Homework - Year 1 !!!!!

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• Son, 5 1/2, in local pre-prep school Year 1; been there since nursery.
• Cannot get over the fact that there is homework.
• Child does not want to do the homework. Just wants to play and rightly so, given age.
• Resultant tension, tantrums, stress etc etc etc.
• Homework is maths, reading, writing. Tests twice a week.
• Massive burden on us as parents when life is hard enough without this.
• Its a flippin nightmare!
• When I was at school, homework didn't start until Secondary School.
• Parents evening was joke as was nothing but a lecture in how to get child to do homework. Gees !
• Just want to understand if homework is now commonplace or is it just this school?
• Thinking of taking him out of the school into somewhere a bit more laid back as this place is ridiculous.

Thoughts?

Y1 child here. Expectation is reading three times a week plus one more task.
That's plenty.
I think most schools expect HW at KS1. No good being stressed. They need to be done. Present as a fun challenge.
That amount and tests sounds like a nightmare and a very pressured environment.

What is KS1?

Do you think private school is right for you? Or this particular one? It sounds like your son might be happier at a more laid back school. In DS current school (state) year 2 homework currently consists of reading books plus spellings once a week.

(And in re your other thread, they wear polo shirts and sweatshirts :) )

KS1 means Key Stage 1 which is years 1 and 2

Reading daily for 10 mind only if he's up for it

Does your pre-prep feed into a prep school with automatic entrance? If not, your DS would need to pass 7 or 8+. Unfortunately, homework is part of the deal if he needs to pass those exams in a year or two.

Is there another school in the area where you can move him to? It does sound like he might not be ready for such stressful process so early.

If you are set on private education - I'd look for a school that goes until 13. This would give him time to mature at his own speed. Many boys are just not ready at 7/8!

Ditto on the huge jump from reception to yr 1.

Dd wasn't prepared for it, neither was I!

Sunday we get the spelling list for the test on Wednesday.
Plus reading.

Monday, spellings, math sheet and reading

Tuesday reading, spelling and number counting

Wednesday reading and preparing for the 'big write'. We get giving a topic such as 'when I got lost' and we have to discuss their feeling and what happened in that instance. We also continue with the number counting.

Thursday we get two more books to read over the weekend and letters to practice.

It's pretty full on.

There was a thread on this very topic recently, I'll see if I can find a link to it.

In Y1 at our Pre Prep the homework was reading every day, spellings test once a week (6-8 words), occasional maths things, maybe once every 2-3 weeks, weekly show and tell. Your homework sounds pretty normal to me.

The thread from several weeks ago was comparing homework. Basically it seemed as though DCs at State schools in Year 1 actually had more homework than a lot of those in Preps. So I wouldn't automatically think a "less academic" school would mean less homework.

My DC initially resisted homework. Tantrum every day for a month at start of Year 1. Then we got in to a routine and DC now reminds me about homework if I forget and can be left alone to do the maths! Hopefully once you get into a routine DC will see it as normal.

State school Year 1 parent here. My children have nightly reading, 10 weekly spellings and a weekly reading comprehension worksheet. They are asked to spend 10-15 minutes on the Mathletics site 3 times a week and have a 'home learning' project every 2-3 weeks.

It's a lot, and of course that doesn't include time for home reading and anything else I need to teach them myself.

One of my Yr 1 sons is naturally studious and there's usually no complaint. With the other, we get whinging about school reading books (though he reads his own stuff happily enough). Mostly we stay positive about it but every so often there's a 'tough. We're doing it' kind of response from me.

I would second that in my own experience (from many moons ago) homework can be heavier at state school. I went to a private prep and high school. I had so little homework compared to friends in state school. Smaller class sizes, selection by ability and absolutely no disruption in class meant we were spoon-fed a lot more information in the time. When I went to university I'd already covered the first year of the curriculum.

It did me no favours, if I'm honest, the work ethic had to be learned rather late in life.

Wow. That seems like a lot of homework. Dd is expected to do daily reading, apart from that she had no homework at all the first half term to ease the transition from eyfs to ks1. They will now be setting occasional homework tasks up to Christmas and then regularly after that. They are set on a Friday and due back in the next Wednesday.

Y1 teacher (state school) my class have a home reading book and I send home an example of what we have done in school that week so parents can do extra if they wish.

Another possible difference which was highlighted on the other thread, the state school parents seemed to be saying their kids school day was a lot of maths and literacy, whereas private said it was fairly little.

FWIW we (pre prep) in year 1 had about 2 hours a day of maths and English (combined, not each). The rest was music, French, humanities, sports, forest school etc... Other people said similar. State school parents seemed to be saying that maths and literacy took up most of the day. So the impression I got is that pre preps actually did less work than many state schools! Odd!

That's certainly not typical of state schools. Most will do English and Maths in the morning and other subjects in the afternoon.

My ds's state school have daily reading, weekly spelling and weekly homework on Friday, but clearly states that home work should take less than 20 minutes, and if the child get distressed, we should stop.

It's a private pre-prep? so goes to 7 and prepares for the 7+ and you want them to get him into a good school at 7?

Expect lots of homework. You've got less than a year until the tests and these schools thrive or fail based on where their kids go afterwards. Most of the class will be gearing up with private tuition about now as well.

Brokenmouse has a good point. If it's a pre prep with no automatic / easy entry to its own prep then it will be pretty hardcore!

Prep of a selective 4-18 school, reading daily, one maths sheet, one English sheet. Head v clear that she wasn't going to get busy with encouraging homework in KS1

State school yr R high significantly above average free school meals.

DD4 gets reading five times a week - homeschool contract

Writing (repetition) 1 A4 page big spaces between lines. Weekly

Number work 1 half hour, in theory, exercise per week.

Half term we had a little story project to do together.

She loves it. DS would have been really difficult doing it at same age, except the reading.