Any teachers? - homework Yr5 query

[greencybermummy]

DD in yr5. Every week in yr 4 and now yr 5 homework has been to fill in reading journal with a variety of ideas e.g. an account of what you have read that week, a diary entry to a character in a book you're reading, a character description, a summary of the book. She is supposed to fill 2.5 pages per week.

DD who is already achieving level 5 in literacy is totally fed up with this so much so that she has stopped wanting to read any books. She used to have 2 or 3 books on the go at once e.g. A Harry Potter, Swallows and Amazons and a Jackie Wilson and devour books. Now won't read cos homework is not motivating. It gets marked with a tick, only one or two spelling errors are corrected, no comments from teacher.

My question is do your yr5 DCs have similar homework or is it more varied? What other things could I suggest to get her interested again? We spoke to class teacher at parents meeting who didn't seem to get DDs frustration and told us they gave the same homework in yr6 too

Also any ideas of authors that might interest her and capture her to enjoy reading again.

(parent not teacher)
That sounds awful (think my DS would have given up long since).

DS is in Year 5 and he has to

• Read at least 3 times a week (minimum of once to an adult)
• 2 pieces of maths homework a week meant to take about 20 minutes each
• 20 spellings to learn (often get 2 weeks to learn)
• An open-ended project which he generally gets about 5 weeks to do
• Occasionally a piece of literacy homework (like once a half term)

What you have to do seems like an awful lot of writing. The open-ended projects drive us mad, but at least they can choose what they do
(and DS normally picks something that involves a minimum of writing!)

Red sky - that's a huge amount of homework for a year 5 child!

our school have:

1 core task every half term (topic related project)

weekly maths homework

weekly spellings

daily reading and a book review when they have finished each book.

this is for all the children in the school.

i couldnt imagine my yr5 dd doing the amount of writing that yours is asking for. It would take her all week!

DS yr5 in one week gets
spellings
a maths worksheet (literally 5 mins worth)
sometimes a science worksheet
supposed to read for 20 mins most days
then less frequently a geography or history task such as design a poster or research roman food.

Maybe your headteacher does not hold with homework for primary school children ? It seems a copout requiring no planning at all from the teachers.
DS's science sheet this week comprised labelled boxes and he had to deconstruct a daffodil and sellotape the various bits on to the right boxes. So not too hard (they had learnt parts in class), not too time-consuming and seasonal.

Our yr5 ds is also meant to do this. Cue ds having a meltdown when I went through what was required at the start of the year. (Had a letter about it.) Thought it was nonsense as he was level 5 last year on reading and writing. Consider it a sure-fire way to kill his enthusiasm in one swoop. So we agreed we wouldn't do it and if anyone queried it he'd redirect them to me. Amazingly no-one has so far. (But school are generally useless at providing any criticism of homework / chasing late / missing homework etc...) I haven't brought it up at parents consultations / door-step chats with the teacher and they haven't with me, so hardly a burning need imo.

Gets maths, literacy and one other subject (often re ! as a church school) each week. Is meant to take 1-2 hours. Quite often it's towards the 2 hours end.

greencybermummy

We have had similar - a grid of something like 20 options to write about your reading since Year 4 for DD1 (now Y6). Assignments are things like draw a new cover/ write a new blurb for your book/ draw a picture of your favourite character/ etc...

Books home from school are very ordinary: Diary of a Wimpy Kid/ Horrid Henry/ endless Jacqueline Wilson (all lovely, but an endless diet of this stuff is numbing).

My solutions have been these:

Stretch the boundaries: So for example draw a character:

I had DD1 do this but then make a fact file about the character:

Name
Nickname
Address
Parents occupation
Interests
Good Points
Bad Points
Favourite saying/ expression of this character in the book:

And then write about whether in real life she would like a friend like this.

Got her writing/ made it more interesting and she was pleased with the merit point from the teacher.

