If you do your DCs homework (esp. art), why do you do it?

[WalkingThePlank]

We expect our children (age 7 and 5) to do their own homework. We facilitate by helping them with materials and might ask them open questions for them to consider if they want to make changes to written work but I'd say at least 95% of the work submitted is theirs.

The 5 year old has recently had a 3 week art project. He's really enjoyed doing it but as he is 5 it does look like a dogs dinner. Other mums (never the children) have been proudly bringing in their uncovered projects into school. Some have been truly amazing (jealous, moi?) and when I've asked which bit their child has done they've said things like, 'You don't think I've let her near it do you?'

So if you do their work, what do you think your child gets out of the process? What do you think the point of the homework is? Also, what do teachers think or expect from the homework?

As an aside, my mum did all of my art stuff and I won lots of competitions at primary school but I am truly hopeless at art. I don't think it taught me anything having my mum do it for me.

Capsium,

Bizarre as it seems, any schools set homework because parents want it. It does, when set at a simple level, enable home school communication, and a VERY few things (daily reading, and daily work on basic maths facts) are best done twice a day - once at school and once at home.

Hmm. How do you ascertain that teacher? Is the whole school community canvassed?

Why not just communicate in the normal way? A lot of homework is marked fairly infrequently anyway.....

Tbh if my child was struggling I would help there and then and have. I also have ended up doing the actual teaching before, successfully. I would not disclose this because it would reflect badly on my DC, teacher aspirations in the past have been in appropriately low enough without any further encouragement.

^so I suppose in this way standards are undoubtedly raised. Not exactly through quality teaching at school though....

No. I absolutely don't do any of my children's homework for them. I didn't do my own homework at school, so I'm not about to take it up in my 30s.

If teachers don't set homework there is uproar from many parents. All the teachers I know think most homework is utterly worthless, but they have to set it because they'll get complaints otherwise.

As teacherwith2kids says: reading practice and learning number bonds etc often do serve a purpose, but most other homework is just busy work to keep parents happy.

atthestroke What kind of school is this?

I would never do my dc's homework. Tbh I think that many parents who do their children's homework because they think the child is incapable of doing it because the task is too hard have perhaps misunderstood the standard the teacher is expecting. If a teacher asks a class of 8 year-olds to make a model of a castle, they will be expecting to see models which an 8 y-o is actually capable of making. By doing it for your child you don't fool the teacher and you make all the other children feel bad about their efforts. It is pointless and unfair.

I wonder whether the belief most parents want homework is actually backed up by any research?

I don't want my child to be set 'busy work'. What a patronising and pointless exercise......

It's absurd for parents to do their children's homework for them. I'm not in favour of homework for children under the age of about 11 anyway, but if it is assigned the children should do it or not (with an explanatory note from the parents saying that it was too much, too hard, whatever). For parents to do the work themselves is utterly counter-productive.

I know someone whose child used to do all her own work and it obviously looked like an 8-year-old had done it. The teacher actually urged the child's mother to take over the projects, and when she did the teacher said, "Well done, Mum." But I have to believe that is an exception. Surely most teachers would far prefer to see the child's own work.

When I talk about parents stepping in and doing the teaching I mean exactly that.

Mine have had homework on topics that have not been taught yet in school. Research, explaining methodology involving looking up how things are taught now all comes under this umbrella.

They have been set the work at home, such as design and make a game or instrument, to then play at school.

Capsium, maybe not at primary. I'm a secondary teacher and certainly parents do complain sometimes that they want more hwk for their kids, whereas I think iften too much is given. My dc are in primary and don't get much really, but I'm quite happy for them to have some. They learn to work independently and it pgets them used to the idea a bit for the homework they'll get at secondary.

Or they get out off homework from an early age...

I did not get homework till Secondary. Then it felt quite grown up. I was able to do it completely independently. This is not the case with primary aged children.

^sick not out. Typo.

My 4yr old nephew has already developed a range of excuses.....

Dd1 is 6 and gets project work. She always has very clear ideas of what she wants to do and I talk her through how she might realise them. I help with structural stuff on models so they don't collapse but other then that she's on her own. Unless she has a meltdown about something which isn't how she envisaged it, when I do assist.

My dd is 8. She gets a little project to do each half-term, with which we give her some guidance, and a phonics sheet which she does with no help. She also has tables to learn, which we test her on. All of this is fine and there is no homework we'd feel we had to do for her.

I have contributed to or allowed dd to do fully homework belonging to ds when it is art. He is crap at art, does not have ideas of what to draw, he hates it. I have enough homework to coax him to do, I cannot see any benefit to making him do artwork. Age 7 btw. I don't hand in masterpieces and his sister who may have done it for him is only 5 so her stuff is not great but she enjoys doing it. I do it to get the homework done. I cannot imagine doing it to pretend he has won a prize etc.

My DC have been set homework that they could not do because it had not been taught. I did not do it but have ended up doing the teaching. Not all parents are confident enough to do this. I can understand why some would resort to doing the actual work to prevent their child being punished, which sometimes they are for not completing. It is counterproductive but understandable. Teachers are not always easily available to speak to.

My mum never helped me with homework, unless I asked her to. I felt really confused when I visited a friends house a few weeks ago to see her sitting down with her boy (age 7) and helping him with his homework without being asked first. Was that harsh of my mum?

My mum constantly wanted to help me and my siblings with homework and we hated it and never let her. My aunt did all her children's homework right up to A Levels and in some cases beyond and they were delighted. So it depends on the child, I suppose. There is, interestingly, no great disparity in the eventual academic successes of my siblings and my cousins. We all have good degrees from good universities and reasonably good jobs, of one sort or another.

The rebellious side of me just loves that Hawk!

My children both got project work as homework, it was a hugely stressful waste of time all round, causing arguments and tears. In the end the best solution for us was to have dd do ds's art type stuff. She is younger so no chance of it being seen as parental input, although she's probably better at art that either dh or I. Total waste of time. I don't really get why so much primary age stuff is so art orientated, it's a bit shit for children who hate it.

We emigrated when our children were fairly young and after six months in a school system where they got two hours of structure homework every night they then finished primary school with no homework at all. That has caused no problem at all with them doing their homework now they are at high school. Research shows no benefit to homework in primary, and if so many parents are doing it then it really is absolutely pointless.

Because I hate hate HATE it and just facilitating it causes a deterioration in our relationship.

So I do it quickly for them and then we can get on with more important and enjoyable things.

What parents do their children's homework that's bloody bonkers of the highest order.
I ask them what they have to do ask them to explain it to me how they might tackle it. If they don't know at all I explain 'my way'. They proceed to tell me I am wrong and go off and do it themselves sucking their teeth as they go.

'So if you do their work, what do you think your child gets out of the process?'

A loving mother rather than an angry one.

'What do you think the point of the homework is?'

To satisfy parent demands for an inane task that has no evidence-base to justify it's implementation.

'Also, what do teachers think or expect from the homework?'

That parents will piss off and stop bothering them about their children not getting any homework, and hopefully be put off asking for more.