Can I ask school not to send any more homework ? Heeelllllpppp :-(

[Ineedmorepatience]

I have had it with homework. Having emailed the HT this morning to explain why Dd3 hadnt done her literacy homework, as we have arranged. The flippin teacher who set the flippin stupid homework in the first place tried to keep Dd3 in at lunchtime to do it.

Apart from the fact that there is no way she could have completed it in one lunchtime, I thought I had an agreement with said HT that she was having a break from school in the holidays!!

And now she is even more stressed because she hasnt done the 8 pages of maths that was sent home as well, I only emailed about the literacy because I didnt even know about the maths.

So am I allowed to request that no more homework comes home?? I am not bothered about whether it makes me unpopular, we are way beyond that!!

Thanks, zzzzz Thats what I thought. I have tried to do the I tell her the answers thing but nothing is working at the moment.

In a way todays upset has benefitted us because she did flatly refused to attend the lunchtime detention homework club and took herself off to the SENCO to tell her she wasnt going to do the homework!! But why should she have to get so upset

I am right at the end of my tether with the yr 6 staff and I did raise my concerns about their level of competence and understanding of Asd back in September so I think I have tolerated their crap for long enough!!

Yep Polter crap with a capital C here

It is a shame because they should know the kids so well by now and it should be easy to meet their needs.

Here is the email sitting in my drafts until I have calmed down enough to decide whether it is a sensible thing to do, it is a reply to an email he sent me this morning to tell me Dd3 was "Fine" :

Dear Mr HT
Hmm, well there may have been no issues during the morning but by lunchtime Dd3 was upset enough to actually finally go and find SENCO to ask for help!!
While I am obviously ecstatic that she has done this, it was homework once again that triggered her to be so upset!! :-(
I am wondering if I would be unreasonable to request that no more homework is sent home from school for Dd3. I don't think it has any educational value as she can't transfer the skills from school to home and we end up virtually doing it for her anyway. The stress it causes all of us including us, you, Mrs xx and Mr xx just doesn't seem worth it.
Also it would save me having to email you so frequently to problem solve homework issues!! Obviously I will be guided by you and if you think this is a bad idea I will give it some more thought.
Regards
Ineedmorepatience

Poor DD3 It should be so obvious what the right thing to do is.

Your email is very reasonable for someone who needs to calm down. I wouldn't "wonder if it is unreasonable to request", I would just "request". Actually until I had calmed down I would probably say "do not"

@that bilberry

It is a shame because I do really like the HT but he so needs to grow a pair and stand up to these 2 teachers!!

This has been rumbling around for all of yr 5 and all of the last term and a half in yr 6 so I think I have given them all plenty of opportunity to sort it out!!

Thanks polter I might swap my draft for yours

Actually I am seeing him tomorrow so I will tell him and follow it up with an email just so I have a paper trial!

Dear HT,

As a reasonable adjust ant for dd's disability and the anxiety it causes, I am requesting no further homework is set for the rest of the year.

If you are able to accommodate this request I woukd appreciate it if you woukd make this known to X.

I look forward to your reply. You can contact me on xxxxxx if you have any concerns or queries regarding this.

Ta muchly.

Then if any homework ever comes home, you do it, but with wrong answers.

I am loving ta muchly star its hilarious

Thanks again guys Dd3 was so stressed and upset this morning that I havent sent her

As soon as I said she didnt have to go her mood lifted and she is now happily looking through her atlas

The 'ta muchly' should swing it IMO!! Year 6 is only about the SATS, and very little actual learning happens, that is why so much homework is appearing. The pressure on the children will increase dramatically after the Easter holidays. If it is like DS's school you will find that after the SATS there will be very little real work done. Lots of craft days and drama workshops. DS spent the last half term at primary doing not a lot and got more frustrated as time went on. I remember they didn't do maths for over three weeks at one point!!
The first half term at secondary is spent getting the new Year 7's back in work mode, having been allowed to slack off since the end of May.

DS1 has done precisely 2 pieces of homework, this term. The first he was happy to do, the second he sabotaged after putting in a hour's work. It's not like he did any in year 4, either. School know that I'm not willing to put him, us and DS2 through that much stress, when we already have enough to deal with.

This academic year, not term!

My son refuses to do homework! As soon as I mention the word he starts shouting/throws his book/refuses to do it. I try everything. Last night it was something quite simple, find an object, what's it made of and how would you describe it. So we found the objects, great start :-) when it came to writing, total melt down, shouting at me, refusing to do it. So I wrote in the book for him.

The teacher seems to accept this is the way the home work is. and if he does complete a piece, (i think 1 since sept) he gets praised ALOT....

Hope you get it sorted. xx

Update!!

I emailed HT to say Dd3 wasnt coming in and he emailed me back about 3 hours later to say that a decision had been made yesterday afternoon after school to not send any more homework home with Dd3!!

I saw him this afternoon and said ta muchly but could he have emailed/phoned yesterday afternoon when the decision was made so I could have told Dd3 and maybe not had to go through all the trauma last night and this morning and avoided another day of absence due to anxiety !!

We have an agreement with ds1s teacher that if he's getting stressed about homework it's just to be left. It was her suggestion actually as she was very upset when I mentioned the daily homework meltdown to her. Ds1 knows he doesn't have to do it and bizarrely him knowing that has completely eradicated the homework stress and we've rarely if ever had to send him in without it. For him it seems to have been the pressure of knowing it had to be done rather than the actual work.

It's worth having a chat with the class teacher and explaining in detail what your afternoons are like due to the homework stress, often it just hasn't occurred to them what we deal with and I've found most teachers are willing to compromise when it's explained to them in clear terms exactly how badly homework can affect sn kids.

X post... Great result!

Oh well done!!!

Thanks Dd3 was much happier going to bed so fingers crossed for the morning

Thanks Dd3 was much happier going to bed so fingers crossed for the morning

Oops