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Original poster

Teachers not marking homework... what?! AIBU

128 replies

NoNeatFreakHere · 24/09/2022 03:51

... and by marking I don't mean grading - giving a number. An absolutely star teacher last year wrote a one liner on DCs homework and DC was always excited to read it. The one liner conveyed "I see you" and maybe you want to adjust this thing or other but I liked such and such thing you wrote. DC couldn't wait to read it always and made a difference in DC being enthusiastic about school.

Now the school management has communicated there is no more of that and homework books will come and go. Met DCs teacher this year and explained what a difference the one line made last year to motivation to do the homework and general enthusiasm and asked her that school mgmt consider the feedback. I was met with the response of pfff we have 30 of them to do, we can't do it (and an attitude of it's so obvious this is not doable). Now homework is once a week and it's primary school. It's not that much and can't there be a middle ground? Do the marking once every 2 weeks or something?

The argument here is that feedback is given in class and for class work. Then why do we have homework? And why would my DC be incentivised to do it? We have asked the school management when it was announced. We were told... and felt like out points were ignored of those parents that spoke. It was a patronising session to the tune of "us heads of school know better". Extremely frustrating.

This also breaks parent comms in my mind as I have no clue what is happening or expected then outside of a termly 10 minute session. It's hard to know how much or little is expected of certain quite open ended pieces of homework. Booking more time with the teacher in my mind would defeat the purpose of being more efficient with teachers' time.

School is state and ofsted outstanding for context.

AIBU:

  • I empathise with teachers' workload but isn't this a core part of the job?
  • I am sure there are teachers here, what do you think? Am I being in complete ignorance of what teachers go through?
  • Other MNers is this happening in your school too or is it just ours? What do you think of it?

Thank you for reading 🙏🏻

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catched · 27/09/2022 15:02

So what happens in secondary school - the children who never did any homework in primary, do they suddenly start doing homework in year 7?
I always wondered about this.

Disneyblueeyes · 29/09/2022 19:05

BadGranny · 24/09/2022 15:15

Ok, I’ve read all the comments here, and I think one thing has not yet been said.

Children do tasks in school and for homework because the process of doing it helps them learn. If a child gets the idea that they only do homework for a reward - a star or a nice comment or whatever - then you are setting them up for life with the idea that there’s no purpose in doing anything if there isn’t a reward at the end of it. You are establishing and reinforcing a ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude to life. That’s kind of cute in a primary age child, a pain in the backside when they are teenagers, and deeply unpleasant in adults.

Well yes, but primary school children, for all the love in the world, will not always understand the value of doing it without a reward, whatever you tell them. They'll realise when they're older.
They don't always know what's best for them, and I wouldn't expect it either, when they're like, 6.

DuesToTheDirt · 30/09/2022 23:30

@Disneyblueeyes

Agreed. They feel like their hard work has been ignored, that no one has even bothered to look at it, and that is very disheartening.

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