Can you help me draft an email to DS's Y2 teacher about this homework without appearing to be one of those parents

[Preminstreltension]

DS is in Y2 but is the youngest in the class so only turned 6 in August. His literacy homework has repeatedly been ridiculously advanced in my opinion but this week's just tipped me over the edge. It's about idioms and the sheet explains that idioms that are overused become clichés. My six year old was just by the introduction. Then the first task is to work out the meaning of the following:

• He has given up the ghost
• I keep putting his back up
• She has been taken for a ride
• Lets not beat around the bush

---and several others in the same vein.

To be fair the answers in this are multiple choice so he had a chance of guessing some of them although he has never used them and probably never heard them but then it goes on in part 2 to ask for explanations of:

• Past her prime
• Dawning of a new age
• Idols of the silver screen
• Par for the course

and then to work out where these idioms are derived from (golf, weather etc)

I would actually find any six year old who was familiar with these phrases pretty odd. I tried them on my very literate 9 year old who was baffled by most of them.

The school has form for this but I've always just sighed and helped him through it. This time I'm really annoyed and want to explain to the teacher (newish and youngish but in any case I think it's the TA who sets the homework) that this is, in my opinion, not at the right level. The problem is that I don't want them to conclude that either a) my son is an idiot who can be discounted (school is very high achieving and only cares about the hothoused kids anyway) or b) I am some hippy dippy moany mother who is trying to tell the teachers how to do their job.

Any nice, emollient suggested wordings? Or do you think this is ok for this level?

[user789653241]

In my country, daily homework is set to reinforce what they learned that day and extend from it. So I thought weekly extension homework was acceptable.

[mrz]

Ive never set homework involving a project or experienced project homework as a parent so don't think it can be considered a UK thing. Homework varies from school to school just as much (if not more) as country to country

[nooka]

Different countries have very different attitudes to homework. In the UK there used to be a great love of pointless projects as well as spelling lists and reading tasks (my children are teenagers now so this may have changed).

We moved to the States when our children were 7 and 8 ish. Their school in NYC expected two hours of homework every night, but it was at least directly related to what they were learning (would have been almost impossible if we had both been working).

Then we moved to Canada and said goodbye to homework. Even as teenagers my two get very little if they work hard in class and keep up to speed. It's great! No stress and plenty of time for family life. ds even has time to take another subject via distance learning.

Educational outcomes show our part of Canada excelling so I don't see homework as enormously important.

[user789653241]

I can see I'm really a minority here now. I'm from the country which daily revision is normal for 6+.
I should keep my mouth shut from now, do/don't do your homework is totally up to you.

[nooka]

I think that homework in KS1 (or 2 for that matter) is a bad idea. The evidence doesn't suggest it makes much difference to children's learning and it can be the cause of a huge amount of stress for children and parents.

Learning about how we use language is interesting, sure. But it should be mostly done at school led by the teacher. I don't understand the point of asking children to find out the meanings of terms they have not yet come across and are highly unlikely to use themselves for several years (if at all in some cases).

Giving them a list of phrases that they might use and/or find funny and interesting, like raining cats and dogs, being a fish out of water etc and asking them to find out the meaning/talk to a parent/carer and tick the best box sounds fine, and the list mrz linked to was really good.

The rest is quite ridiculous. My ds at six could neither read nor write (he is dyslexic but that wasn't picked up by school or ever really addressed by them) and this type of homework would have led to a long and painful tantrum. Quite how that would have helped his learning is beyond me!

[Hulababy]

This would be too much for most of our Y2s at this stage of the year.
Also, it should be covered in class thoroughly beforehand if it is to be set as independent homework.

[Hulababy]

Could some of these help? www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/ks2-words-and-vocabulary-idioms

I've not had time to look through them, just saw the link and the topic. It is KS2 however.

[Preminstreltension]

We've had that black and white / colour issue too. And crucial info missed off the photocopy.

It riles me because it is just laziness and thoughtlessness and because the school goes nuts over poorly presented work and then do it themselves weekly!

[TaupeShimmery]

I think it's entirely legitimate to put a note on the homework sheet saying that in order for your child to have completed the work you would have had to teach them how to do it, or dictate the answers, and you didnt want to confuse their learning by doing either.

[bigbuttons]

just sent it back with a posit note on a saying that it's too hard and he can't do it.

