year 7 teachers - please can you explain

[3littlefrogs]

Why, oh why, does every single piece of homework have to be done on a computer??? I have ranted about this before, but I really am getting to the end of my tether. I cannot afford to upgrade our (admittedly rather old) domestic IT arrangements.

Don't tell me that computers and printers are available at school - they are, but at strictly limited times and they are all hogged constantly by the bigger kids; the year 7s don't get a look in, even if they do drag themselves to school by 7.45am to try and get in the queue.

Dd was set an assignment to make a poster to illustrate a piece of writing. She spent an hour and a half drawing and writing what I thought was an excellent piece of creative work. She got a B.

Her classmate spent literally 5 minutes (as she loudly boasted to anyone within earshot)downloading, copying and pasting, and got an A.

What has dd learned? Not to bother making any effort to produce anything original.

That is true that the piece of work I mentioned did not have to be done on the computer. It was indeed one of only 3 pieces of homework out of the mandatory 3 subjects per night this term so far (excluding maths), that has not required internet, word processing and printing.

Jumping in here and apologies if OTT but is there any danger that talent can be missed because of NC 'rules' and levelling?

Take English for example. A child can't write in sentences properly yet, spelling and grammar are a bit all over the shop but what they have a gift. Their work is brilliantly perceptive etc. Wouldn't they then 'have' to be working at a lower level than a child who wasn't gifted but could obey simple grammar rules etc?

Isn't there a danger of a child not realising they have real potential and talent?

Not explaining well but hopefully you can see where I am coming from.

"Take English for example. A child can't write in sentences properly yet, spelling and grammar are a bit all over the shop but what they have a gift. Their work is brilliantly perceptive etc. Wouldn't they then 'have' to be working at a lower level than a child who wasn't gifted but could obey simple grammar rules etc?"

You are desribing my son, and this was shown perfectly in his KS2 sats where his comprehension/reading result was nearly 2 levels above his writing.
I have only seen the level marking for his humanities and the lower levels are just for regurgetating facts and higher levels for how they intepret facts etc.
DS writing does hold him back a little but his teachers and school definitely recognise his talents even in english.

Good point, Cortina - that's why some of the Assessment strands focus on technical skills (punctuation, spelling etc) and some are about how interesting, entertaining, original the writing is.

Also, OP, the computer access does sound a bit pathetic (although as your DC can't go at lunch and after school that does limit what they can offer, I suppose) have you checked whether they run any laptop schemes? There is gov. money available to schools to provide laptops for students with limited internet access - you have to return them when the child leaves the school, but still. After all, computer skills are going to be essential in the future...

Just call and speak to the teacher to verify that hand written work is acceptable, but the more your dd gets into the habit of doing stuff on the PC, the better for her. Just so you know by the time your daughter does A levels, chances are she will type up her essays as i heard there is a drive by exam boards to make all exams examinable by laptop- then e mailed straight to exam board- obvioulsy special needs cases would be exempt but the day when this happens is not far off- and don't take marks too seriously. when i was teaching sometimes i had over 300 pieces of homework to mark- unless it was a key piece and i felt feedback constructive to aid learning, i just scan read, if that, and you make very quick decisions on what mark to give. That is the reality- you have to save your time to mark the A level stuff which can take hours to mark-or the key pieces in a year group that really support a child's learning- but as often you HAVE to set hwk every week, you just find that you do set things to fulfil this policy. Marking is the bane of many a teacher's life- and most who survive in the job do it very very quickly- your dd should not take it to heart. Those year 7s I remember soooo sensitive and soooo competitive with each other. They grow out of it and just learn to do what is required in each subject.i.e not spend 90 minutes on that task as it does not require that and she may not be rewarded for her efforts. Sadly it is the tests and the coursework later on that will reward all her efforts- marks on homework pieces in many subjects are pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things at school in my experience.