can't be 'polite' and good any longer....

[swallowedAfly]

ds goes to a village primary with all the subsequent over-reliance on parents wealth, education, time, etc. re: assuming sahms are the norm, money is plentiful for fanciful trips and activities, we all know how to sew up costumes at the drop of a hat etc.

that's fine. i chose to live here. however....

homework is way over the top in terms of quantity and right from day one of school. one part of homework (there is loads) is the 'learning log' which is pretended to be something children could do indepndently and consolidates learning. except in reality it is not, by a long shot.

i've put up with it and put up with and felt enslaven to doing it until today when i've had enough. this week for ds (6yo and one of the most able in his year) it says, "show me what you've learned about number bonds up to 20 and what patterns you can see". then there's a blank page.

i don't know why (because this is far from the worst that's come home) but today i've had enough and found myself writing on the page that i have no idea what the learning objective is, what outcomes they're hoping for or how the hell they see this as differentiated. i've also asked how they think a parent with numeracy or literacy problems would tackle this task and whether they would actually set this as a task in class to 6yos and expect a meaningful outcome.

there is no context, no structure, no literacy support, no prompts nothing. same as ever. sometimes the tasks don't even relate to anything they've been learning.

am i totally unreasonable or would you after a year or so be fed up too? i am (if it's not obvious) an ex teacher and i know what education is supposed to be about and this is not it. homework should be meaningful. how could a 6yo read that question and face a blank page and do something a teacher could look at and assess to see what they've learnt? they couldn't.

on top of this learning log (given on a friday and expected in by tuesday) daily reading and signing of reading book is expected plus other bits and bobs. he's 6! he's been getting this since 5 at a point where some kids couldn't even write let alone face a blank page and an open ended task and produce something yet they'd get in trouble if they didn't. this is just a test of parents surely? and an unfair one given it assumes knowledge and literacy that some parents won't have?

sorry for long random rant but help! i'm not playing this game anymore and i'm ready to speak up. it's a joke.

We are having/have had exactly the same issues in a village primary and I agree with everything that has been said on here.

The issue about moving the children is that I have lost faith in my ability to judge whether a school is effective or not (had done all my research before moving here and spoken to a lot of parents) and I would loathe to move the children just to find more of the same.

Similar issues here too.

I conform just because I don't want my child to be punished or fail.

Like musicalfamily says I expect we would get more of same even if did move and DC settled now.

Compounded by being given a Statement of SEN, although academic ability is good and can concentrate well at home and behaviour is quite easily manageable too.

Very difficult to get the school to account for what provision, as detailed in Statement, actually has been receiving since there was no adequate Provision Mapping made available.

You do end up questioning the quality of teaching, assessments and reporting.

You also end up having to spend a lot of time supporting homework at home. Even though they end up being able to work independently in a task, often you have had to explain how to tackle it beforehand. So that is rather like teaching at home isn't it? Or at the very least 'picking up the slack'. I think there probably is a very distorted view going around about how 'average' or 'normal' children learn.

^At the SEN level it can affect how easy it is to work outside the home (would that affect child's attained? If you are not working are you still considered professional?) as well, with multi assessments to attend and multi professional meetings.

Supporting the child at home is all the more important, if you feel there might be more hurdles to jump over in order to achieve well from the 'get go'.

^should be 'would that affect a child's attainment?' - typo.

Interesting thread. We get these open ended homeworks and I struggle to guide DD in a hands off way, a blank page is daunting for a small child.

Yes. I think it is something a lot of adults find difficult to cope with, writer's block, stage fright, analysis paralysis, risk aversion, yet our children are expected to cope without a great deal of support....and further more punished if they don't come up to scratch.

I'm fed up of homework already too and Ds (5years) is in year 1. They are supposed to read their reader each night, practice spellings, practice slight words and then we have the "homework project" which is loosely linked to their current project.

The hardest part is choosing a task I think she could do, then explaining it and motivating her to do it. Most of the time it's just her copying down stuff that we have found out on the internet - such as facts about another country. It feels like an elaborate handwriting exercise which she really hates. It is a shame as she loves writing out random sentences, making up stories and practising what she has been doing in class. I fear that this extra contrived stuff will kill any enthusiasm for learning. Although the school has been classed as Outstanding and has above average test results so maybe this extra stuff does help. It just seems like too much.

