Sporadic homework

[EeyoresTail]

I had a "meet the teacher" session with my DD's new (year 2) teacher this week so we could ask questions etc.
We were told that homework would be set on a Wednesday.
Or maybe a Friday if they have had a busy week.
Or maybe not at all!
I can't help worrying that this doesn't bode well for the quality of teaching this year.
I know this isn't AIBU but am I?
Would it bother you?

No. The only homework you really need to do is reading, reading and more reading. You can get books and ensure this is done without the school being involved. I believe studies have said doing lots of homework can be counter productive. I can see why some maths might be beneficial to practice but not projects or endless writing. Do sport, play or learn an instrument instead - or whatever your child fancies. You now have the freedom to choose!

In primary, there are only two sorts of homework that are of genuine vlaue, IMHO:

• Reading and discussing a very wide range of books (ie not just school scheme books: a good range of fiction and non-fiction, and, at Y2 age, a combination of reading aloud to you, enjoying by themselves, and that you read to them)
• Learning key maths facts, starting with number bonds to 20 and related facts, and continuing to all the times tables and their inverses.

Neither of those need the school to 'set homework' at all.

In my 'meet the teacher' meetings, I always say that their child has daily homework, but it isn't written down every day - they should read each day, and they should practise some Maths facts each day. Anything else I set is 'extra'.

My children went to a primary school with teaching judged as outstanding and there was no pattern to the homework at all.

I certainly wouldn't assume there's a correlation between the two.

It was more the lack of organisation I was linking to the quality of teaching Euphemia
The school as a whole has weekly homework. If homework being set when it should slips then maybe what should be covered in lessons might slip too.

It's also more useful to set homework when it's appropriate to support the learning taking place in the classroom and this may mean that there isn't a set day each week.