homework in yr 1 and yr 2

[earlgreyplease]

How much homework do you get in yr 1 and yr 2 - and what kind of thing is set - how long should it take?
I think we are getting too much, would love your advice please.

My DS is in Yr2, his homework varies, like last week they were asked to go out and collect a bag of complete leaves that had fallen off the trees, to be used in class for decorating posters and a board. Some weeks he gets a page of writing that can take him up to 20 minutes to do. This week he has to learn all 15 lines he is doing in the Nativity play.
How much is your DC getting?

I teach this age group. In our school it is the policy to send out two pieces per week, plus reading. One piece is usually a bit of practice at the maths we have covered during the week. The other is a short piece of writing/research. I would say that the homework should around 30 minutes per week.

DD2 P2 in Scotland, maths sheet can be ten sums or a number grid to find things in, spelling words two asks with these. Phoneme sheet, make words with ths week's sound.
If we did it all at once it'd be too much so usually over a couple of evenings. About 20 mins at a time. They also have a monthly topic they can choose to participate in, this month its a short presentation on a part f the human body. Sounds harder than it is for 5/6 yr olds, they take a prop and talk about it in front of class for a couple of minutes but much prompting and class interaction.

DS is in Y1 and isn't really getting much homework.

He gets a different book to read every day and homework at the weekend that is normally just one worksheet, mainly maths or literacy. This weeks took him about 10 minutes, last weeks 20 minutes (but both could have been quickly done in a couple of minutes tbh).

It's an improvement on last years Reception homework which was normally some vague question ('what is autumn','tell me everything you know about recycling' etc) with 2 big pages to fill and took ages.

Ds is in year 1 but his school don't set much homework, which I agree with tbh. They just ask that parents support learning where they can and read with the children daily. He gets a reading book from school and we get them from the library.
They provide website links for parents for things like numeracy, and send out ideas for practical activities too (writing in sand/practical numeracy activities for example). But none of it is officially set 'homework'.
The ony hw we've had this term other than reading was designing a poster and that was optional.

DS is in year 2 and officially doesn't get any homework beyond the odd thing like collecting interesting materials for a collage (to be completed at school). He has asked for some homework to do though so gets some additional maths questions, or this week some pictures from a story they're studying to put in order and write as much, or as little, as he wants to go with it. He gets about one piece like this per week - but crucially it's only because he asks for it and enjoys completing the work.

He brings a reading book home but his reading is extremely good so I rarely listen to him read tbh, although we do talk about what he's reading at the moment.

Hi earlgreyplease

My DDs are in Y4 & Y6 now - but we're much more like todaysagoodday's for YR - Y2 description of minimal homework (regular reading (parents writing it was done, but nothing from pupils), requests to bring in supplies for art work, occasional maths sheet) than what I feel is a 'reasonable' & frankly balanced workload that the teacher (gracegrape) described.

At first I was fine with the minimal homework from our school, after all DD1 was so young, blah, blah, blah. But hindsight is 20:20. Parents at schools where they started off like gracegrape describes and built good, sound routines around regular homework (which clearly was marked & had comments/ suggestions) have ultimately done streets better than my DD1 on the 11+.

Of course it depends on your aspirations for your child - but my DD1 may well be heading off to a senior school where

Our Y1s were expected to read daily, and had ten spellings to learn a week and one maths homework a week (about 15 minutes tops, and two days before it had to be handed in). In Y2 it was the same, plus one English homework a week.

Plus the odd bit of project work might crop up occasionally.

My son is in Y2 - he gets 10 words a week to learn and is expected to read every school night, he also has a logon for mathletics but I struggle to get him to do it. He's not behind in maths and we use maths in every day life so I'm not too concerned about that.

Yr 2 - reading every night expected. 9 spellings a week. literacy homework on TUesday to be handed in next day. Over weekend 2-3 pages of maths. Not a very pushy school. It is generally very straightforward , divisions times tables etc.

10 spellings to learn from Monday until Friday, reading daily and 1 piece of maths homework and 1 literacy per week - usually given on a Friday to hand in Monday. Same for years 1 and 2. Homework increases in year 3 at our school, when it will be given for other subjects as well as maths and English.

Reading most days plus a maths exercise over the weekend. The maths is one piece for the whole of Y1 but usually has a way to make it easier and an extra challenge depending on ability of the child. It is usually a maths based game and takes about 15-20 mins.

My DD is 6 and is in year 2. She gets new spellings on a Monday to be practiced and learnt for the following Monday. Normally between and 10 words. All the children get different words. At the moment she finds the words easy so we don't really have to practice as such. So takes about 5 minutes max on a Sunday night. My DD is a free reader so gets quite long books but we do try and read a few pages every night and make comments in her reading diary. So maybe 5-10 minutes every night and longer on Sunday when we make sure we have an hour to do all school work. Then she gets numeracy homework on Friday to be handed in the following Friday. This can be between 1 and 4 pages long. Last week is was times tables and division! This probably takes the longest!

Year 1:

Reading book every second day
each term we got a booklet with 10 maths exercises we could do at our leisure as long as it was handed in completed before the term ended.
weekly homework (given on Friday, return Wednesday) with varied a lot between writing a letter, researching various topics and writing 3 points about it.

Year 2:

Reading book every second day
weekly homework (given Thursday, return Monday)
either numeracy or literacy task, writing is around 1 A4 page (DD's writing large). It can be a character description, a set of instructions, a combination with maths about time (on x o'clock I did xyz...)

As DD hates writing we normally take 30 minutes to do this, maths is done in 10.

We normally try to talk about the literacy for 1 day so when Saturday/Sunday comes DD knows what to do and we have the discussions about it behind us.

My DS is in Y2. I think he gets too much home work. Last weekend's was fairly typical - he had (give out on Friday to be done by Wednesday): fifteen spellings to learn, with cover/write/check to be done four times for each, a word search with all fifteen words, two other word tasks involving unscrambling some of the words to complete sentences, adding up all the consonants from the spelling list, eight maths questions, plus a very vague task - 'Make a list of words that rhyme'. He also has fifteen minutes of reading a night.