I think I'd like to nominate swallowedAfly's original and follow-ups for Post(s) of the Month. Does anyone have a sticker for that? :)

Well I have to say. I don't want a nice little homework to do with my child as a nice and pleasant exercise. Because tbh it will NOT be a pleasant exercise at all. Talking with my dc about such and such subject is. Just as it when you answer their questions.
So between me and DH we have taught dc1 column addition, column multiplication and long division much before they did at school. Because he was asking.
But when the homework is about writing a piece on one subject (eg the Romans) with no indication as to what, do a poster and some research on the internet with a child that isn't reading fluently enough to do some search on the internet, then this is not just 'pushing' parents to do something with their child. It's asking them to spend 4 hours of their weekend for something that isn't that relevant.
Can we just say 'No not doing it'? Of course not. The children then presented their poster to the class and they put marks on each other. Cue for the fancy done by mummy PowerPoint show to get the best mark and the one who was done entirely by the child to be looked down.
And if course it us also detrimental for the children self esteem. Because they compare themselves to this beautiful art work, think that what they did is rubbish wo realising it wasn't little Johnny's work.

Well I'm back as recent posts again reflect my experience. DS primary is again very much girl play good, boy play bad. Terrible really as young boys need rough and tumble as any good nursery worker will tell you.

I also have this with the homework that DS may be able to do it eventually but only after I have spent ages explaining what is required. It is so stressful and for what I really don't know.

Interesting about Ofsted destroying complaints - so surprised they are allowed to do that. We have a very corrupt administration in this country - not for personal financial gain - but to ensure that the system they want will be imposed at all costs. I currently campaign for flexible start dates for summer borns and that gets vicious at times :(

thank you all for your comments.

the initial few, 'well my child is 7weeks old and she could do this with blindfolded and writing with her toes because i take her to museums' type posts were despair envoking HOWEVER as usual the common sense, 'real' and honest mainstream of mn redeem the place

he.is.six! i may write it on his head.

Indeed. From my MN name you may have guessed I am v v clever by anyone's standards. But could I have written a page about number bonds at the age of 6? Could I hell. In fact I clearly remember at the age of 7 being asked by the teacher to write 100 words on any topic I liked, as she wanted to see what my reaction was, and I had no idea whatsoever what to do. Fortunately for me, the teacher told me not to worry and said as a treat I could sit in her stock room and read anything I liked for as long as I liked. (I think she had probably read A S Neill's book on Summerhill or something). I spent the rest of that year doing that an awful lot, and surprise, surprise, I now get paid to sit in cosy rooms and libraries and read books for a living. How astute she was, to see what real learning was, and where my inclinations truly lay, and how sensible of her to remove the source of the panic for me.

We must hang on to the fact there is practically no correlation with formal homework and long term educational outcomes at that age.

agreed.

joy of learning is what i want him to have and i won't have it destroyed my mindless tasks.

There is another way to see this.

In the Education Act it specifies that parents have a responsibility to make sure their child receives an education 'suited to his age and abilities'.

You can read this as having a responsibility to resist the attempts of others to sabotage this by making kids do things that experts agree are not in their best interests. You would actually be hard pressed to find an expert of any ilk who said that ploughing through sheets of homework at the age of 5 or 6 was a good idea. Ergo, the law requires you to disregard the instruction. Sort of.

I am naughty, encouraging this, aren't I?

I suppose I am just struggling to understand why this task is SO mindless, especially given the alternative in many schools is the 'here is a 3 way differentiated worksheet' which really IS mindless (in the sense of being unlikely to excite anyone at all) although it would meet your criteria for clarity, scaffolding and differentiation.

It can so easily be subverted to create a genuinely interesting task that it seems an odd one to get so het up about. I can see that DD - whose brain is wired up more normally - would have needed a pointer as to HOW to subvert it, whereas DS would just have naturally gone off on one. Why not just subvert it to make it interesting to your child, if you are going to get involved?

[You would probably blanch to know that I used to set a homework in which I asked children to show me all the ways that they could think of to make 12, with a couple of ways to make their answers more mathematically interesting if they wanted to take them up ... though tbh that was a game - obviously with different numbers - that we used to play in Maths lessons regularly and so the children understood it very well. Answers - very, very few aided, because it wasn't the type of school in which parents helped with homework - varied from answers of the 10+2 variety (or 1+1....etc) to the '2012 -2000' to '-12 + 24' or '144 / 12']

Am completely gobsmacked about the stickers for children who are late / haven't paid for something! If I'd had that experience I would have gone ballistic.

I also don't know what number bonds are, and I too am highly educated... There's just no way into that question if you as a parent don't know (yes, of course you can google but it's not supposed to be your homework) and the child can't do much or remember. Great for those who will just reel off what they were told in class, no good for those who can't.

