giving home school books (text books etc...)

[rrbrigi]

Hi,
I would like to start a discussion to find out opinions for parents and teachers about giving home school books (I mean the books which the children work in each lesson).

As a parent I think it would help me a lot if I could see what my child learnt in the school each day. Specially from math, English and science.

My child is ready to learn with me at home around 60 mins a day. But the problem is I do not know what to practice.

I think it is useless to practice the fractions at home (because I think he needs practice on that bit) when they learn the long division in the classroom. I think if I could practice the same thing with him at home as he does in the school, it could help him to improve his math way better than just random practices every day. But just practicing something on mymaths won’t deepen his knowledge, in fact it could make him confused, because they did not learn that in the school yet, or the work is too easy or hard. They got homework once a week from math (1 A4 paper maximum), but it does not reflect the whole week maths lessons. We do random practices know, but I do not think it benefited him at all, just took the time from him to do something else.

It also would help me to see what he does in school for English. For example, if he needs to write a story at home seeing his English book I would know the quality of writing he would be capable of and I also would see his teacher comments, so I would know what should he include in his story. Or I could see which part of the grammar they are learning in the school, so we can practice that at home. I think there is no point of practicing the power verbs at home when they are learning about adverbs in the school.

From Science is the same. If I would know what they do each lesson, we could see videos from the same thing, or reading pages on the internet about the same thing, it would help him to catch his interest in Science and deepen his knowledge.

It would be better for the teachers as well, because I do not think I am the only one who would help her kids to learn. Parents could spend the daily learning time with their kids more effectively and as a result kids would have better understanding about the things they learn.

I just feel that without his school books I do not even get the possibility to support his learning on the way he deserves. If I could see what he learnt in the school each day I strongly think as the time goes I could even improve his GCSE mark as he would get without this support.

So my question is:
Teacher why do not give the school books home?
Parents what do you think, would you like to see your children school books every day to help them in their learning journey?

Thanks for reading it.

I personally don't need to see school books to know what they are doing at school.
Our school gives parents information about topics termly/half-termly, so if I wanted to know, it's easy to find out.
Taking books home everyday can cause a lot of trouble, imo. Lost books, forget to bring books backs to school, etc.

Also, if the dc is doing long division(assume KS2), can he tell you what they are doing at school at the moment?

Bad idea I think as books will get left at home never to be seen again.

I would imagine you can learn all that from general information about what the school is covering that term/half term, and from the homework that is given.

However it's no particular help for me to (say) know that DD was working on fractions that day as the majority of time she'll have covered what needs doing at school. And she tends to tell me if there is a particular topic that she is struggling with.

If you must do extra work at home, unless your child genuinely has particular weaknesses you want to target (in which case asking the teacher might be the best way to identify them!) why not consider broadening their education in different ways?

He can tell me what they are doing in the school, with a few sentences. But seeing what is his typical problem with long division (I use this as an example) or seeing how far the teacher taught long division in the school would be different.

It would be chaos to expect primary school children to lug books back and forth, plus about 50% would never be seen again. Madness.

Doesn't mean you can't ask for an explanation of how things are done though - our schools' weekly newsletter explains what each year are doing that week, including maths techniques. If you want to know, ask the school. We also have a book that comes home one a half term with their working for that week in it so we can see what is happening, plus open class once a half term where we can go and look at their books.

He is not behind. I just think kids do not have time to practice for example Math enough in the school. So another one or two example about the same thing in the afternoon would help him to deepen his knowledge.
Or just watching a science video about the thing they looked in the school in the morning would broaden his knowledge.
They do not have enough time, because they have so many things going on nowadays in the schools (e.g.: Christmas Play, Summer concert, Open assembly, Spring Play, Sports tournament, etc....) and not because of the teachers.

Ours puts information on the website about what each class is learning during that half-term.

They also have information events where they discuss how things are taught in the school. It might be worth asking your child's school if they do these or have any other resources available.

Bringing home books would be a nightmare. The school newsletter always contains a plea in it for parents to return the school's reading books. Not having the actual exercise book in class would be even worse.

The teacher will need to collect the books back in each day so that they can be checked and marked. The work in them also forms part of the evidence that they need to demonstrate why they have assessed a particular child as being at a particular level.

Much better to keep those books in school.

plus -this is a primary school child, right? There is no reason to do an hour extra every day! No reason at all. Even children priming for the super selective 11+ don't need to do anything like that.

Logistically, it would be a nightmare. We struggle to get library books back as it is.

Our school have a very clear policy that homework reinforces learning. They are not expecting us to deepen knowledge, or try and teach beyond. They are, however, very hood at differentiating, and so I know that there is no need to stretch further at home.

The absolute best thing you can do, is to widen your dc's knowledge. I know we repeat it time and time again, but read. A lot. Watch the news together (Newsround for primary aged children). Talk about the world. Look at maps. Watch history programmes. Learn an instrument. Take up a sport.

I cannot understand why you'd want to do the same as in school - the lessons in school are going to be enough for the average child - indeed probably even the below average, they're there to get everyone to the expected levels. If the child is struggling on that and needs more support, it's something that I'd expect the teacher to engage you with and you'd know more help was needed.

