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.

I would also argue that students would get more out of fun creative tasks (and more support and social skills) working in class in teams , groups or pairs with resources provided. But then teachers might be made to fell they are 'wasting' learning time (by leaders or parents). How ironic.
So may creative projects are done by parents! I have a friend whose DH is a joiner. Guess who built the year 7 castle...

piggy
I hear your frustration on yhr infographic, but equally jt could be good as a way of reducing notes down to key headline points (like we tell them to for revision).

Posters at uni (in my experience) are usually A0 academic posters and are accompanied with a presentation on the material. Not comparable to tjr silly y8 make a wanted poster for a historical person/character in the book.

If this learning is so valuable why isn't is done in school time?

Pengwynn none of the decisions listed in your post have anything to do with baking.

Homework should be consolidating or extending learning, or preparing for learning. I don’t agree that creative homework helps things stick. Maisie, some of the things you list sound great, and appropriate (other than keywords on a cupcake) but I don’t think asking my 11 yr old to make a model (cake or otherwise) of a castle will do much. Other than take quite a lot of time.

My y7 dd is getting way too much homework atm and it’s keeping her up past her bedtime to finish. She doesn’t get home til nearly 5pm then has to eat, shower, do homework all in space of 3hrs (i prefer her settled and ready for bed by about 8.30 as she needs to leave the house at 7.30am for school). Homework is keeping her busy til nearly 9pm atm.

EvilTwins
The cupcakes decorated ti match key themes (not key words on a cake) were excellent. The commentary about how thr themes were presented was also excellent, very thoughful and full of Shakespeare's language where they used the figurative language to inspire their designs.

I wouldn't have done the baking one. But i gave total freedom and that chikd was a great baker.

Sometimes it's about doing something different and making learning enjoyable. They did a creative homework, other days they get exam questions, some lessons they are in silence, others they work in groups. A bit of variety over time doesnt hurt.

It never occurred to me that some people would think that a homework other than writing something down on a piece of paper, would be pointless

Lots of teachers seem surprised that many kids and parents hate craft based homework and find it a pointless waste of time - will that make any difference to the decision to set it - almost certainly not, but I'm amazed at the lack of awareness.....it has been mentioned quite a few times, on quite a few posts on mumsnet over the years.

For the first time ever, I find myself disagreeing with noblegiraffe and Evil Twins. Today is a sad sad day

No, this is great - how often do you get to argue pedagogy with intelligent people? Beats arguing about whether teachers get paid for the holidays with numbnuts

With castle-making, the research behind the components, where to site your castle etc is great, they are obviously learning. Design your own castle giving reasons for your decisions with reference to what actually happened in castle building would be a great task. I feel that rather than having to write about the castle and maybe draw a diagram, actually having to make the castle detracts from the learning rather than enhances it.
I make my kids' birthday cakes. I'm crap at crafts. When I ask them what they want and they say 'a pirate ship' or whatever, I don't go online and research pirate ships then try to make an accurate representation in cake. I google 'easy pirate ship cake' and look for something I can actually do. When your kid is deciding how their castle will look, whether it will have big windows, rounded towers or whatever, you don't want them to be limited by the medium in which they will finally be judged, and by skills irrelevant to the topic.

I remember volcanos from school, I never made a model. I think it stuck because volcanos are cool regardless of whether you have to build one. And doing experiments in science is fine, (so long as it works, and if it doesn't work, you are told what should have happened) because science is about practical skills as well as knowledge. But you won't learn effectively about Young's double-slit experiment by making it out of cake.

But you won't learn effectively about Young's double-slit experiment by making it out of cake.

I dunno. My husband’s Year 9 class for the Half Term of the year, surprised him with the periodic table made out of cupcakes. Those kids did great in their end of topic test

it has been mentioned quite a few times, on quite a few posts on mumsnet over the years.

Many many many teachers never read Mumsnet

Sometimes, the lack of awareness can go both ways....