Our school has real issues with kids not doing homework at all - so I've never had too much of a problem going slightly 'off plan' with assignments.
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another trick with any written homework is to read through your DC's work and target a weak sentence or two - either breaking up the rhythm of short choppy sentences (which DD1 had a tendency to endlessly write) or including more advanced written elements (punctuation/ openers/ etc...) - We used the VCOP (Vocabulary/ Connectives/ Openers/ Punctuation) pyramid to help us write more complex sentences: displays.tpet.co.uk/?resource=387#/ViewResource/id387

We did this over several really brief written homeworks (write an alternative ending to the story/ blurb for the back cover of the book/ letter to a character) - and it has really helped my DD1 write much more interesting sentences (for the reader).
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Read better quality fiction:

There are tons of resources out there:

Guardian list of recommended books for classic children's library: www.theguardian.com/books/2000/mar/24/childrens.library

list form eleven plus forum: www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/advice/english/reading-list

Often these things are tucked away in the school library - and I would suggest DD1 look for 1 or 2 of these on her library day. We also use our local library/ swap books with friends & buy books (or presents from family) to supplement quality fiction supply.

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At home (because this isn't really asked for from school) - I encourage my DDs to note down new words they don't know/ understand and guess their meaning. Now sometimes we talk about it as we're reading but ultimately we look up their meaning. Really helps to improve vocabulary - and I think ultimately improves writing, because you have a wider range of words to draw upon.

HTH

Ds is in Year 5 but as he's at a private school they don't use NC levels

Children are encouraged to read for at least 10 mins 5 days out of 7. I have to sign his planner & each child with 5 signatures gets put into a draw

Between 16-20 spellings per week (they are all given 20 but lower ability only have to learn 16 or 18. Ds is an 18 but cn attempt all 20 if he wants to

One reading comprehension sheet per week

One maths worksheet per week

Sometimes a bit of Geography or History etc research to be used in class the following week.

I have a Year 5 son. He would probably enjoy your homework, if it was varied with other stuff, but would find it a bit much every single week.

He currently has:

20 spellings to write and learn;
Spelling homework (finding interesting words or descriptions on a subject);
Maths - 30 mins but can take longer;
Literacy (comprehension usually, or story planning);
Reading expected nightly.

He finds the spellings boring, but the rest is varied so is fine.

The killer point for me is not what the homework is or how much there is of it, but what the teacher does with the work and how that is fedback to the student. A couple of ticks and spelling corrections is where this is going wrong.

Positive feedback, stickers, points. Tell the class that each week 2 stories will get picked out and acted out in groups. Something, anything to make the students realise that their work is valued and can result in fun.

Thanks everyone for the perspective. Really appreciate the links to look at for book ideas.

I agree that little feedback from teacher is a big problem and love some of your suggestions. My DD has a three strikes then stay in over lunch time to catch up so yesterday after 3 weeks of not doing the written work she had to stay in at lunchtime. In those è weeks we had parents evening so brought up with the teacher that it wasn't motivating DD at all and how concerned we were that she had stopped reading for pleasure cue her having a chat with DD yesterday but not suggesting anything different or any suggestions of books to choose. I'm disappointed to tell you the truth. It's a massive cop out on the part of school. I know other parents moan about the homework but don't think any of them have challenged school. I'm considering writing to head/governors as I can't face another 18 months of this.

My Y5 DS has to :

Read three times a week and put it in a reading diary;
Do one comprehension task a week;
Do one maths task a week of approx 30 mins;
Do one 'topic' task every half term;
Do one other task, usually science, involving either writing a short passage or drawing and labeling eg. a plant or an invention.

It's a lot! I sometimes (I suspect uncharitably) wonder how much learning is going on at school if they have to bring this much home.

Yep, DS (yr4) has to do 4 reading journal entries a week which he hates tbh literacy is not his strongest area but he loves reading and always has his head in a book but is getting put off this by having to do a reading entry afterwards, they are kept in at lunch if its not done.

In year 5 ds had 30 mins a night. Now in year 6 he had 1hr every night. Must be done that night to be handed in the next day. I would Firstly make an appointment to see the teacher and explain again. If still no joy then maybe ks 2 head?