Schools allocating "family" homework

The school I went to did not require this and my parents wouldn't have had the time with 4 of us the, both working including some evenings. However I never needed supervision to make sure I did homework.

DS's school also didn't ask but we had to persuade on the homework front. We did a lot of play on making stuff when I was young.

Think it's a lovely idea in an ideal world but....

I am a bit torn on this, I like the idea of forcing parents to interact with their child as I see too many parents on their phones completely ignoring they children, how ever there are those that are genuinely too busy to have this added to their day.

When people go on about being too busy to do everything I would like to see their screen time, I’m not sure they realise how much time they waste.

Homework is a big bug bare with me I think of of the things they do at school are not as educational as they could be with my daughter telling me once pre COVID that my my grand daughter only had one hour a week in reading there is too much pressure put on families to do this and that at home when children need to get to get at a reasonable time and also if parents are co parenting and children are not at home the other parent doesn't class doing loads of homework with their child I strongly believe school work should be done at school I do remember trying to help out with all the homework schooling during it was one of the most stressful times ever with all the adults trying to decyfer all the different requests we had 3 different age groups to help each day we are not the trained teachers we are parents trying to teach common sense independence empathy time keeping personal hygiene saving caring compromise helpfulness conversation and in between that playing exercise environmental awareness family time visiting family chores etc and so many other things too many to name !!!

Sorry a few errors in that hope you get the gist

Not in my day (which shows my age). Nor do I remember it in my children's school days.

Help was given, but it was very peripheral. I helped my DD choose her O level Geography project, suggesting topics she was interested in and checking whether the sources she would need were readily available.

Oh, and I very incompetently made dancing costumes for her, until, at the age of 14, and by far the better needlewoman, she took over from me.

I recently made a Caribbean Island with my 9 year old granddaughter over two weekends. She had had the information for about 3 weeks by the time she handed it in. She was the first to do so! We had great fun and lots of laughs but as her parents don't believe in homework and don't help with it, it was me or no one! At least it was something I understood!

It's called Brain Build at my youngest granddaughter's Primary school. It usually follows a major project they have been studying. Just recently, after learning about the Romans, her class were asked to make something to reflect Roman way of life. She opted for a Roman urn (what's a Roman urn? About 1 denarius a day!) This meant a lot of newspapers, glue and paint, which her Mum was delighted to hand over to her Dad. When I see the results going in I often feel for those with parents who clearly haven't been able to help for various reasons and at the other end of the scale those parents who have produced some masterpiece where their child has not had a look in.

Nannyof4mummyof2

Homework is a big bug bare with me I think of of the things they do at school are not as educational as they could be with my daughter telling me once pre COVID that my my grand daughter only had one hour a week in reading there is too much pressure put on families to do this and that at home when children need to get to get at a reasonable time and also if parents are co parenting and children are not at home the other parent doesn't class doing loads of homework with their child I strongly believe school work should be done at school I do remember trying to help out with all the homework schooling during it was one of the most stressful times ever with all the adults trying to decyfer all the different requests we had 3 different age groups to help each day we are not the trained teachers we are parents trying to teach common sense independence empathy time keeping personal hygiene saving caring compromise helpfulness conversation and in between that playing exercise environmental awareness family time visiting family chores etc and so many other things too many to name !!!

Agree.

Those parents - low paid often - expected to find extra hours of work when they are on zero hour contracts, trying to juggle work and family life, who just about manage to keep it all together... really, do they have the time for this? When the first thing they have to do when they get home from work, almost before they've taken off their coat, is to get dinner going for the family, then washing, clearing up, etc, etc...

Of course parents should interact with their children but if you have more than one, varying ages, it just isn't possible to do what the schools are asking.

A friend's daughter is in this position. Screen time? Half the time she doesn't even know where her phone is apparently, she's too busy getting the children fed, washed, managing for her OH who has two jobs.

A well run, well-organised home... how many people actually live like this now?

I question the whole concept of homework TBH. Yes, I did it. But I was at a boarding-school where it was highly organised... we trudged from the dining-room back to the designated class-room to do our homework, with a teacher in charge. Then half an hour's recreation - and back to the dining room again for supper. Whilst other staff managed the washing, mending of clothes, ironing, clearing up, admin, blah, blah. Worked perfectly of course.

But home-life isn't like that.

I think it's unfair. When I allocated homework it had to be something the child could complete independently, either a build on for work done that day or in preparation for the next lesson.
It was pretty obvious which parents helped, and which ones didn't bother checking.
I once helped my son build a model water wheel after a visit to a local mill. It took us all night but he presented it with great pride to each teacher who just put it on one side and gave no acknowledgement.
My own grandchildren come home with all sorts of crazy projects they have to return to school with materials provided by their hard-working and often hard-up parents.
I think it's ridiculous, and so do they- but they make an effort due to the playground pressure.

