How much homework and why do they do it?

[WalkingThePlank]

I'm wondering how much homework primary school children get and what teachers expect the children to gain from it

I'll use my Yr3 DC as an example but it's pretty much the same for the other child. Per week, she gets several exercises on a Maths website, spellings, learning times tables and a main piece of work. All of this is supposed to take 30 minutes in total per week and is in addition to the 10-15 minutes of reading per day.

The maths website, spellings and times tables take about 20 minutes. The main piece of work takes about an hour as it is usually along the lines of 'find out 6 facts about the Romans and present this on a poster'. The key learning point takes about 5 minutes and then we have an hour of poster making as they cannot print anything out, it must be by hand. Each of the main pieces of homework so far has been art based, be it a poster, making a model, costume.

The art element assumes a certain element of resources at home. The reality is that most of the children do not do their homework, the parents do. It also really eats in to family time. The latest homework took about 4 hours and cost us c.£10.

So, is this amount/type of homework 'normal' and what do teachers expect the children to be gaining from it?

Dc1 is in year 4 and generally gets a maths sheet and a comprehension sheet each week to do, as well as a spelling test and the usual reading and music practice.

Each sheet takes about 10 minutes and is to reinforce what's been covered at school. The teacher is clear that it's the child's homework, not for the parents!

Dc2 is in year 2 and has weekly spellings and times table tests and one other small homework task - things like describe your home, the high street etc (their theme this term is 'where we live') as well as a weekly book.

Thanks Muchtoomuchtodo

I think that's what is lacking at DC's school. The homework doesn't necessarily seem to be reinforcing the work in class and the teachers never make the point that the homework is for the children, not the parents.

This has nothing to do with me being too lazy to do my children's homework for them - oh no!

My DC's school also does the open ended project type work you are describing. I do find it difficult to understand how much the child is meant to do, so we tend to think of a suitable project based on how much time they are given to do it. I also tend to use it as an exercise to support my child's learning, but still expect them to do the lion's share themselves.

In your Roman example, I would have helped re directing them to relevant websites but then expected them to choose their own facts and create their own poster. Can I suggest that if this task is taking you 4 hours, costing 10, and is mainly done by you, then you may be too over invested (or maybe the parents at your school are too overinvested and you feel obliged to keep up)?? A year 3 child should be able to organise some basic facts on a sheet of A3/A4 and include a few small drawings around them - and should be able to do this within an hour.

Just to clarify redsky , I don't do any of the homework - which is why my children hand in the worst homework. Someone this morning looked at DC's work and said, "Oh, how childlike' - I wanted to say, "Yes, because it was done by a child". This is what prompted this thread.

With the poster one, she took about 5-10 minutes to decide on her 6 key facts. If allowing a total of 30 minutes she then had up to 4 minutes per fact to write it out on her plain paper, cut out and stick on to the poster, then draw a picture per fact, cut it out, stick it on poster etc. And given that the 30 minutes is supposed to also include the maths, spellings etc, she should have been doing the whole poster in about 10 minutes.

Oh and the Roman example didn't cost £10. I can't say what this week's involved because it will totally out me but it did involve a lot of kit and I reckon some parents must have spent a hell of a lot more money.

The poster really should only take 10 minutes
some A4 paper, or A3 if you really want
write out some facts nice and big
draw a couple of pictures.

don't get dragged along by the artworks done by others. Teachers are parents too mostly. Do you think they are bothered?

I think my daughter must be slow then. She really couldn't do it in 10 minutes. I thought I was going to lose the will to live when she tool an hour to do the Roman poster.

"Do you think they are bothered" - well I assume they are, and I assume that they think my DC's work is rubbish because it rarely makes it on to the classroom wall.

I don't understand though why almost every homework is an art homework - why that adds so much.

Is it possible to get together with other parents and agree you won't do stuff for your children?

Ds is in Y1 and after optional homework in YR which he chose not to do (we did reading almost every night), now he has a list of assignments for the term, where every 3 weeks there is a compulsory one - things like What would be your dream house/what's your favourite thing about school/what would you change about school? Draw, write, or create something to show us! The non-compulsory ones are things like "make a meal with your grown-up" or "have a cultural experience, like visit a museum, go to a party, listen to some new music".

