What is the matter? Homework rant!

[Oddoneout63]

3 DSs aged 13, 16, 18. None of then can reliably do homework and I have often had 3 emails in a matter of days from their various teachers, complaining that they haven't done work set. What IS the matter with them? I am always asking them / reminding them / nagging.

I have tried diaries, but they forget to write it in; online homework never ever works as the school is never consistent about making teachers actually use it. The last time I queried, the school's response was "oh we don't use that system any more". Well, thanks for letting me know!

Apart from actually doing their work for them, what the hell? I am about to start a f-t job after years of being a SAHM or working p-t, so am dreading leaving them to organise themselves!

Today, DS13 served a detention from last term for forgotten homework; DS18 didn't go to college as he said he had a sore leg, that turned out to be cramp, but he is hardly ever on time, even if I remind him to get up; DS16 was off sick today but I have just had an email reminding him of homework he should have done during h-t and he says he hasn't done!!

Bit of a rant, sorry, as I suspect there's not a lot I can actually do, apart from a few rockets up sensitive places??

It's the defeatist attitude that saddens me the most.

The "I don't care" "I can't" "I don't want to" and the ever popular attitude.

Detentions are like water off a ducks back. "Whatever.."

I say the same as OneMagnum
Do your best and give yourself options in life - don't let doors close just because you can't be arsed.

I'm not asking for brilliance just what l know he is capable of.

I just hope something clicks and he gets on with it.

We started to have problems here but we definitely have the rule h work before social media / computer games. They believed us when I took the x box remote to work and eldest charger! :-)
I think you have too, don't like too. But they take us serious now! X
Although dreading the GCSE'S build up/ revision!! X

I'm a secondary school teacher and mum to a dd currently in Y11. There are no easy answers, dd used to argue constantly with me, then say it was my fault she'd not done her work because we'd wasted the evening arguing. I backed off and left her to the consequences. I've never been contacted by her school and she now does work. A lot of it is done at school, the rest in front of the computer, interspersed with FaceTime, snapchat selfies etc etc. Internally it drives me nuts that she doesn't just focus, get it done, then socialise but she isn't me!

Ime, boys who don't work often think they can wing it last minute. At GCSE some certainly can but many don't achieve their potential, but, and this might be controversial, it isn't the end of the world:

We live in a world where education is delivered conveyor-belt style, SATS, GCSEs, A level/BTech,Uni but students don't develop linearly and some need to stop and get off. Screwing up exams can often be the wake up call they need, doing retakes while mates go on to further study isn't great but eventually they get there.

I currently teach a Y12 student who is genuinely the laziest I have ever met. Bright but not as bright as he believes, winged his GCSEs and is just beginning to realise his A levels are a different world. He's taking A level maths in a year, manageable with sustained effort but not with last minute cramming. He's currently going through the angry/defensive stage which I hope will morph into the 'I'll bloody well show them' (me & parents) stage. There is nothing any of us can do to change him, the drive HAS to be intrinsic. I've talked to him until I'm blue in the face about it, offered to help him plan a work strategy, given him a comic poster describing the '6 stages of procrastination'. Parents have removed electronics etc but that just makes him more stubborn!

Thank you Twink, that's really helped me this morning after another miserable evening last night trying to get DD to do homework (year 10). It really affects family life and i do think I should back off and let her face the consequences, but I'm finding it hard to do that. She's predicted As and A*s, but currently getting Ds and Es as she just has no interest whatsoever in school work. If she put as much effort into that as she does into her makeup, hair, youtube, facebook, insta, selfies, then she'd do extremely well.

I'm a retired physics teacher with 35 years experience. I set homework, of course - the school, and parents, expected it. And because I had set it, and the students had done it, I marked it - thoroughly, with comments. But to be honest, I don't know if it helped.

I used to tell my GCSE students that it was not possible to learn physics - they had to understand it. And, if they could do that, they would find there wasn't much to learn, anyway (I gave them a list - the whole syllabus on two sides of A4). I also told them that revision was cheating - they should make sure they understood as they went along. I got some bemused looks. But afterwards, I got comments to the effect "we didn't believe you, but actually..."

Anyway, I've never seen any properly-validated research that suggests homework to be effective. On the other hand:

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-homework-myth/201211/homework-unnecessary-evil

That was an interesting link (spot the bored, bedridden teacher here).

I loathe homework with a passion unless it actually serves a specific purpose rather than being set because there's a policy in place that must be adhered to. There is absolutely no point in me sending my A level students home with past papers to do (as expected by my College over the Easter holidays) because as soon as they hit a challenge, they google it and find worked solutions on the Student Room and/or consult the mark scheme rather than trying alternatives and developing resilience, then to add insult to injury, they expect me to mark it!

I had a system with A level past papers. They decided which ones they would do when, and how it would be marked. For some they downloaded the mark scheme and marked it themselves, coming to me if there was something they didn't get. Other papers we marked in class and some they wanted me to mark. (I'm an examiner so had marked the exact same paper when it was live.) But the important thing there was that they were in control - as they should be at that age.