Homework: wwyd?

[mariagoretti]

Like everyone else, after school is usually a nightmare.

His adhd meds wear off, he's tired, anxious and blowing off the accumulated stress of trying to cope all day. We've now had almost an hour of raging while doing the first sheet of number work (50 questions, but thankfully it wasn't literacy) and there's another sheet to go. I suggested I write a note or help a little, cue meltdown as that's 'against the rules'.

He has a new teacher after Christmas, the ADOS results should be through in 6-8 weeks, he's started music therapy. SENCO think he's not too bad as he achieves academically, but needs to learn to listen . Life would be so much easier without homework. Who has managed to get the school to discreetly drop it? And how did you go about it?

We've had exactly the same and you need to get the teacher onside because of the "can't go against the rules" bind. I would suggest explaining things to the teacher and asking him/her to suggest time parameters for the whole class. They should be prepared to do this as your child won't be the only one to struggle with homework. They can say "you must spend at least x minutes but no longer than y minutes on this homework" you should ask your parents to sign to say you have worked for this amount of time. Are you able to email the teacher so you don't have to communicate by note via your dc, if there are any further issues?

Godd luck!

Speaking as a teacher I think there really shouldn't be a problem with this. I would ask to speak to the head and ask for it to be dropped for the time being until your ds is more able to cope with it. Making reasonable adaptations for children with SEN should include dropping homework. This has happened with some children where I work and it is not a problem. Or certainly shouldn't be!

Also a teacher here. I don't do my DS' homework.

He'd never do it by himself without a great deal of conflict. And I choose not to have conflict

Any homework given in would have to be completed by me.

I can already do the reading, writing and maths thing so no, we don't do homework and no one has ever had the balls to ask for any from us either.

cansu is right - according to the inclusion stuff adaptations acan be made and homework dropped until such time as it can be picked up again.

I agree with Spinkle and cansu. Dd has ADD (not medicated atm), and homework has been a cause of great distress over the years. HT and SENCO agree that that makes home learning a futile experience and has said not to do it. Goes against everything I believe in, but tbh, we can live without the stress, so we're now just concentrating on reading and spellings and that really is enough for dd. Not sure how that will work in secondary next year though.