So far it's led to some interesting conversations with ds, and one evening carefully drawing a picture and doing a few drafts of it, and lots of kids in the morning that one was due in, chatting to each other about their stuff while a couple did a pic in the playground. Didn't see any works that didn't look mostly child-done - so I hope they manage to keep it low key and appreciating what they have all done and not get competitive.

It's a school where they can't rely on kids having a literate parent nor any resources at home, so there's a lot of effort to get parents to feel included in what happens at school. As a juggling time-starved parent, I certainly feel a lot happier than if I were struggling to keep up with a posse of SAHMs all helping their children producing wonders (several friends have ended up in that situation, with their schools just not understanding pressures on working/single/disabled/carer parents)

NotCitrus I don't think that the other parents would agree not to do the homework for the children. The last homework, which I can't explain as it will out me, was a really big project and all the mums complained amongst themselves about how inappropriate it was for a 7 year old to do and then this morning they paraded in with some items that were worthy of being sold at a craft fair.

I guess the teacher can't stop the parents doing this but I would like to understand better what the point of all this art is. This week's wasn't relevant to anything they have done in class this term.

Teachers may be parents, but that doesn't stop them being totally unrealistic.

They know, what's a reasonable amount, we don't. I've come to realise we expect far too higher standards from Y2-Y5 DCs than a teacher does.

But most of all, I suspect a primary teacher parent never sees the blind panic and paralysis open ended HW causes.

DD2 just froze at not knowing exactly what to do, or exactly how much to do, she couldn't do nothing and get in trouble, but she wouldn't do what I suggested unless it was wrong.

By 10 she had the confidence to understand good enough, but before that, project stuff was awful.

DD1 is dyslexic, school refused to see this until Y6. Her HW was therefore stressful full stop.

In case it was wrong.

I just wanted to say that I also agree with those that have suggested that the issue isn't the maths/ reading/ spelling/worksheet type work - the 'crunch' seems to be the 'project work' so I'd encourage you to 'box clever'.

Help your DC to find suitable websites/ books with information for the project - but then let them do as much or as little as they choose.

I do know from DD2s project work at her new school - that a hand-drawn graph or picture went down better than something cut & pasted from a website.

personally I like the projects DD2 is assigned - nothing like this was on offer at our old primary - and I think it helps to teach research skills/ organisation/ planning - all of which help a lot in secondary.

But I agree - keep the project to 1 hour or less - one side of A4 (or less) - and only allow them to do more if they're very keen on it (say solar system, Greek Myths or prime numbers). We tend to get 1 week projects. We research Days 1/2 (say to find 6 facts). Sketch a plan of the poster or model day 3. Make the model/ poster over the weekend (in and around clubs/ activities/ housework/ etc....). Polish it up on day 6 if necessary & get it packed up to hand in on day 7. I don't think DD2 has spent more than 10 minutes a day on these things - unless it has been something she was really into (solar system mobile springs to mind - many attempts at rings of Jupiter, but she got something to work in the end - got DH to cup up some CDs.).

HTH

Have you got parents evening coming up?

I'd give feedback there about how long it takes to do homework. DD1 got loads at one point but lots of parents said it was too much and now she gets about half an hour a week plus reading - in Y5.

Ds Y3 gets a project to do, which he then has to present at the end of term, think they have to stand up and do a 3-5 minute presentation.

Weekly he gets a maths worksheet, spellings and comprehension to complete (based on the words he has to learn to spell). The maths this week seemed to be a bit of a struggle for him, he explained that they had done this work in the classroom but I've sat down with him and we've done more examples at home. I will make a note in the homework book that he struggled with the homework this week. I want to help as much as I can at home and kids aren't going to 'get' everything in one lesson so I think parental input to a certain degree helps too, obviously letting the teacher know that he needed my guidance. Hopefully she will then have time to go over it again with ds. I fully agree with the time tables homework although this is something I currently do with ds anyway, his school don't ask us to do this, think it's just assumed that we will help with regards to practise.

With regards to his project, it's been specified that parents are to help.

He's meant to read for at least 15 mins per evening too.

In my view, setting projects for homework is lazy teaching. They serve no purpose other than to test the resourcefulness of parents. All homework should be allied to teaching and what the child has learnt. Therefore it should be practicing what has been taught or finding out information about a new topic. Therefore Maths, English (Reading, Spelling and Writing), Science, History, Geography etc are all fine but often an extended project does not focus on learning in the classroom. My DN has to choose his own topics!!!

