Pointless homework - WWYD?

[EvilTwins]

DTDs are in yr 7. One gets endless amounts of homework (the other doesn’t) and much of it feels a bit pointless. Today, she told me she has a 3 week history project for which she has to “make something” to do with castles - she can make a cake or a model or a mood board with lots of pictures. I asked her what The actual learning in the project is and she doesn’t know. Last week, she was given a project where she had to do a presentation about herself. That’s for study skills, and they are focusing on the presentation aspect. Her sister does the same subjects (different teachers) and did not have the same homework - hers was to practise the presentation skills, rather than spend hours doing a pointless PowerPoint.

Homework should be to either consolidate learning, extend learning or prepare for a lesson (or test) Making a model of Lincoln Castle out of fudge does neither of those things.

WWYD? Contact School? DTD2 could be spending her time so much better.

Should add, even in that school with the ridiculous parents half of SLT were amazing at backing staff.

The othet half tended to appease them (which is why i think the demanding entitled parent culture emerged from because the nasty ones started ti realise if they shouted at the right person thry may get their own way).

I always really struggle with bringing a complaint to a school, I'd rather stick my head in the sand but my reluctance to complain left my dc in a less than ideal position - teachers on Mumsnet often moan about parents over reacting and not understanding the real situation - do we over react or under react? Many of us are just doing the best we can for our kids, we are not the enemy!

Honestly,
We really don't mind actual concerns, raised reasonably and politely (even if wr do whinge a little in the staff room when a call comes through at 445 and we want to go home)
Even if a parent is being a little snowflakey, if they are reasonable then we encourage and reasusre them (and sort of hope they don't have another issue in 48 hours time).

We just ask that people stop and think before complaining. E.g.
Question. My child has told me a story where they have ended up in trouble. How likely is it that the child will tell the whole, unfiltered truth?
Answer. Maybe they've given me part of the story. I still want to talk to the teacher but will do it in a way that is sensible because I'm not going to be one of those idiots who calls up seeing red declaring "BUT MY CHILD SAYS... MY CHILD WOULDN'T LIE".

If you are conscious of over reacting and not wanting to be an arsehole, you probably won't be the type of parent we hate dealing with.

Being honest, who, other than a professional cake maker who charges huge amounts of money for their cakes, could make a realistic model of a castle that shows genuine understanding of the finer details of castles, out of cake?! I suspect the end result for most people would be a load of cake that just looks like a load of cake. That represents at least a good couple of hours of work proving you know how to bake and decorate a cake - time that, from a learning about castles perspective, would have been better served researching castles. And if you do both the research and the cake baking, that's an unreasonable amount of time to spend on one homework.

Now wondering if DTD2's History teacher is a Mumsnetter... Asked her this morning if she wanted some help with her castles homework. Teacher has apparently changed the homework project to a booklet about Medieval England, with one page on castles, and other pages on the other things they're covering in class. Which makes more sense as it allows the DC to showcase what they've learned and will allow the teacher to see if there are any common errors or misconceptions. Can be done on the computer or by hand.

Evil if the teacher is a Mumsnetter, I think you may have just outed yourself!

Oh wow, how amazing is that! Best outcome ever!

I suppose there's the possibility that some other parent complained and the teacher realised that they couldn't defend a cake castle so changed it without MN intervention.

orange Yep

Very pleased though. She's merrily getting on with it right now.

So much bollocks - such a waste of young lives.

My children had some utterly ridiculous things to do for homework - several times I did it for them and told them to go out for a walk and take in the beautiful view of the hills. I could do a pretty neat "uniform essay" as well! Believe me they did not miss out education-wise, but they just developed the maturity to know what was helpful and what was not.

If the homework is pointless they will spot it a mile off and resent it - and who can blame them? Not good enough to just tick a box.

I could weep when I look at what we do to our children in the name of education. And the pressure the teachers are put under.

DD has yet another poster to produce for English, her teacher seems to prefer poster homework, - instructions were to re-write a handout, in poster format, she is beyond bored with it but it's done now. Work set when this teacher misses a class, which seems to happen a lot, is always to create a poster - feels a bit lazy of her....but what do I know, apart from the homework, the kids think she is a good teacher.

Ds1 has to make a diarama (otherwise known as a 'scene in a shoe box') of chapter 1 of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is the most boring chapter probably, but never mind...struggling to see the benefit as they don't even have a copy of the book at home (I had to google a synopsis, but does not include any detailed description eg. wall colour etc.).

Can anyone explain the point of that homework?

Is it maybe to make them study the first chapter in detail for ideas? I've found it useful them having a kindle so they can instantly access books they need for school. We've not had to buy that many so it hasn't been excessively expensive.

Maybe getting them used to picking out relevant info from the text?

Making notes is one of the key skills that many of our first year uni students lack- I'd like to see them taught how to pick out the relevant info and put it in their own words, and it seems to me reading a chapter and providing a summary might be a great way to do this. I would not think one needed to produce a 'diorama' to have the same effect! That said, I wonder if some of this 'creative' homework is there for children who aren't good at reading/writing- I am not sure creating a diorama would necessarily tip them towards better understanding but they might be able to show off different skills. Or perhaps that's what Art lessons are for...

Presumably the pp's dc will write summaries too. My dc was writing summaries only yesterday for homework. Perhaps the teacher was trying to add a bit of variety though. It could get a bit dry if they do too much of the same thing.

summer may be right there in terms of the teachers' motivation in setting the tasks : but, sadly, the same children who are bad at reading and writing are also usually bad at arts and crafts. Artistic types are often very able. I am sure a brain specialist could tell us why.

Life really isn't very fair sometimes. I can't let my bottom set year 10s anywhere near scissors and glue and they certainly can't do mindmaps, draw circles for Venn diagrams or create a table or chart.

Finding and retriving information from a text is the 1st question on both GCSE English Lamguage papers.
Whilst the task is a bit more crafty and artistic than strictly required, it's a bit nicer than lots of comprehension questions and exam questions like:
' read lines 1-17. Identify 4 thinks about the house'

Finding and retriving information from a text is the 1st question on both GCSE English Lamguage papers

Well, yes, if they actually had the text with them! I don't really want to buy it for this one homework.

This seems more like 'remembering the gist of what you read 5 weeks ago in the first chapter'.

Library then? Some open late on certain days

Or the school library?

It would be a bit odd to set someyhing like that weeks later but if it's

Week 1 - read and study chapter 1
Homework- create a scene from thr first chapter

Then that's reasonable. It assessed comprehension skills, that they've retained information.
I've set summary/retention homework but with thr expectation that GCSE groups also have memorised 5 quotations as well (but the summary was more like create a knowledge organsier for self quizzing).

I've just googled "the boy in the striped pyjamas chapter 1" and found two PDFs of the book. One from a school and one from a university (I think...).

They're all doing different chapters. He just happened to have week 1. Oh well, we're having some fun with it! Choosing 1940s wallpapers and chest of drawers.

In which case merry I'm all out of how that could be a useful homework.

Usually I'll try to be charitable and explain some rationale. (E.g. Wouldn't be my decision but it could be... or...)

But a shoe box craft weeks later with no success criteria and no allocated skill makes no sense to me.

I could understand the task if (for example):

1. Thry had spent a week studying the chapter and had notes in their books to work off
2. The teacher gave them an extract of a description / moment and they needed to make the scene and be ready to explain their choices to a peer
3. They had to collect key quotations in class and then use them to inform their craft and write a commentary on their craft

Something like those tasks ^^

But in your situation i can't see yhe logic.