What about the practicalities of transporting models to school? My son had a 1 mile walk to the bus stop, then a bus journey on a full service bus, then a 1 mile walk uphill and across a busy one way system to the school. He already has a 15kg rucksack and a separate bag for his games kit (school unhelpfully don't provide lockers!), so having to try to navigate that journey with some large (probably fragile) model is just ridiculous. Sometimes I don't think teachers give thought to more practical matters.

I can see the point of building a cardboard castle, especially if it's made as realistic as possible. After all, architects used to make scale models, before computers. Maybe they still do.

But a castle cake? What will a rectangular cake with the corners cut away and 4 mini rolls stuck there instead achieve?

kokeshi can I make a guess and say that you know nothing about castles? The way a castle is constructed in integral to its defense - curtain walls, arrow slits, arch design, foundations, situation, moat. You can learn a lot about building one if you actually craft it rather than just paint toilet rolls. It is noticeable how people with no construction abilities are so quick to denegrate anything practical or hands on, rather than admit there might be a valuable skill that they are missing. Two hundred years ago these things were properly valued (all the great scientists invented and made their instruments ) but now only writing matters.

Not in secondary school but in year 3 ds and his classmates were asked to make a viking boat.
A couple of sheets of A4 paper with the template drawn on them.

He is crap with anything fiddly I ended up doing it and found it quite difficult.

The winner of the project who won a box of chocs was a girl who presented a ready made one that they were selling in Tesco toy department.

I have always done dcs projects.
Especially dd who did a range of activities after school that left no time for homework.
As it has turned out dd makes her living out of the eca.

The best way to learn about the challenges of caste building is to BUILD the castle!

But they’re not building a castle, they’re not doing anything remotely like what the castle builders did. They’re making a model of a castle in completely different materials to a completely different scale.

I remember talking to a student with ASD about group work. They said that they never learned from group work because they didn’t have the communication skills, and the teacher assumed what was supposed to have been learnt had been learnt because they’d done the group work on it. I think assuming that kids have the practical skills to learn about anything effectively through building a representation of it is a dangerous one. Would you rather they remembered an accurate model of a cell, or a dodgy one made out of god-knows-what? Do you really think they learn best about how drawbridges work through trying to make one, or by examining one someone has done properly?

You can learn a lot about building one if you actually craft it

So shouldn't the castle building be done as a joint venture between the history and tech departments, with theory done in history and the practical done in tech lessons? Or is it more important to make a wooden fish in tech?

Same with power point - surely kids should be learning how to do power points in IT lessons, rather than having to teach themselves when they get it set for a homework in another subject?

Seems a massive lack of working together and joined up thinking.

I remember talking to a student with ASD about group work. They said that they never learned from group work because they didn’t have the communication skills

That's me. I hated group work and never learned anything from it as I was always on the periphery due to severe shyness and because I was being mercilessly bullied by others in the group.

a bit of variety over time doesn’t hurt

What I’m learning from this thread is that English is so dull it needs to be occasionally spiced up with food tech

So shouldn't the castle building be done as a joint venture between the history and tech departments, with theory done in history and the practical done in tech lessons?

Yes, this! I have no problem at all with DD being given drawing homework for art, or construction homework for tech. I also have no problem with a range of options so pupils can pick the one that they are inspired by. The thing I don't like is when 95% of the time on a humanities homework is spent on construction whereby the 5% actual learning gets lost.

DD had a great science homework. Instructions on how to make a simple hovercraft from a balloon, CD, blu-tack and a bottle top. But she had a list of simple equipment, instructions on how to make it, and then a science experiment to do with it. She learned by doing, but it was relevant doing.

Build a castle you are limited by the materials available. If you don't have a younger sibling, and the bin men have just been, live in a small house then there may be very few materials around that are in any way suitable.

Same with power point - surely kids should be learning how to do power points in IT lessons, rather than having to teach themselves when they get it set for a homework in another subject?

Seems a massive lack of working together and joined up thinking.

Couldn’t agree more but blame Michael Gove for messing about with the National Curriculum for removing things such as ICT (we’re not supposedly to ‘teach’ them PowerPoint skills directly anymore ) from schools.