I agree in principle with both arguments. Parents should take an interest in their children's education, without taking over and actually doing ithe task themselves. At the same time, some of these projects now seem an imposition for busy families who are balancing multiple jobs and commitments.

I dont remember my parents ever helping me with homework. When I was revising for GCE I was told to "get in the kitchen and help your mother".

My grandmother got a lot of pleasure in helping me make various costumes that I needed for school. Our secondary school used to stage major carnivals and each class had to do something for it. One year we leared the Maypole dance. Another we were to apear as gypsies (that would not be allowed nowadays and would be considered racist). Then in my final year I was Mary in the nativity play. Nowadays th rich parents just buy costumes on Amazon and the kids in home made costumes dont win the prizes.

My grandmother used to look in her stock of fabrics and come up with all kinds of beautiful vintage garments to be adapted or cut up. Looking up projects for how to dress as "Maid Marian" and so on awoke my interest in period costume and visits to the library. This is definitely how my lifelong passion for antiques began.

I cant say I would have been willing to take so much time had I ever been a parent. But I would certainly have been able to help with the more academic and crafty type homesork.

Surely the point of homework is for the teacher to be able to assess how much of the lesson the child has understood? For instance, After a couple of lessons on quadratic equations - ask the class to answer questions 17 - 21 on page 3 of the text book. The work can then be marked and any problems that come to light addressed?
If Dad's done it for the child - it defeats the object.
It seems things are different now if parents are expected to help!
Mind you, my grandkids sometimes tell me the homework hasn't been marked, and it's disappointing for them not to have their efforts recognised (especially Dad).
I well remember the feeling of dread when "see me" was scrawled at the bottom of the page in red ink, but it did mean I got help when I was struggling.

I don’t recall my children being given projects like that, but as parents we were expected to listen to reading and help them learn spellings. Fair enough.
As I child I remember my mum helping me with a project for which she saved magazines etc for me to cut out. I won a prize for a scrap book about the Queen’s royal tour to Nigeria, I think it was. . I don’t think everyone had the same topic. I recall the support my mum gave me, but I did the work. My mum also tested me in my French and Latin vocabulary, even though she had no knowledge of either!
I don’t think it is right that work should be given which the child cannot complete themselves. It becomes a reflection of the parents in terms of time and/ or money.

Haven’t a good many parents always helped? Among others I well remember staying up until midnight, colouring in a blasted woodpecker for a DD’s ‘Birds’ project that was due in the next day!

And in the little local library where I used to work, we could always tell what project the local primary children had been given, since the first gimlet-eyed mothers would be in, trying to clear every last book on the Tudors or Vikings or whatever it was, off the shelves.
We had to start limiting them to 3, or they’d honestly grab 8, all saying much the same - presumably to prevent anyone else having them.
Don’t anyone tell me those mothers (it always was the mothers) weren’t directing and helping a good deal with those projects!

Ah, brings back memories of messy glue and cereal boxes with mine until pritt sticks came along, quick phone calls to other parents or friends for spare straws and other bits to swap. My two were always last minute, as they were for cookery ingredients, stuck at 10pm for a pepper as a single parent was no fun!

The best thing parents can do to help their children is talk to them. Talk to them as much as possible, about anything or nothing and do it from birth.

It doesn't cost a penny so every parent can afford to do it.

The rest is froth on the pot.

I don’t remember my children bringing any big projects home
I remember doing spelling, sums and reading with them etc and them doing projects like pictures, drawings, cuttings on a certain subject but I don’t recall anything bigger And we never had world book day or any other days that required costumes
WBD had arrived by the grandkids schooldays but I still don’t recall any major home projects, they did them at school.

I think it’s a cheek to expect parents to do more than hear them read, spellings and sums in other words take an interest and help them if needed in the three Rs however the grandkids maths methods seemed to have changed enormously since I was at school

I think it's a damn cheek.
These days schools seem to think they take priority over anything else.

Nannyof4mummyof2

Homework is a big bug bare with me I think of of the things they do at school are not as educational as they could be with my daughter telling me once pre COVID that my my grand daughter only had one hour a week in reading there is too much pressure put on families to do this and that at home when children need to get to get at a reasonable time and also if parents are co parenting and children are not at home the other parent doesn't class doing loads of homework with their child I strongly believe school work should be done at school I do remember trying to help out with all the homework schooling during it was one of the most stressful times ever with all the adults trying to decyfer all the different requests we had 3 different age groups to help each day we are not the trained teachers we are parents trying to teach common sense independence empathy time keeping personal hygiene saving caring compromise helpfulness conversation and in between that playing exercise environmental awareness family time visiting family chores etc and so many other things too many to name !!!

