Year 3 teacher not marking homework

[TeeA06]

Hi all my DS is in yr3 and homework is set on google classroom, however no feedback is ever given or grading ever given. I spoke with his teacher over the phone with regards to this. She explained that she speaks with them during free time during the week.

I checked with my son and he said she never does. This is a worry for me as I do not want my son to slip through the crack.

How do I go about tackling this without singling out my son.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

I wouldn't do anything.
I'll bet that she DOES mark his classwork.

He's 7.
Just relax.

I would be honest with the teacher and explain that your son isn’t aware that he’s received feedback.

You could ask what the school homework marking policy is.

Sounds like teacher isn’t marking the homework.

@lockedownloretta

Kids will often disengage with homework once they realise it’s not being marked

You could just phone up every now and then and ask for feedback to you?

Research proves homework is often pointless. Most teachers and most parents know this, but schools are still required to set it. Maybe the teacher goes through it sometimes at school but your son has forgotten about it by the time he gets home. Or even if she doesn't, it's not a biggie. Your DS can't be more than 7 or 8 - in most countries he wouldn't be doing homework. If he's happy to go to school and he likes the teacher you're onto a winner. I wouldn't sweat the small stuff.

Or even if she doesn't, it's not a biggie

It is a biggie, it’s disrespectful to the child who is spending their spare time doing the work

I agree homework for a 7 year old is pretty pointless. I'm sure the teacher does mention it but in our class the kids are often twiddling their thumbs/chatting/ generally not paying attention and could miss this. Never mind that my dc often claim to not have a clue what's gone on on a day and then you get important (to them) drip feeds later.

Every evening a teacher spends marking homework is more time taken away from marking class work and planning. There isn't an endless bucket of time I'm afraid.

At the moment it's risky to mark homework as it's come in from home. My school are doing online work only.

It’s not risky to mark homework. I’m so fed up of covid being used as an excuse for poor performance.

Mark work; wash hands, wipe down table.

Wash hands on between each book? Seriously.
My hands are already falling apart from washing hundreds of times a day.

@OverTheRainbow88

It’s not risky to mark homework. I’m so fed up of covid being used as an excuse for poor performance.

Mark work; wash hands, wipe down table.

Are you a teacher? If so please don't comment on something you know nothing about

I am a teacher, secondary. Marking homework.

If my kids are doing the work it should be marked otherwise what's the point?

@helloxhristmas

If my kids are doing the work it should be marked otherwise what's the point?

As a PP has said, there is no research to show homework has a significant benefit in Primary schools. The point of homework, really, boils down to: 1) We are required to set it. 2) It gives children the opportunity to get into the swing of doing homework before Senior School. This independence is a great skill to have. Whatever the task may be for homework is secondary to that. 3) It consolidates the basics they need to succeed in class.

I agree teachers should be 'marking' it but marking means different things. It may mean in the case of homework, the teacher has given verbal feedback to the child or the class have self marked the completed work with the class going over the answers together.

I would politely enquire OP when your son recieved feedback for his homework as he can't recall.

@OverTheRainbow88

It’s not risky to mark homework. I’m so fed up of covid being used as an excuse for poor performance.

Mark work; wash hands, wipe down table.

or quarantine books before/after touching them and after... so easy to find solutions when there is a will to do so

at the moment, Covid is an excuse for a lot of things

It is truly demotivating for a child not have his homework marked or at least some verbal feedback.
they will disengage from it as the teacher is perceived as not caring about it.

Starting by getting your hands on the school marking policy (it may be on the school website), then try and speak to Senior Leadership person.

In our primary, we have been told that the teachers would stick post-it in the homework books to feedback (no marking ever ! ),
not a single post-it has been received yet !

it is disheartening for the children, it sends the wrong message, they may as well not give them HW.

When my dd was 7 they had reindeers come into school and she was allowed to stroke them and feed them. I found this out from another mum who was a ta in the school. According to my dd, they hadn’t done anything that day.

I’d not take my dc’s word that homework hadn’t been talked about over what the teacher tells you.

I'm a year 1 teacher. I work at least 12 hours on a school day. I really struggle to find time to mark homework, there are simply more important things to be done. It is soooooo easy and ignorant for parents to slag teachers off for not doing this or that. Trust me, we are working very hard and doing the best we can. Something has to give. And, for me, as most children are sat with their parents when doing their homework, there is no desperate need for me to mark it too.

I shouldn't read threads like this, makes me so mad how ignorant people are

It should be marked- but, as a teacher, I am struggling to keep on top of where all the work is!
When it's all on paper, or all in books it's not too bad.
Now though- there are google classrooms to trawl through too- lots of extra work, and stuff gets missed easily.

Our hw has gone on to GC too. Marking a sheet used to take 5 mins for the entire class - the TA and I did them while the chn did their spelling tests. Marking docs on GC is a whole different ball game - each doc takes 30 secs to download, and a few secs to upload, so that's at least 45 mins to mark them all. I do not have a spare 45 mins. It's one of many reasons that teacher workload has increased with COVID.
Some of my colleagues are managing it by giving the kids a silent task so they can mark during teaching time. Would you rather your child's teacher did this - drop a lesson a week to write 'well done Johnny' 30 (or 35) times? It doesn't cut it on my time Vs benefit to learning schedule.

There is one main purpose of marking - to assess what children understand. This is much better done with classwork, where the teacher knows the level of support the child had when completing the task.

While I do agree that acknowledging homework can be motivating for the child, why can't that acknowledgement be verbal? And why can't it come from the parent rather than the teacher?

Yes, I am a teacher. I do mark homework (because that's school policy, and because I do understand teacher marking can motivate some children) but only minimally. I mark classwork thoroughly and use this to move children to the next step in their learning. I wouldn't swap this round ever.

Sorry, high horse there. OP, if it's actually affecting your son's learning or he is upset about it, tell the teacher this. If it's not, is it really worth a fuss?

Try marking it yourself, you might love it.

@missbunnyrabbit

Yes let’s call parents ignorant for wanting their kids homework to be marked occasionally.

Maybe the parent spends half a Saturday trying to engage their kid to do it so would like the kid to get some feedback so it doesn’t make it even harder to get the kid to do it.

Kids get detentions in my school for not doing homework, imagine if I then didn’t mark the work done, none would do it so then I would be holding detentions for whole classes!

Please don’t call parents ignorant.

Check the marking policy and then speak to the teacher again to clarify.