Do you 'make' your kids do any school work in the summer hols?

[Curlewwoohoo]

Interested in perspectives as I mull over whether to bribe or threaten DD or leave her be! DD is heading into yr6. She had a solid school report. She's very reluctant to do any school type work at home and always has been. I am very twitchy about it, I would LOVE to spend time over the summer helping her with her spellings, maths, teaching her to type, supporting reading. Full disclosure that she's dyslexic so I'd like to pick up on particular things to help her. Any such suggestions do NOT go down well. I'm conflicted as I understand she needs a break, I think it's good for her to be outside or get bored, but I also don't want her to fall behind. Give it a couple of years tops and there's no way she will do what I think, so I've got a limited window!

That isn’t universally true re sets at all. At my children’s high school they test them each term and then move them around. It’s standard they are moved, there’s no expectation of them staying where they are.

DS 5 reads a lot and I buy a couple educational activity books just to keep his brain active so he doesn’t feel too out of the loop come September time!

Fuck no!
(straight A kids here btw... )

I never have , dd reads for pleasure, loves maths and countries so often chooses activites involving those but I see it as I don’t work on annual leave or weekends so she shouldn’t have to.
however she has just finished y5 and the teacher has sent home 18 pages of maths, writing and reading homework so 9 pages a week. .

we will do it but I’m a bit miffed as they won’t have to do this next year as they are changing school so it seems a bit much to do it for one year

How much tutoring per subject do they do and what age are they?

No , never ! Wouldn’t dream of it . And I’m a teacher . Eldest daughter has one year left in veterinary medicine, next one is doing actuarial studies in university and the other three are all doing very well at school .
Kids need a break !!!

Yes, every day in general (with the odd day when we don't have the time) but not much, maybe 20 - 30 minutes, that's nothing in a whole day and a good habit. It will benefit her a lot. I think a lot is lost in 6 weeks doing nothing, I am sure my daughter will forget a lot of the things she has learnt if she did nothing for that long

This was never done to me during the school holidays and I had two teachers for parents. I never did it to my children either.

Some reading for pleasure was encouraged by going to the local library and that worked well, but otherwise school holidays were to rest, get stuff done around the house and to generally decompress.

I wouldn't do it. Why? Who is even going to look at it and mark it? I can't imagine the new class teacher being enthusiastic if 30 lots of 18 page homework avalanche onto their desk on the first day back in September!

If I were going to do it at all (I wouldn't) then I would just aim to get it all out of the way in the first couple of days and then forget about it for the rest of the holiday.

We have a workbook for 7 year old DD to work through at her own pace. Luckily she is very self motivated, and wants to do it! I am not putting pressure on her though. I do insist on reading, but luckily she enjoys it.

My aim is 10 mins a day on either the maths app or reading a book. They’re going to get a tick for every day they do it. I haven’t worked it out yet, but if they do say 90% of the days, they’ll get a decent gift at the end of the holidays.

Times tables on the Times Tables Rock Stars app and some handwriting too.
I'm not too bothered about reading, he doesn't enjoy it at all but has no issues with it.

My yr5 does reading, music practice, jobs around the house, and learning something(s) new. I’m at work most of the summer holidays as is her dad. The something new has always been a summer challenge: over the years she’s learned to solve a rubix cube, learned art techniques via you tube, done the monkey bars at the local park after weeks of practice, Diablo, etc

No. I encourage her to read but that's all. Her activities are continuing and she's getting more of a chance to do things she enjoys so if she wants to experiment different ways of making slime all day long, then that's what she's doing.

Not usually and only this year I said on mn I couldn’t believe people did school/ grinds etc over the summer (also his teacher said she didn’t believe in doing anything over the summer). Saying that as usual I am a hypocrite and am now thinking of sneaky way to get my son writing and have gotten him to start reading out where I used to read to the kids (saw him write a birthday card and things have deteriorated, he’ll find his first few weeks very tough)

A bit of writing a couple of times a week, reading aloud and some simple maths - that's for infants and lower key stage 2. I'm a teacher and have fairly motivated children. They actually quite like a worksheet - daughter always used to badger me to print things off Twinkl.

No and my child is in a similar position to yours re report, age and dyslexia. I allow a proper break during holidays, they already have to put in extra effort during school time I think they deserve the break. The only thing that keeps going is reading and fortunately, that is not something they push back on.

Reading and TTRS but that's it.

@yakkity they are 15 17 and 18 and get tutored in maths English and science, an hour for each once a week. Been doing it for around 3yrs

Yes, I think it’s good to instil discipline for home learning in primary to create good habits for secondary. 20-30 mins a day is not going to inhibit their ability to relax and decompress when there’s 10+ additional hours of free time in the day.

The irony in some of the posts is that straight A students probably don’t need to do any work during the holidays (my youngest definitely doesn’t need to, but its a habit jn our house, so he does it).
Kids with learning challenges (like my oldest) on the other hand really benefit from it if its done in a sensible way. He’s struggling already, he finds remembering learned things tricky, he doesn’t need that on top of new stuff come September.
we do maintenance during the holidays - nothing really new, but making sure they don’t forget.

All my children did about an hour a day school work during the holidays. One of my son's friends, now an adult, told me he used to feel sorry for him having to do this work. But now he wishes his parents had made him do the same. He believes he would have done so much better in his exams and had a better future.

I know it’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t mind a protect, activity or research but it’s just dull worksheets.

Yes, we do Atom Learning and take part in the local library reading challenge.

We did reading and holiday diary, and some years maths.
Both my DDs struggled and it was an attempt to stop the summer slide and if possible catch up a bit.
Sometimes I just think all it did was help disguise their difficulties.