I don't mind doing a bit of practice readiding for homework but think the real "work" should be done in school. I had four children and they had to do their own work at home, though I know that a lot of parents used to do their projects for them.

M0nica

The best thing parents can do to help their children is talk to them. Talk to them as much as possible, about anything or nothing and do it from birth.

It doesn't cost a penny so every parent can afford to do it.

The rest is froth on the pot.

The best thing parents can do to help their children is talk to them. Talk to them as much as possible, about anything or nothing and do it from birth.

Absolutely. And you can do that as a parent even if you're busy at the stove or the sink, or wherever.

10 / 10 Excellent work!

Homework isn't about talking to your children these days.

It is often complicated projects, one of my grandson's to do, over the Christmas holiday was to use a brick, a mango, and lord knows what else...

Well to be quite honest your opening post did resonate with me somewhat BigLouis, I do have memories of my children having projects where the parents' input was an expectation. We were both happy to supervise homework, listen to reading or give some help where required, but some of the tasks were really not a lot of help to the child and certainly not to me, I'd gone back to work part time by the time mine were both in school. I have memories of making a guitar out of cereal boxes and elastic bands, for my then 5 year old "has to be in by tomorrow" was the request, and me thinking "I'm sorely tempted to write I don't have the time to faff about with cardboard and glue at short notice, this is something that could be done in the classroom" So the next day he goes into school with a friggin' guitar that I'd made as did all the other classmates with their parents' handy work although mine was very good, I surprised myself in the end but what does it teach them On a similar theme, I also remember being up in British Museum one weekend with a friend and our respective children when one of hers announced we have to make an Aztec mask to take in for Monday, her mother said "I'm just going to write in your homework diary, we have actually been to see the genuine thing and we've talked about them, but x won't be making the mask, we don't have time"

I think my mother was the one who told me, and I'm sure it's apocryphal of the teacher who marked the child's homework with the comment "Your mother's French has improved"

With my younger son he was pretty good right from very early days at getting on and doing whatever was required by himself when their class was instructed to compile and illustrate their own booklet on Native American culture, the differences between the various tribes and where in the US they emanated from,that greatly appealed to me, but he wouldn't let me near it I still remember doing a project myself on Montezuma and the history of chocolate at junior school, I think I actually enjoyed doing that sort of thing.

I recall a time when a delegation of us, mothers who went in to complain when a fairly detailed project was set over the Easter Holidays for I think 7 to 8 year olds. One mother who had several older children who'd already passed through that year's class and had knowledge of the bad feeling and arguments it produced announced she was going to see the form teacher to point out that too much onus fell on the parent, kids don't have the wherewithal at that age to work on this independently therefore it's incumbent on the parent to give quite a lot of help encroaching on family time. This particular task had been set in stone year on year, it didn't serve any real purpose at that age. Children can learn from different experiences at home as well. It was felt by the mothers, at age 7/8 setting some dry and stultifying project was counter productive.

Although, as mentioned up- thread, I think that maybe now parents don't interact as much as they did with children because of the screen time on the part of both parent and child.

I was happy to help with homework and listen to reading when required but hated being asked for input into making things or thinking of what to make, as I am useless at this and never saw the need for it.
My lack of ability to draw or create odd items has had no impact on my adult life. I can cook and sew. These skills are much more useful.

Although, as mentioned up- thread, I think that maybe now parents don't interact as much as they did with children because of the screen time on the part of both parent and child.
People used to say this (about others, obviously ) about the television, and probably before that the 'wireless'. What people do in their own homes is up to them, but how others know what that is is beyond me.

I don't think that parents should be expected to help with homework, as teachers need to know how much of the lesson children have understood, now how well their parents can answer. Also, now that a lot of work is continuously assessed, it can be a fine line between 'helping' and outright cheating. I have friends who checked over their 'children's' university essays, and well remember a student querying her mark because her dad was 'an expert' and told her it would get a good mark.

I agree that if homework is set then it should be marked. When my daughter was between middle and high schools they were set a project to do over the holidays. She is dyslexic, so found it difficult, but slogged away over it as best she could. She handed it in but never saw it again.

I don't know (or have forgotten) which school set the work, but it doesn't matter. If I had had a whole class handing me work (or even a few of them, as there was more than one feeder school) I would have made enquiries, and whether I was expecting it or not I would have marked it. Not to do so was so disrespectful of the staff - it was as though the children's time was worthless, and it damaged my daughter's trust in them.

Reading through this thread, so glad my own AC are now nearly 50 and 48, and youngest GC (of our five) is just doing her GCSE’s.

No desire then and now to do anything other than listening to their reading, and checking spelling tests.

It’s their life, not ours.