I know this has probably been done before, but how much homework do your 5 and 8 yr olds have to do each night?

[TinyGang]

I just find it all a bit of a struggle to fit in tbh. What with dinner, baths, any after school stuff, the odd doctor/dentist appt/friend for tea and just letting them have a bit of 'after school' time.

I suppose I understand why my 8 yr old needs to do things (up to a point)- and we do it too - but my 5 yr olds seem to come home with lists and lists of words to learn as well as reading and writing.

I'm not a teacher, dh and I go over them with them as best we can, but it's rather a lot for them I feel, especially after a school day.

I'd rather just read them a story of our own choice having a cuddle, but that's getting lost under all this.

Oh ours is definitely compulsory too ! Occasionally if the children are tired teacher will accept that they were too tired to complete it - but it is definitely frowned upon !

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ds -7 yr2 has spellings to do every week and reading every night. Luckily DS loves to read and so it forms part of his night time ritual with DP reading a page and DS reading 2. I make sure the teacher knows if he find a book boring and let her know what he does like( iwrite it all down in his book). Roald Dhal is a big fav at the moment. If I or DP has to read it too then it better be a good read . Roddy Doyle is very funny too.

At weekends he get all manner of stuff from measuring to forces.

Gosh did you say your dd is 6 Scatterbrain -that is a lot.

When my older dd was in yr1 she had project type thing to do in the holidays. We were told not to do it for her (obviously I guess) but at that age you have to get very involved still.

The one I remember was over the Christmas holiday. I guess the idea was that she would be beavering quietly away at it during the holiday in her spare time.

In reality she was busy enjoying her Christmas with her family - the project hung over us doom-like all holiday and we crammed it in miserably the day before she went back. I don't see that benefitted anyone really.

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My sister ( a teacher) has always said homework is for the parents (except for reading) which is just practice.

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Ds1 is 5 and in year 1.

He probably has 3 different reading books a week so we read those each time they are changed - not necessarily every night.

He gets 10 spellings to learn a week and is tested on a Monday - we often do these in the car before we get out and walk to school. He is pretty good at spellings so we don't do it too often. Usually go over them on a Sunday.

Once a week he sits and does his French homework but it's only really colouring in the page they've just done it's a spot the difference or something.

That's it and it's enough imo.

I'm sure my 7 yr old can spell better than me now. He find it hilarious when I say that. When I was little we had loads and loads of homework (traditional rural Irish education) and boy did I hate it. I did loads every night. I really do think it turned me off I either spent the time worrying about how badly I had done it or not done it at all. We were physically punished regularly and yet I would still avoid doing homework. We also had to do things like knitting and I knitted an Aran Jumper at school at the age of 11.

God when I think of all the shite we had to do. I remember once telling the teacher a car had run over my knitting needles on the way home from school and that was why I had not done any knitting. She went MAD!!!!

I do not get this 'x number of words to learn' - do you mean to read? Don't they just learn them from their books.

Agree with annh re the books - ds1 is on 32+ page books too and it's a nightmare - takes ages. Plus they are deathly boring and totally uninspiring.

nqc good link, so the observer had a good article in it

my dd had a book to read,

a sound action, with words

and 22 sentences on strips of paper to put in the correct order

and a library book from school

she is 5 and I dread to think what it will be like when I have ds at schol too

I cannot imagine what it must be like for reluctant readers etc, my dd is usually quite happy to do it, she finishes school at 2.30pm, so I would be quite happy for her to have an extra half an hour at school and no homework, unless it was an art project/family outing type thing, I read about in the observer article

It's not compulsory for primary school children, but there are government guidelines and OFSTED can and do ask questions and make adverse comments if goverment guidelines are not followed. The guidelines for primary school children are:

Years 1 and 2: 1 hour per week
Years 3 and 4: 1.5 hours per week
Years 5 and 6: 30 minutes per day

We used to have knitting homework at primary school, too. But only the girls. I don't think equality was invented then I made the most hideous tea cosy in orange and yellow - my Mum still uses it.

DS also 5 and in Y1. He has a reading book which we read every night and then change as we see fit but they vary in length greatly. He also has spellings which are tested once a week - about 6 or 7 words which we are supposed to practice 5x. He gets them on a Friday and they have to be done by the following Thursday. And he gets homework every Friday. This might be something like drawing 5 objects that feel heavy and 5 that feel light, or coin rubbings, or this week it was a maths worksheet. TBH I prefer these because they are set at a level where DS doesn't need any assistance from me. He quite often does this homework on a Saturday afternoon while DD is in bed and DH is at golf and I either sit with him or potter around the kitchen. The spellings and reading are more difficult to fit in, especially when I am working.

We get reading each night, and the school expects each child to do 20 minutes reading a night all the way through school (though in fairness in reception they didn't have to do the 20 minutes-you were encouraged to read to them). 10 spellings tested on Mondays and a timestable to learn (1st week in order, second week muddled up). If the child has been slow in completing any of the work in school on a aprticular day then they'll be asked to finish it at home, but that is fairly rare.

I am a TA in a first school. My dss are in high school now and when they went to the first school they used to get maths homework every week and a reading book every night.
A couple of years ago we sent out a questionnaire to parents as they were saying that there was too much homework. The head had meetings with the parents and the outcome was that homework was stopped.
It is all covered in the classroom and the school is obviously doing well because we have just had an Ofsted and got outstanding.
The children do get reading books but they are only changed when the parents put them in the box to be changed and there is no pressure, unless of course a child goes about a month without changing a book.

Cor blimey. Just seen this. Don't some of your littlies get a lot? DS2 (5 in Y1) only has reading and since he is off scheme books that is just as and when. I like him to read to me 3 or 4 times a week, so we can discuss vocab etc, but he reads all the time anyway.

DS1 (8 in Y4) gets 16 weekly spellings (though like Cod I think they are a waste of time, particularly the learning of words which they don't use), one piece of literacy and one piece of numeracy. Sometimes they have 3 weeks for a project and then they don't get any other literacy work for those weeks.

My dd gets a weeks worth of homework that we can spread out that includes:
About five reading books
2 library books
handwriting practice - usually about four or five examples.
Words to read - usually about five new a week
A few worksheets

WEdoa out half of that every week as I think it is too much and have told her teacher and the head of my opinion. Dd in no way suffers and is actually ahead of the restof her class despite doing the least homework as she goes into the class above for her numeracy and literacy hour.

she is 5 by the way

I feel like a right cow now as been giving ds hoemwork eah night.

HE does his spellings - 6 words each night - takes about 5 min. HE reads about 4 pages and I have also been giving him some number work about 6-10 addition or subtraction as he was having difficulty there. He obv is tired when he gets home and there have beentimes when he has dragged it all out for nearly an hour. in hindsight i should have just packed it all away.

Feel so guilty now. I keep screwing up

NO need to feel guilty if he enjoys it and is getting something from it, as far as I know I am the only parent in dd class who does not do all the homework set.

If we have time and dd is not too tired we do it, but tonght for example dd and I went out for tea and to see some of the kids I teach sing in a show, I thoght us doing something together was more important than dd doing homework, but tomorrow we will do it.