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.

OP I agree with absolutely everything you say, my ds is also 6 and we had a presentation on sats last night.....
Well, having been there twice steady with older ds's my opinion is well formed on that particular government performance measuring exercise. But the other parents who were demanding homework/supervision/support to get their children through it - this just perpetuates and creates pressure on the children.
I do very little of the homework ds gets as it makes no sense, we do other things at home instead. His head teacher actually thinks in a similar way and they have change the way homework is presented for this year. However this has caused great consternation and parents are asking for more structure and more work! Arghhhh!
In the past I discussed with the teacher that we won't be doing certain aspects of homework and why. They were fine with it.

thinking this is a scary kind of thread.
thought the idea was that the children could answer questions in the learning log in any way they can.
I know that my ds 6yo sometimes will just draw pictures especially if tired and not keen to write.
in a similar type question he used dice (die?) to make up a few sums because they did this in class
I don't think the learning log is about showing your abilities or opinions op,

good grief my computer has just caught up and now realise that there are billions of posts so mine probably not relevant any more..........slinks off to the virtual pup in chat, anyone with me/

no no no virtual pub not pup oh dear

I don't understand why this is considered such a mindless task.

If a NT 6 year old doesn't know what number bonds are then there are bigger problems with the school than the sort of homework that's being set. Just because adults don't know what they are doesn't mean children don't.

Soorplum, tbh I think that your post is more relvant than many...

curlew yes there are problems. They have not being taught successfully...for whatever reason.

I think, Swallowdafly, there has been an insidious shift since my eldest DDs (now graduated/at university) were at primary and my DS who is still there and it is a bit like the Emperors new clothes. My DS's school seems to think they have the authority to make whatever demands they like on our free-time, family life, finances, parent's jobs etc. That DS's education is our family's top priority. It's not. The detailed and patronising help-sheets they send home with questions I have to ask him, the way I should spend my weekend, how I can 'support' my child's learning go in the bin. I'm an experienced mother of four and a research scientist at one of the top universities in the UK - I think I've got that one! But I also just don't get number bonds - for god's sake why?

If you do not conform to this relatively recent educational dogma - and I include in this the big homework con, your astonishing example of 'stickers of shame', and the refusal to grant permission to take children out of school for a variety of entirely valid reasons that do not appear on the official "list" - you clearly do not care about your child's education and the thought police will get you (or at least, you will be fined/prosecuted!). If every day at school was so vital, DS wouldn't have spent much of the final two weeks of last school year watching a variety of Disney and Pixar films! I don't really mind that though - but they can't have it both ways.

It's a bonkers trend, worrying and wrong - surely we should be able to stop it? Just say no - I did with DD3. DD1 and DD2 did no homework at all at primary. I care very deeply about my children's future and education (although not perhaps in the way the Government would like). But DS's education does not take priority over the lives and education of the other five of us in the family.

Stigma stickers!?!

I would agree there has been some pointless, silly homework for both dds, especially in infants.

What homework does do, is give me some clue what is on the agenda. When we are sent an overview of the curricula, I never know what they are talking about. When I see some actual homework, I can figure out that "number bonds" means learning to add and subtract the basics, etc.

Also, children don't seem to get quizzes or tests. At least not the simple kinds set by the teacher that used to come home with me on a weekly basis in childhood. So homework is the only way I know whether my dds understand the material being taught. Homework is my only peek into the black box that is school. Otherwise, it's just "surprise! Here is your end of year SAT level."

Eldest dd is now yr5, and I think she could use some rote practise at different math techniques. Eg, long division, equivalent fractions, etc. but that isn't the sort of thing coming home.

Our primary has a no homework in KS1 policy (well apart from reading and I consider reading with DD to be a pleasure. I usually forget to write anything in the record book).

This policy is very evidence based. There is no evidence at all of any educational benefit of homework to young children. I am so glad that they have this policy as I work and have a toddler DS. I really just wouldn't have the time to do hours of homework every night.

Whilst it's nice for me I suspect the real reason they don't is because it would entrench inequality. The school is on a council estate in a very mixed area. For some of DDs peers they really have no books at all in the house and parents who don't or maybe can't read. It's hard to look stuff up on the internet when you don't have a computer or internet access. Ok you could go to the library but it is a lot harder. I think the school have learnt not to assume that parents will be offering a lot of support.

We are never asked for more than a £1 contribution to anything for the same reason.

And yet a lot of the more middle class parents (people like me I guess) repeatedly complain about the LACK of homework. Citing things like stretching their children and knowing how they are doing. IMHO that's what the curriculum newsletter and parents evening is for isn't it?

So schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
I am glad our school don't and never realised how unusual it is until I read how much homework mums testers kids get!

My DD had one particular primary teacher who used to give out masses of homework. Literally pages of it. I often used to stop her after 30 mins and say so. Or put a note in saying we had a busy weekend and there was not time. I can quite safely say, as she is now nearly 18, this has not harmed my daughter's education in any way and she has done very nicely.

So schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't

Doesn't mean they should not attempt to get it right though. A sheet of optional extension tasks could be given out to parents who wanted to 'extend' their children's learning. Small children should not be punished for not doing the homework, or not complying with anything that is their parent's responsibility.

I agree, ancientelm. If my children's homework were targeted at their needs, I wouldn't resent doing it with them. If primary school teachers don't have time to target homework appropriately, then they have no business handing it out in the first place.

and ps a vague question on number bonds is not appropriate targeting, it's a scattergun approach. In fact, I think it shows up how some teachers cope with "mixed ability" teaching - the more able children are only "catered" for if they are that sort of more able child who will happily educate themselves, go off at random tangents without any guidance, and generally be unfeasibly self-confident for a small child.

The parents at DS1's school are mostly pleasant and normal; however a small-but-vocal minority are so pushy, over everything but especially homework. One gaggle have complained to the school that it doesn't teach languages early enough (they start French in Y2; DS1 is in Y1) and have arranged private lessons in Mandarin and Russian. So much more useful in the future than French or German, you see....

DS1 is struggling enough with reading and writing English. And we pay a decent whack for his education do why not work on the basis that the teachers know what they're doing, hmm?

I'm with you, OP. These learning logs are lazy. What happened to giving children 'SMART' homework?

mamadoc I completely agree with you re adapting to the environment the school is in.
I live in a very middle class town. When I mentioned that expecting a child to have a computer at home to do homework was perhaps a bit of a stretch, I was told off because 'everyone now has a computer at home you know!' and 'No even poorer people do have access to the internet and a computer' citing some random studies that have shown it wasn't an issue at all to rely so heavily on the internet for research etc...

I would actually expect the school to stretch my child academically at school which unfortunately hasn't been the case in the last 2 years not through homework.

However I would really like to see more feedback from the school re what the dcs are doing and how well they are doing. Parents evening are only twice a year, once right at the start of year to check that the dc 'has settled in' and a report at the end of the year.
None of those ever dare mentioning any real issue (because you know, the parents might get upset about it... and you should always frame things in a positive way ) or if they do they do so in a very understated, round about way and you have to guess that 'your child is finding reading a bit of a struggle' means he is way behind and needs strong support (at home and at school) to catch up.

There just isn't enough feedback and in that case, then yes, homework is a way to check how tour dc is doing and 'helping them' if you can see they are struggling with x task they should be able to do.

So it's not quite a 'schools are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't'. More of a 'we have some issue re the way the school is working, how well or not my child is doing, if he is working to the right level and stretch and any feedback we get'. If these issues were solved, I bet less parents would go on about homework.

why not work on the basis that the teachers know what they're doing, hmm?

Perhaps because sometime they don't?
And perhaps also because sometime they aren't given the time/tools/people necessary to do their job as you expect them to do ie work fully differentiated including for the ones who are really lagging behind and the ones who are really far ahead.

if my child came out of school with a sticker saying that I had not paid for something timetabled into the syllabus, I would be peeling it off and sticking it to the headteacher's forehead.
you do know that making demands for payment for timetabled activities is illegal right?
asking for a "voluntary contributions" is not of course.

why not work on the basis that the teachers know what they're doing, hmm?

You must have been lucky enough to be at a perfect school? No school has 100% decent, able teachers who deliver a perfect lesson every time. There were rubbish teachers when I was at school many moons ago and there will continue to be at least 1 in almost every school in the future. Just read some Ofsted reports and the most consistent comment refers to inconsistent teaching standards.

All I can say is the homework set will always demonstrate ability but whether it's the child's or parents' may not be clear, and whether it shows a standard the teacher was hoping the child to perform at is a different matter. If all children perform poorly at a piece of work the teacher should be asking themselves some serious questions about their teaching and setting of work.

DD2 is also in Y2 and I'm convinced her homework is mostly a test of parental stamina above anything else...

why not work on the basis that the teachers know what they're doing, hmm?
IME a sizable minority of primary school teachers really do NOT know what they are doing, sorry.
let's see ...there was the one who ran a troop of personally invited dancing girls (not boys)
several who liked to scream in small children's faces
the one with his little favourites who would spend lesson time doing powerpoint shows about their trip to Cannes
the one who would
the one whose idea of classroom management was colluding in bullying and isolating victims of it.
i could continue but i CBA.
sorry IME primary schools are a joke.

and tbh just because someone has a third class degree from Luton Uni and and have scraped through an 'early years' PGCE really doesnt mean they deserve this instant respect that some of them seem to expect.

Most teachers may know what they are doing, but they don't always do it - sometimes they have to do what the powers that be tell them to do, however silly they think that is, themselves. Then you have the problem of teachers half-heartedly trying to get you to do something they think is a silly as you do, which just p*sses everyone off.

Primary teaching is pretty competitive, I can't imagine that someone who scraped a third from Luton would even get a place on a PGCE, let alone a job, unless they were remarkable.