wierd homework marking policy ( in my view )

[MilkRunningOutAgain]

DS is bright and finds maths homework easy. Until a few weeks back, although he hates homework, he accepted it as a necessary evil and did it, getting a housepoint for his minimal effort. A few weeks back he mis read the point of several questions, and got them wrong. The teacher noticed this, usually she ticks the correct answers, the incorrect ones she left untouched, no tick, no cross, no comment. But she gave the customary house point.

Next week, DS doesn't bother at all, just puts answers in the boxes without reading the questions. Result, no ticks, no crosses, but a HP!

I spoke to his teacher about it as I was amazed. I tried to be calm and simply asked what her policy was. She was embarrassed. She admitted that the new post Ofsted ( where the school was found to be needing improvement ) policy was not to put children off by marking homework wrong. Can this be right? DS is just taking advantage, and has been now for several weeks.

I wondered if anyone else has experienced this?

When I was an ou tutor we were told not to use a red pen when marking students' work because it would remind them of their failures at school I just saw that as patronising twaddle. These are adults we're talking about.

Thanks, I wasn't sure about houses. We had them at secondary school, but only really in relation to school sports, but I've never come across them at primary school and wasn't sure what it meant to get a house point.

The primary school my DC go to sounds very old fashioned compared to what I read on MN. A trip to the headmasters office is to be feared, there are no 'prizes for all', and teachers aren't afraid to point out mistakes. But the children are happy, motivated, the school has a great inspection report, and they don't seem to have any problem with children getting 'left behind', generally they seem to achieve their potential. Certainly the other parents I know are more than happy with how the school deal with their DC, regardless of whether they are academic, or whether they struggle. And its not a middle class type school, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, many parents in our area look down their nose at it because they think its too 'common' . Its such a shame that teachers have to spend so much time fretting over using red pens or not, marking Xs or not, instead of just, y'know, teaching stuff. I wouldn't be a teacher for anything, it sounds hellish.

Thanks everyone, I've asked an acquaintance who is a governor to discuss this at their next meeting and told the teacher I've done this, she said she thinks it's crazy and was pleased! And another mum has done the same thing. And we put a comment in the new conment box too, signed by both of us. While I would be quite happy for primary age kids to have no homework, I do think it's counterproductive to hand it out and then seemingly not care whether it's right or wrong. It gives out entirely the wrong message.

My DH wrote out some questions for DS to do this weekend and they had quite a good time discussing the answers, I'm hoping this may continue as DH is good at maths and it's like having a tutor for DS. DH is no good at helping with the KS1 stuff, but perhaps he may come into his own now DS is getting older.

Wow, I'm shocked. DD2 is still at primary and she definitely gets wrong answers marked with crosses - always has. I'm pretty progressive in my thinking on education and can't stand Gove, but this is a madness too far.

Further to my comment above ... the school where I work does mark with proper ticks and crosses, but we do always put n explanations of any that were wrong and a new challenge if they've got it all correct. I mark in all sorts of colours! Brown is rather dull, but usually pink, purple, orange, green ... anything that shows up. I have on occasions used red, but it's just another colour in the repertoire.