[bigbuttons]

I hate last homework givers. By lazy I mean they do not properly think about or read the sheets they give out.
Last week my discalculic dd was given maths homework that was far too hard for her. The sheet was photocopied and one of the questions relied on the fact that it was in colour. The photocopying was in black and white.
Bloody lazy teaching that is. Last year the same homework was given out to another of my dc. I pointed out the issue with the colour and black and white. it was noted as an error in the homework. Yet here it is again this year.

[Preminstreltension]

I would join that movement smearedinfood. I'm very far from being a hippy dippy, holistic kind of person...but the homework is so relentlessly pointless and box ticking and it detracts from our family life. I think it's also been proven not to be helpful at primary level (saw a study about it somewhere but no idea where...). I know I didn't get any homework in primary school - one thinks of those times as more rigid and formal than we are today but the way we school today's 6 year olds seems to me to be all wrong.

I'd be happy with just a page of spellings and a page of times tables or similar.

[smearedinfood]

Seriously does anyone know of a "push back" movement. I had a parent's consultation meeting that died the other day with me going "he has only just turned 5" and the teacher going on about Year 2 testing.

[TaupeShimmery]

Agree with PPs that it's wrong to send homework home that children won't have already covered thoroughly in class. It's bad enough when they have!

Very unfair to those children whose parents don't have the time, ability, patience or inclination to help, and why should those children then have to give up break-time to do homework in school if they don't get it done at home?

[BarbarianMum]

Good God OP. That worksheet sounds almost identical to one brought home by my ds1 recently. He's in Y5 and considered gifted in literacy. I know our school isn't outstandingly aspirational but it was about the right level for him.

[Keeptrudging]

I'm a teacher. I agree with a PP, this homework is bonkers! Perhaps you should suggest to the teacher that they need to do a lot more work on this in class before it's set as homework. Homework should be familiar to the child and used as reinforcement, not a randomly photocopied/inappropriate page.

[SoDiana]

I am a previously church going, semi literate, avid reading, native English speaker and I don't know what 'give up the ghost' means.

Without Google, teacher would knowthat not only my cchild is thick but also the mammy!

[user789653241]

And I wouldn't spend 2 hours on this either. I will give him some guidance (and give him some links like MRZ's) and let him get on with it, while I'm doing something else. Once he has done his bits, then I would sit down with him and help him, talk with him etc.

For the last exercise, I would ask him if he understood, if not, talk about it, and let him write down his version. It doesn't have to be perfect.

[user789653241]

I agreed with what you are saying until I read last sentence, OP.

Top 4 children in literacy in my ds's class are children of non native English speaker...

[Preminstreltension]

Just a bit of background - I am a single parent who works FT and has another child so the children need to be fairly self-starting with their homework as I just don't have two hours to spare on this at the weekend given that there was another hour or two of maths homework at least plus reading plus spelling plus times tables plus my 9 year old's homework (example of hers from a couple of weeks ago was 10 philosophical questions about beauty including "Can a picture of flower ever be more beautiful than a flower?" so that also needs a fair bit of parental support).

I know that some other parents have basically done it for their DCs - the DCs having no idea what the answers were. My son understands the concept and he knew one or two of them (under the weather for example, and was able to have a guess at some of the others) so I'm not worried about the underlying literacy principle which he grasps. We can and do talk about use of language but this seemed to be clunky and poorly thought through.

Just to give you all the full picture, the last bit of the exercise is to write this out in plain English:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I speak from the bottom of my heart. When I saw the bomb damage I could hardly believe my eyes. We will leave no stone unturned. We will go to the ends of the earth to find the villain of the piece. We will protect the innocent victim. There is light at the end of the tunnel. This government will stay by your side through thick and thin until we have weathered this storm.

DS could write this out if I dictated a new version to him but what the hell would be the point of that? The majority of children in our class do not have a native English speaking parent so although the parents might have enjoyed looking up what these all mean, that's not usually the point of homework!

[mrz]

You don't need to know their meaning but you can infer their meaning that's why it's a useful exercise and definitely one that would benefit from discussion.

[user789653241]

I really don't know what to say, Bert.

I just think how you do your homework is up to you, I think. If you think it's pointless, just don't do it. I personally enjoy doing it with ds, and our school encourage parental support, and providing help in case it's not possible.

If there is homework beyond my help, and I suggested my son to go, he would have, last year, when he was 6.

[BertrandRussell]

And you're seriously expecting a 6 year old to decide that they are going to forgo playtime for homework help? And that it's a good idea that they should??

[Geraniumred]

Your ds's school sounds great, irvine.

[user789653241]

Sorry, I understand what you are saying.
But At my ds's school, there is homework club which any child can pop in at lunch time every week, run by a each year group teacher, if they need any help.