Half lesson spent writing numbers on pages

[user1497207191]

Son's teacher handed out a new exercise book and told the class to write page numbers on each page. Apparently, the lesson was half over by the time they'd all done it. Is that really a good use of teaching time when we're constantly told there's too much to teach and kids are fined for taking unauthorised absence. Surely, it should be a homework task so it doesn't waste supposedly scarce teaching time (if it's even needed at all).

It sounds like a monumental waste of teaching time, but some departments have stupid rules about what their books have to look like... My students don’t have to number pages, but I had to waste a lot of time with a similarly ridiculous task dreamed up by my head of department, too.
If you want to complain please don’t complain about the teacher, who will most likely agree with you, complain about the policy!

Had to do this in a school I worked in, alongside students having to stick various sheets onto specific exercise book pages. Stupid waste of time but helps with the smoke and mirrors required for Ofsted. Definitely the policy, not the staff.

The word ‘apparently’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Do you really think that it took them all half an hour to number pages in a book?

If it were my DS I’d be asking if he took half an hour to complete a, what, 5 minutes tops task.

My HOD makes us get students to do this. I tend to get them to do a few at a time so it doesn't take up a whole lesson.
Some students do rip pages out though & the books look a mess. It does stop them doing that.
I can see your point but tbh I think you have too much time on your hands if you complain about this!

Agree with a PP - if it really takes a class of secondary school children half a lesson to number an exercise book, there are more issues than the numbering of the book to worry about!

That used to be our first English homework. Numbering the pages and drawing margins.
Our last English homework was always to do an index.

Agree with the above. Does he struggle with fine motor skills that it would take so long?

30 minutes to write number one to what 60?

Id be furious with my child if that took him 30 minutes.

It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to write 80 numbers.

When I was at school I had to draw a margin in my English book. As someone who is dyspraxic where drawing lines with a ruler isn't my greatest skill it just made everything look scruffier

I agree with pp that it won't be a rule randomly thought up by the teacher. It will have come from the HOD as part of making books look uniform or something for book trawls and learning walks

We had to do this, to stop us ripping out pages to write notes to each other on. Took 5 minutes tops. Half a lesson? Do the children require additional support in this class? That’s the only reason I can see for it taking that long.

This is pretty routine in many schools. It shouldn't take them longer than 10 minutes at the most.

It's a daft policy in my opinion, but if it took my child half an hour to write a few numbers then I'd be wondering what they were doing with their time.

How many pages did exercise book had? 2000? Try writing numbers from 1 to 100. How long does that take?
If it really took more than half lesson, the problem is nothing to do with the teaching.

Half a lesson seems ridiculous for that task. However, half a lesson is fairly standard "intro" at the start of a new school year with each class. It include introducing myself, my classroom rules and routines, expectations for work (including homework), handing out exercise books (we don't number then tho) and any textbooks. To the student it might seem like half the lesson was spent handing out exercise books, but in reality a lot more has happened. And, from experience, it saves time down the line (ie less classroom management required as students know where they stand from the start).