Pedagogy at school

[jijilamorose]

Fist of sorry if I make writing mistakes. Fench is my first language.
I was wondering which approach do you think is the best for children at primary school.
Formal with loads of homework.
Relax learning while enjoying.

For some reason I like the formal better.

But does children learn equally in both methode ?

I am.just wondering can you please share your thought ?

I think the less formal method is better. Children should be allowed to be children. They have their whole lives to be worried about deadlines, exams, assessments etc. I really think for their mental health and personal development, primary education should be enjoyable and not loaded with homework and assessment. My son's school sets very little formal homework. Each week we have some spellings to learn and he reads every day and we record his progress in a diary for the teacher. They then have a 'menu' of tasks that they can choose from related to their topic each term, e.g. pretend to write a letter to the Prime Minister, make a poster about something etc.... I am happy with this and my son enjoys learning so it is working for us.

I think it needs to start relaxed and get more formal as they go up the years. It's not either/or.

I tutor primary school pupils privately in their homes. Personally I’m a fan of the less is more approach. I don’t typically set homework. Each week I ask them to read a book.
Occasionally I give them some math questions to do or other homework tasks. They get a chance to pick their favourite homework task from a list. This approach works well with everyone.
How much homework does he do? How old is he now?

It depends what you mean by 'formal'. Lessons can be fun, enjoyable and engaging and still very educational. Young children do not learn best by sitting in rows in silence and being talked at for long periods. In fact, many older children don't either. I have been a teacher for over 20 years, so I have seen this for myself.

As for homework, I think much of it is given out of habit and school policy, rather than because it is genuinely useful. At primary school I think there should be little homework apart from reading.

Everyone learns better if they are finding the lesson fun to do. Also it is easy to keep children engaged with lessons where they do exploring through play and call it education. The difficulty actually comes through keeping the lessons fun, but actually teaching them something.

So I would say, more formal setting of actually teaching the children, but done in a less formal way by with the children being challenged to think, not just being told.

I don'y think English school system is that bad. Yes, they start earlier than most countries, but reception/ks1 is not equivalent of those countries which start school at 6/7.
At least they are more like kindergarten level up to KS1.
And they get quite serious and formal in ks2.

At least that's my impression as a foreigner, getting competitive at ks1 is silly, since they will change quite significantly in ks2.

I like formal learning better, but when children are ready. So, I am quite happy about how my ds's school work. There are significant difference in ks1 and ks2.
Yr2 is slightly inclined to more formal learning, but all the class rooms are still open to each other, children are allowed to go to the loo when they need, but a lot of independent work is encouraged. Once in Ks2, they have totally separate expectations.

Also it is easy to keep children engaged with lessons where they do exploring through play and call it education. The difficulty actually comes through keeping the lessons fun, but actually teaching them something.

I agree. My DDs came home too many times from primary having done something 'fun' but ultimately without having picked up the key aspect of the lesson.
(The fiasco of DD1 being insistent that a smaller yoghurt pot contained more than a larger one springs to mind. She was meant to have learned that you can't just judge on one dimension.)