Finding out facts can be useful but the art is not. It appears it is used to adorn the classroom thereby encouraging parents to do the work. Why cannot work produced in school be used for this? Work from ALL children in our school was put on the walls and ALL of it was done in school. No amount of art work makes any difference to year 6 SATS does it? Does the school have a homework policy and are they sticking to it?

I work in y2.

We ask that parents/carers read with their child (either child read to them, or they read to child)as often as possible, aiming ideally for a few minutes every day if possible.

We also have informal homework that goes at at the start of each half term. One side explains what we are learning about in the coming weeks in topic, maths, english, science, computing. art, etc. The other side has suggested activities parents may want t do with their child - often linked to the topic. And can be done anyway they want.

It is not compulsory and no checks are made if people don't do it. If a child does choose to however they can then bring it in and it is shared with the class, their work will be displayed in the classroom topic area and they will no doubt get a house point or similar.

MillyMollyMama - almost all our display boards include work done by pupils in class time. However, ime, when children do work from home they like it to be shown to others so we set aside one display board for home learning, and it is supplemented with work done in class too.

I'd rather there was no homework at all at primary, other than reading tbh. So having the informal, optional homework, related to our main topic, seems a reasonable compromise.

My children never did art work at home. Such work does not need to be displayed and it should not be asked for because it is the competitive parents who will ensure it is done and then it is the work of these families that is displayed. It makes the other pupils look worthless because the pupils that opt in are seen (via the display board) to be better than the ones who opt out. The ones who opt out might be doing their reading, spelling, writing, maths etc to a very high level, but they are not recognised on the homework board. This is not fair. If the homework was affiliated correctly to learning, there would be no need to display it. I think your penultimate sentence says it all, Hulababy!

As said before - our homework menu is optional and it covers many different activity suggestions. So, no one is asked to make a model or draw a poster. Some may just choose to look at some facts and tell us about it, some choose to write it in a little notebook, and some chose to draw or make something - all children are different so we allow them to choose their own preferred way of presenting their work and, even then, only if they want to anyway.

We are very clear that we are looking for children's work. Many of us are parents, we have all been children and obviously we know the difference between a child and an adult's work, even more so with the children in our class.

Our displays are currently full of children's work. One or two look like they may have had a little adult help, but not excessively so. One is clearly a parent's doing, but it has no prominence in the display at all - it is just there.

We talk about what children bring in - we share it as a class, and children must be prepared to talk about what they have found out and how, and if they have chosen to make something (inc posters, Powerpoints, models, etc) they must be prepared to present their work.

I believe the only real homework that should be pushed in primary is regular reading and talking.

Spelling tests have no educational benefit at all.
Memorising times tables doesn't help children understand what they are doing.
etc.

None of our children are left out though - their classwork, which far outnumbers any home learning, is all over our display boards. They make up the vast majority - in the class and outside the class. The home learning work goes up on a much smaller board, where there is also related class work as well. We also have far more opportunities to receive praise and rewards for other stuff too - all day, every day.

Sorry disagree re memorising tables.

Tables need to be learnt whatever.My dc used a variety of techniques including memorising for aspects of some.If they have done and are doing masses of work on multiplication and know how they work sorry I think because instant recall is needed memorising has it's place.

Instant recall of tables has a huge impact on maths and learning tables are crucial in year 3 up.It can really hold kids back if they don't know them.

It does yes - but only after they have learned what it actually is, how it woks and the processes behind it.

Its just the memorising of it with no input and proper teaching before hand which I dislike. Sorry, should have clarified.

I spoke to the teacher today. Basically, the reason that the homework is art-based rather than say literacy-based is that not all children (in Year3) can write sufficiently well and it wouldn't be fair on them. The teacher also couldn't think what written work she could provide in relation to current topics.

DD is year 1, she has to read everyday, write 2 sentences about her reading book 3 times a week, learn spellings and do a french sheet, a maths sheet and an english sheet each week. She is at a prep school though. We had a few art based projects over half terms and holidays last year but its always been specified that parents are not to help and i know one parent got called in to talk to the teacher because she'd been doing her DS' homework

DS is year 6, at a state school, he gets 5 worksheets a week, which are either literacy or numeracy, he's had the odd bit of arty homework but not much.