I loathe and detest the poster projects that DS's school sends home. They are always on very loose topics and rely on the parents to do the "research" as the kids are too young to do it alone. We don't have much family time to spend together at the weekend and I really resent having to spend some of it on these pointless tasks.

It is a comparatively recent trend for homework to be set in state primary schools. The Blair government started it by saying it was beneficial and it enabled parents to take an active part in their children's education. I'm thankful my children didn't have any. The request which has struck dread into my heart in recent years has been," Mum, could you have Tiny Eddie on Saturday? He'll be okay as he's got his project to do!"

Unfortunately, all this "enabling" parents to take an active part in their children's education via their homework seems to have resulted in some parents actively doing all their children's GCSE coursework for them, if newspaper reports are to be believed... Once you've started, it would seem, you can't stop .

@BoffinMum: "Ergo, the law requires you to disregard the instruction. Sort of."

The flaw with that cunning plan is that it assumes the person you're trying to convince can follow and will act on the logic, as opposed to stubbornly cling to some recipe they have for homework.

I'm all for HW that is more interesting than work sheets, but I can't see how you get a six year old to do the soaps example, except by doing it for them.

Fine for DD1 who'd watch, say I get it and write it down.

Hopeless for DD2 who actually wants to be independent, but still certain she's doing what the teacher wants at the same time.

She has no concept of "this is a possible answer to the question" it has to be the answer the teacher wanted

If you said "Write out all the number bonds that make 20 and sort them into a pattern" she'd get it instantly.

Frustratingly, DD2 won't accept me rewording the question, it has to be the teacher.

She has no concept of best guess, it has to be exactly right.

We had endless grief over a Geog project where she refused to add any of the extra stuff we found because it couldn't be too detailed she was only in Y7 (set sodding one of year 7 and she understood it and is a quick writer, but no it wasn't going in).

Not because she was lazy, but because she wasn't sure the teacher wanted that much.

seems to have resulted in some parents actively doing all their children's GCSE coursework for them, if newspaper reports are to be believed

Problem of the past. Coursework at GCSE has been replaced by Controlled Assessments under quasi-exam conditions. It's not a complete cure, and there's some hideous gaming going on, but it does reduce some of the problems. Anecdotally, parents were also doing the coursework badly.

There's still take-home coursework at A Level, which strikes me as equally ripe for abuse, but the volumes are much lower and the marking more audited, so I suspect that it would be easier to detect problems.

The most appalling part of this saga is those stickers! That goes against every sound educational practice I have heard of. I am sure there are good and bad village schools and urban schools and inner city schools but discrminatory stickers are just wrond. I'd be sending a sample to the local paper and to Ofsted.

DS2 has differentiated targets drawn up for each child using their APP grid to identify skills not yet mastered. What could possibly be wrong with this?

Well, DS2 is currently undergoing ASD/ADHD assessment and so his current targets are for him to not have manifestations of ASD/ADHD.

Hence his literacy target relates to understanding inference (SALT assessment in July 2013 put him on the 4th percentile). Good luck with that one. If he 'got' inference he would not be suspected of having an ASD.

He also has to 'take responsibility for concentration and attention'. He has lost golden time for getting out of his seat. His problems are sufficiently severe for medication to be suggested prior to any diagnosis. He is 7.

The only way he can meet targets is to not have ASD/ADHD. Only if he fails, repeatedly, over several years will it be eventually accepted that these behaviours are symptomatic.

This does huge damage to self-esteem and perception of self as a learner. ASD/ADHD does not give the child immunity to failure. DS2 is placed at an OOC indi ss, where in addition to meeting his needs, counselling staff have to try and unpick the damage whilst there is still time.

We can't do homework at the weekend when DS1 is home and so we have to fit in what we can in the mornings before school. I am not doing this because I think homework is beneficial at this age. In fact, in DS1's second school expected parents to do key things (such as teach times tables) so that the school essentially tested the children on what their parents had taught them out of school. Outstanding village school.
The irony is that output in the classroom is minimal and yet he is expected to do more work at home than in an entire week. I select what I think will be most useful just to illustrate/demonstrate that DS2 will engage if a token reward system is used.

I think the issue of parents teaching and the use of tutors (rife in DS2's school) distorts how good the teaching of the school is as attainment only partially reflects school teaching. DS2's school want to attract more m/c parents to that they can claim to produce 'level 6 mathematicians' despite their teaching being assessed as 3.