So doing more of the same would just be a waste of time, missing the opportunity of the kid learning something else. There's no need to practice more of the same, practicing something else entirely different would be fine.

My first thought, as a teacher, is when would I get a chance to mark the work if the book was going home? And would you expect to do work in the book, then me mark it?

I live in the UK now but went to primary school in two quite different countries and in both places had text books that I took home. I have a dd at primary school and find it very odd that nkthing is brought home. I agree that it makes it very hard to do anything at home.

My first thought is that most primary schools don't actually use text books and exercise books need to be in school everyday so what happens if a child forgets to bring their books back?

Why can't you just ask him?

If you want to do the same then google the topic and add ks2 for U.K. sites like BBC Bitesize.

Personally I think it's good to do work that you started weeks/months ago so you might have forgotten. Or you could show him subtracting fractions when adding fractions is the current topic.

With Science I think it's best to do topics not covered at school. My kids did not have very good Science teaching until secondary.(I know that primary teachers have to be able to teach all subjects so one or two areas may be weak so no flaming)

My kids are also interested in history and with limited time at school, it's not possible to cover everything.

Not I grew up in a different country too, and from age 9 or so had textbooks I could take home. The one subject I didn't (science) I ended up hating (until age 12 when got a textbook ). Textbooks help you develop responsibility for ensuring what you learn in school is actually in your long term memory, not forgotten by the end of the 'unit', IMO. They also give you a model of how to write in an academic fashion, something that many children here flounder in when they reach GCSEs.

By the time DC are ready to do an hour or so homework at home (probably somewhere in early/mid secondary school) they will be bringing their books home.

If you want to know what is being studied this term then ask the teacher.

But the best thing would be to get your DC to read more at home, both fiction and non-fiction. It won't feel like homework and is such an important underpinning of all later study.

Hi,

I was thinking a lot what you said about "children won't bring their book back to school" or "will lost their book at home".
Should not we believe in them, that they are capable organising them selves for the next day? Do they leave lunch at home? Or forgot to go to school? How we are expecting them to learn in the school if they are not capable of being ready for the school day?
But if they forget the book home (because it will happen I know), they can do the work on paper (and just glue the paper in the book, as they do know most of the time).

Have you ever think about the following? If you go to Year 2, 3 or 4 they can answer 5 second question, 10 second questions about times table, 2 or 3 digits addition, subtraction, but by the time they reach GCSE some of them will struggle using his time tables knowledge or using addition or subtraction within 2 or 3 minutes not seconds or they won't even know how to use these knowledge. Have you ever think why? I think because of the lack of the practice. In maths they need to go to the next topic and then to the next topic and so on. Have you heard the saying "practice makes progress", I think it is specially true for maths and writing.

Have you ever were in the situation when you asked your child "What did you do in the school" and he told you "We did some problem solving in math today. It went well, but I could not do 2 out of 10." Would not you be interested what were that 2 question and try to help him understand?
Not giving home the books take the chance from our children to refer back to the things they did learn in the school, look at their mistakes and learn from them.

Practicing the same work at home than in the school would help our children “to know their things by their heart”. When I was a child for two years we started and finished the school day by telling the times tables, practiced in math lessons and do homework at home.

Once my son came home from the school and told me that they did some experiment in science, but he could not tell me how they did or why it worked. Would not be nice to answer his “why” question by looking his books? Without spending half an hour on the internet try to figure out what he was talking about? And spend that half an hour showing the experiment again on the internet or explaining to him?

You know time is precious and if we do not need to spend time (I mean hours) on the internet try to figure out what is my child should learn or learning in the school. Just look at the books in his bag, do the practice, jobs done, we can play. And within an hour I can be sure he did his practice, understand what they learnt in the school.

user1955: I did not mean, that we would practice in his school books, we could do on his "home" books. We would not write anything in his school books. And I did not want the teacher to check his practice, we can do it at home together with my child.

"Do they leave lunch at home?"

Um, yes, primary school children do frequently!

It would be chaos to expect primary school children to lug books back and forth, plus about 50% would never be seen again. Madness.

Really? That's exactly how it's done in other countries (with higher literacy levels than the UK), and yes, they do bring them back to school and take the books home every day. And nobody loses books. This is because children have parents who can check that the child has appropriate books in their school bag, if necessary. That ensures proper revision at home, the parents are able to see the order of learning, also the method of teaching changes all the time, if you help your DC with a difficult area you could help in the same way as the school teaches them and not confuse them with the outdated mode of doing things.

MiaowTheCat: No, I do not want them to set up 1 hour homework for my child or for any other children. I just would welcome the possibility that if I would like I am able to practise, do revision at home with my child. It does not mean that any other parents need to do the same. You do not even need to take out the books from your child bag if you do not wish.

rrbrigi practice may well make perfect, but that doesn't mean doing more of the exact same thing they did that day, indeed that is quite the opposite of practice that is done in other areas I know of. Where whilst you're learning something new, you repeat practice the things you already learnt previously, to ensure you can still do them, and re-enforce them. Doing 10 hours practice over a couple of days rather than 8 hours and then never re-visiting doesn't help.