If the school set summer holiday homework for Year 9, and it still hasn't been marked?

[Swanhilda]

We sweated over some Maths workbooks and wrote a project for a Science. Ds1 (Year 9) said no-one has taken it in yet. He is slightly scatty but surely they should have asked for it in the first or second Science lesson? Ditto Maths. There is a new science/and Maths teacher for his set (set 3) but surely they should have been some continuity from the Science Dept/Maths Dept. Ds is not confident in these subjects so he is not the sort of child that would approach the teacher and wave stuff at him/her or complain.

We refused to do the English homework set over the summer, and I'm glad now, considering the lack of interest they show I feel like the homework was a tickbox exercise for the school, which we suffer for.

Rest assured that sweating over maths workbooks will not have been a waste of time, whether the teacher looks at it or not.

Don't ask your DS to query it, if he does, he'll only get the kids who haven't done it moaning at him for bringing it up. You could phone the school and ask for it to be marked.

I have phoned the school this morning. Answer phones in Maths and Science depts. As per usual.

Yes, that will be because the science and maths teachers are teaching. It is usual to leave a message requesting a returned call when the teacher is free. You might have to wait a day or two.

Damn, MN ate my post.

Firstly, are you sure it's meant for marking, rather than independent prep? It's unusual for secondaries to set homework in the holidays, as they usually have different teachers on return.

Secondly, what is this 'we'? It's not for you as a team to either sweat or refuse (though the joint refusal does suggest a certainn attitude!). It's for your DS to do the work.

Thirdly, as you rang anyway after one reply telling you not to, you're probably not interested anyway: but as noble says, during the teaching day teachers are more often found to be teaching than answering phones. You're supposed to ring reception and ask for them to give you a ring - or just email.

Email, phones and schools are a waste of time.

I've always had emails answered, once by the lovely Senco at 7pm at night on the same day.

I guess emails are harder to forget than phone messages and they can be thought about, then typed in a spare minute. Teachers all have lap tops, but phones are few and far between and so may be copies of parents phone numbers.

As a rule, the school suggest ringing subject teachers to discuss any problems. There has never been an email route except to the SEN dept.
They do ring back eventually; I suppose I was just expressing my frustration at being asked to supervise holiday homework that the school shows no interest in when my children return to school. And then chasing tails.

Nit Giraffe suggested contacting the school, but said my son should not query.
Giraffe I know I know. I know they are teaching. I know they work v hard. It is just the way it is all "managed" from "above" ifysim. The SMT probably encourages each Dept to set homework over holidays (we have had homework for every holiday so far including Xmas and Easter, originally just English and History, but now extending to Science and Maths too) but the individual teachers aren't really included in the decision to set it, so not suprisingly they don't have much interest in marking it or asking to see it It is as if something gets lost in translation. And it has a really negative effect on the children who have put so much effort into DOING their holiday homework, when really they would rather have been doing something else, that the teachers are apparently not interested in it.

Holiday homework does sound like something dreamed up by SLT. As a teacher I can't imagine any worse way to get to know a new class than to have to start chasing up holiday homework probably not done by most of them and set by a different teacher. Talk about starting the year on a downer.

Our senior school is very open, everyone's email address is on the remote access system and no one seems to mind if parents or DCs contact them.