My dd is in year 4, her last 2 pieces of homework have been marked with a tick and nothing else. I am annoyed

[Morosky]

I am a teacher (although secondary) and have a huge respect for primary teachers. However my dd has been back a few weeks now and does 2 pieces of homework a week as well as her reading. She works very hard on these and I am quite dissapointed to see that all she gets is a tick. No comment, no merits no reward or advice on how to improve.

I do work a little too hard but I teach approximately almost 300 students and once a fortnight they all get detailed feedback on one piece of homework. I am not expecting a lot but some form of feedback would be good. DD is quite disheartened that she works so hard and yet gets no more than a tick. Her homework planner is also never signed by her teacher. She sees me mark my books and wonders why she is not getting comments, stickers etc as well. Of course I have not seen her clasbooks but I would have thought that her homework books and planner would be a good way to communicate back to me how she is doing and how I can help her improve.

Do you see evidence of feedback from primary work? Am I expecting too much?

My disorganised DS in Y5 is doing his Maths hw while I watch and hijack (sorry) this thread with interest. As usual it's a badly photocopied worksheet, this week with difficult multiplications. The hw was set on Thurs but he's got to do it all tonight as he's only remembered to bring the work home today and it's due tomorrow. The school sets for maths and he has a new teacher for maths this year.

DS is having a little tantrum saying the work is too hard which probably translates as he has left it to the last minute and is now in a panic but I do have some sympathy. Every week year on year it's the same story: craply presented worksheet which doesn't correlate to what they've done in class so DS gets upset when it takes ages to work out what he's supposed to do. His current maths teacher told the class he expected them to work out for themselves how to do the tasks. The class marked last week's hw together so the teacher hasn't seen his working out etc. Given that DS is new to this teacher I am surprised that last week's hw wasn't taken in and checked by him.

At the start of each academic year we get a curriculum outline from the school in which the importance of completing hw is highlighted, so I'm surprised that the teacher (who is the deputy head so ought to be leading by example) didn't at least look at the classes work last week - if anything to ascertain whether DS or DS's parents completed the task!

I'm a secondary teacher. We would be in a lot of trouble if hw wasn't marked according to school policy (books checked and formative feedback given once a fortnight at least).

Having spent several hours this last week marking, and giving detailed feedback to kids about how to imrove their work (in class and homework) it hacks me off to think that there are still teachers out there who think it's OK to just randomly tick work.

In maths, I often get the children to self-mark an exercise (if appropriate), as they are more likely to notice their errors if they mark them themselves, but I always have a look afterwards, add comments, note down scores etc...

If this marking is standard practice for your DD's teacher (and I can see that you're trying to amass some facts first), then I would say it's definitely not acceptable these days and you are well within your rights to take it up with her - or the Head.

There are some primary teachers out there who don't "believe" in setting homework as so much gets done by parents and they will therefore only tick it, rather than make lots of constructive criticism which they see as a waste of time when parents may have done work in the first place. I'm not saying I agree at all, but I have heard them complain about it. (used to teach primary)
I have to admit, I sometimes used to just tick some homework, partly because I had to mark it during the school day - due in eg Tuesday in homework book, new work set the same day and books sent home (at parents request) so that the kids had a whole week to do it. As we didn't used to get any PPA I had to do it at lunch time - possible but lots of helpful comments on 33 homeworks in 50 mins and eat lunch....
BUT not marking classwork - not good at all - definitely worth checking.
As for verbal feedback - we did this for those who couldn't read but there was a special symbol that we put in the book to show it had been given - for both parents and ofsted's benefit.

thinkingaboutdrinking (only thinking about it??) - we had some parents requesting that the books were given back out on the same day. Our Head said 'no, not possible.' It is entirely unreasonable to expect staff to do what you did - and your management team should have dealt with it.

I agree giving books back the same day is asking far too much.

My DD Yr 5, gets very badly photocopied sheets, sometimes with th eedges off so we have to guess what some of the text is , it doesn't seem to be relevant to what she does in class as quite often doesn't know how to do it. We don't get a termly plan, homework book and the homework sheets are never seen again, so I have no idea how they are marked.

However at parents evenings, the school workbooks are well annotated with comments, ideas to improve in areas or suggestions on how to add to future projects, so very pleased with this.

I agree that at this age a lot of parents do help a little too much, I know this as some talk about how it took ages to do dc's homework. It makes me quite annoyed as a lot of children put a lot of effort into the tasks and get no recognition, even if they take an extra something in that they have made or researched on the subject.

Last year we never saw the homework once it was given it. This year, dd 8.4 hands homework in on Friday and it is either given back in the afternoon or on Mondays. Always ticks, comments and rubber stamps. She has a fabulous teacher this year.