address), they wrote the address in the top left instead of centre, wrote it so the envelope was upside down and so many didn't know their post code.

This is something that needs working on at home! Not much opportunity for using envelopes at school.

Well having mined our way through a fair old bit of it over the years I'd be just as happy if we didn't get it at all.

It's a complete pita, I can't see it achieves anything other than a load of angst at home and it aggrieves me that sometimes it's set about things that haven't even been mentioned in class (ie sent home for us to teach from scratch whilst they faff about with dress up days during school time).

It's also extremely sats orientated and unimaginative dull.

(ie sent home for us to teach from scratch whilst they faff about with dress up days during school)

Wow! That's very cynical and completely different from my experience of the hard work and effort my DC's teachers put into their education and to the homework that is sent to us.

Poor you, if that is the case!

How can you complain about dull tasks and about 'dress up days'? You either want an imaginative, creative curriculum or you don't. Teachers really can't win.

Dull tasks and dress-up days are both symptomatic of a lack of teaching.

An imaginative, creative curriculum does not involve dressing up...

So you wouldn't advocate that a child dresses as a street urchin when studying Dickens or learning about Dr Barnardo, or put on all the layers of a Victorian lady's petticoats or wear a saree or pien fu when learning about other cultures.

Dear all:

I think we've established that parents/ teachers have all sorts of views on homework.

It seems to me that the consensus here is that if a school is doing their job well, homework really doesn't make a lot of difference to learning.

My real question was why is divising homework taking 4 months at our school. Some form of homework policy and actual homework assignments can't be that difficult - but I hadn't realised this was a hugely contentious issue (bear in mind our school gave the largest amount of homework ever in 5 years attendance the year OFSTED came to inspect - so I rather thought homework was considered important/ of value given that behaviour). I also hadn't taken on board that this will require approval at various levels and consultation with staff. This can explain some of the time delay.

I do rather feel that opporutnities at learning are being lost (it has been 4 months)- but I accept that many here feel that having children do a lot of work at home is wasting preciously limited family time (which I do fully understand).

Unfortunately this leaves me as a parent in limbo. Leave it entirely to the school and my children will most likely not scrape NC Level 4 in Year 6. Which I actually find personally deeply upsetting. Do more and I'm a pushy PITA parent/ snob/ tiger mother/ fill in the perjorative...

Sigh