I hate homework!

[ryanlaur]

Originally Posted by littlelish0544

It amazes me, how without any homework being set at all, or at least not being set until secondary school years ago, how we ever managed to produce adults with any capability to become doctors, dentists, engineers, business owners, police... oh, and teachers (etc-insert any profession-including running a house managing a household budget, bringing up children instead of leaving them to be raised by wolves!) As for the older generation, like my parents, who left school at 14, its a wonder they were anything over the level of cavemen... its so silly. Let them be children for goodness sake, or if the powers that be insist the amount of homework is really required now to turn out well rounded adults to go into the world, then maybe the school day/ terms need a massive overhaul? But this would undoubtedly cost money and involve extra staff to support/ teach so that's unlikely... im not saying that parental involvement and support for school work isnt a good idea, but it does seem to be too much too young these days

See more...

Totally agree! Additionally, is it any wonder we have stressed out children, when we are asking them to work in school and then go home and do yet more school work! Parents should also be able to spend evenings/weekends doing fun things with their children and not be under any pressure/feeling stressed in order to assist with homework.

The earliest homework should be introduced is at high school where children are more mature than at primary school. Childhood goes so quickly that we should just let children be children.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by DisneyHoneymoon

DD is in year 2 and brings homework home every Friday. I feel like I am very patient with her when it comes to anything other than homework. I always end up frustrated, because DD acts like she has never heard of what is being asked of her in the homework. I have brought this up with her teacher and she showed me the work she did in class, that was practically identical...
It's come to the point where she does her homework with her Dad instead, because I dread it so much and he just tells her how to do it and that's that.
I want to help her, but I am worried the way I explain it is different to how she learnt it in school and I end up confusing her, but she can't tell me how she learnt it in school, which frustrates me.
Just needed to vent

See more...

I am going to be controversial.

Its not your homework. Why don’t you just leave her to do her homework.

I do not remember on any occasion asking or getting help from my parents with homework. Nor did they ever even check I had done it (and I did always have it and hadn’t always done it but that was for me to work out the pros and cons).

[princess allie]

I hate homework too. It quite often ends of in frustration and occasionally ends with my son in tears. I don't believe it helps at all. Over half term, his homework was to produce something to do with Space. Painting, model, cake etc., Those are the homework I hate the most. Have to nag and nag to get him to do it and then myself or DH has to spend ages doing it with him. Not to mention how much it all costs in materials. Then, when they take it in to school, you see some truly fabulous pieces of work, quite obviously produced be the parents. Really, what is the point of it all?

[littlelish0544]

Originally Posted by Bridgetx

I am going to be controversial.

Its not your homework. Why don’t you just leave her to do her homework.

I do not remember on any occasion asking or getting help from my parents with homework. Nor did they ever even check I had done it (and I did always have it and hadn’t always done it but that was for me to work out the pros and cons).

See more...

Were you set homework at primary school age though? I think that is more the point here. I don't think your being controversial, I totally see your point for secondary school kids, they are old enough to, and need to start to, take responsibility for themselves and if they dont, the schools issue consequences of detention etc. But at primary level, the children are too young to be expected to get on with it themselves, you run a risk of them falling behind the others, and I expect its not just the schools in my family that have special meetings and letters to parents about how to tutor ( for want of a better word) the children with thier homework, so parental support is expected?

[DisneyHoneymoon]

I'm so glad we're not the only ones frustrated with the homework. But I agree that it's a very unnecessary frustration at the end of our week.
We too have been given SATs worksheets, but she seems to have already done them all in school and just got copies to take home for practice, as she does them in no time and independently. This makes a nice change, as her baffled looks at her homework book had me worried, that she was falling behind even though her teacher assured me she is on track.
Maybe the SATs worksheets are in the same format as the ones she does in school, so she recognises them more than the homework ones?
Maths homework is definitely an issue, but English is also a tough one for us.
Last week she needed to put words in tables of nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs. We worked through it together, but it ended in tears, when she needed help with every single word. Turns out she learnt songs in school to remember what they all are...

[novocastrian]

we get our daughter to do her homework (under sufferance) then we, usually me to be fair, checks it over

easy in primary but now in Y8 so i need to learn German or chemistry (last did this in 1986) to check it over

takes ages

agree on some of the methods they are taught these days... seem very long winded..

[Island mamma]

I hated the " creative" homework the most because we always ended up with kids in a class of competitive mummies. Their "kids" always produced stuff that was clearly way beyond the scope of their age and the parents had obviously done it. My son once went to school with his own effort at one of those pieces and said " sorry my homework looks so rubbish beside everybody else's but I had to do it myself because my Dad was making the dinner and my Mum was away saving lives". The teacher laughed and gave him 10 house points.

[danisleigh]

Originally Posted by Bridgetx

I am going to be controversial.

Its not your homework. Why don’t you just leave her to do her homework.

I do not remember on any occasion asking or getting help from my parents with homework. Nor did they ever even check I had done it (and I did always have it and hadn’t always done it but that was for me to work out the pros and cons).

See more...

This is how I was with DS. I would ask at primary school if he had homework do check his bag but I would let him get on and do it... I would rather it was wrong but his own work!
Once they had an art project which ds had loads of fun with but on the day they took the projects in you could see that pretty much every one had been done by a parent! The one that won could never in a million years been done by a child and I remember having to explain to my son that at least his was his own work and how much fun he had doing it but I can't believe that most parents would rather do the work for them and have them "win".
If the homework doesn't make sense to your child then I would be speaking to the teacher rather than getting frustrated trying to help them.

[holidaysaver75]

My kids won’t let me help them with their homework, especially English, and I’m an English teacher! In the end, we do sit them down and make them work through things methodically as, most of the time, they have been taught how to do it, but can’t be bothered to remember! We never do it for them, but we do make them sit and think it through properly.

Personally, I don’t agree with homework for the sake of it, but I do think that the curriculum is so full now that there are times (especially as they get older) when teachers have to spend so much time delivering content that pupils have to do more outside the classroom or they’ll never have chance to consolidate their learning. But that’s more to do with the fact that the curriculum is a political football and that a lot of politicians and civil servants who’ve never set foot in a classroom think they know better than those people who work with kids everyday. Glad to get that off my chest; my tub is properly thumped

[liz-paul]

In my kids primary school the teachers told me (and I assumed it was a national policy but don't know) that homework should only be a review of things done in class. They should never get a homework that is a totally new subject etc.

I was also told that if your child is taking longer than the recommended time then stop after the allotted, write a note to explain and don't make them keep going. My oldest usually wouldn't let me do this though as he didn't like to hand in incomplete work.

I hate homework and really disagree with it being given out in primary school. I tried to get my primary school to change their policy but some parents said there wasn't enough homework! The only thing I would like to see home is reading and the occasional worthwhile thing. My children are both academic high achievers (I'm not trying to brag) and they have regularly ended up in tears or having a row with me over homework because they are tired and have already had a long day in school. I would like them to be able to come home and relax or do their extra curricular activities without stress.

I used to be achildminder and none of the kids I had ever liked homework. It just seems to cause problems and make family life harder.