Schools allocating "family" homework

On the subject of more affluent parents hiring or buying costumes for their children, we used to have a halloween "dress up" night at the library I managed. One of the staff would read out ghost stories (not too scarry) and we had a series of suitable books on hand for the kids to borrow. There were prizes for the best boy and girl but we never chose ones that were obviously hired or custom bought. We chose the home made outfits that had some thought put into them. All the kids got a small token gift just for participating.

biglouis
We thought the home made ones are a good strategy for rewards, until a dad tells you that they’re a single parent, they work full time, and they don’t have the skills or the time to make costumes and we are discriminating against children with parents in the same position.
I’d rather give costumes a miss.

I never did any ordinary homework with my children, apart from tables and spellings in primary school.

Nor was I prescriptive about when it was done - as long as it was done, and it was. DD is an owl to my lark and she did her homework late at night when I was in bed and asleep.

The thing is, we're told that all the research shows that parental involvement in their children's education is a good indicator of children's successful educational attainment.
That doesn't mean that parents should do the homework, but could be interested and talk about it.
Arty-crafty projects can be too time-consuming. Perhaps schools should suggest a maximum time to be spent.

It's not just single dads who don't have skills, time or inclination to spend time and money making something for one class, or one day for one child at school. Lots of people are busy, or don't see the value in dressing up for the sake of it.

Helping with reading, spelling, sums and so on is something that I'm sure most parents are willing and able to do, as is pointing children in the direction of resources to help with other topics, but it's not reasonable to put pressure on for things like costumes, IMO.

All very well if the parents have an aptitude, interest or give a flying fig about their children's homework projects.

I do remember one particular class swot having a mother who could make any style of dressing up costume at a moments notice and a dad who could muster up a functioning model overnight - I am sure there was one in every school.

Absolutely agree Doodledog, I'm thinking earlier years, reading, spelling, tines tables, sums, is where the emphasis should be for parental input, not time consuming, arbitrary projects that children don't have the wherewithal to do independently. I think parents are far more time poor than they have ever been, the SAHM being fairly rare, I can understand their annoyance of having to spend time consuming supervision or their own work even on projects of dubious value, often a source of arguments which should be undertaken in lessons. Often this type of homework involves nagging on the parents' part, all in all counter productive.

Doodledog

It's not just single dads who don't have skills, time or inclination to spend time and money making something for one class, or one day for one child at school. Lots of people are busy, or don't see the value in dressing up for the sake of it.

Helping with reading, spelling, sums and so on is something that I'm sure most parents are willing and able to do, as is pointing children in the direction of resources to help with other topics, but it's not reasonable to put pressure on for things like costumes, IMO.

Couldn't agree more.

Helping with reading, spelling, arithmetic, etc can all be done at the kitchen table whilst the parent is getting on with cooking, washing, or whatever.

But costumes / dressing-up, sometimes at fairly short notice, in the modern world of work which most parents are involved in... no, it's about time this was binned.

Harassed parents working full time with more than one child - it's no longer practical.

Astitchintime

All very well if the parents have an aptitude, interest or give a flying fig about their children's homework projects.

I do remember one particular class swot having a mother who could make any style of dressing up costume at a moments notice and a dad who could muster up a functioning model overnight - I am sure there was one in every school.

I think the above is most unkind, dismissing a child and their parents just because they had skills you didn't.

My DGC who are both on a gifted and able programme, have an aunt who could 'run up any costume they wanted at a moments notice', although their DF coudn't run up a model if he tried, but their grandfather can.

Are they and other families like them to be dismissed in such a disparaging way?

Doodledog

It's not just single dads who don't have skills, time or inclination to spend time and money making something for one class, or one day for one child at school. Lots of people are busy, or don't see the value in dressing up for the sake of it.

Helping with reading, spelling, sums and so on is something that I'm sure most parents are willing and able to do, as is pointing children in the direction of resources to help with other topics, but it's not reasonable to put pressure on for things like costumes, IMO.

Couldn't agree more. Reading, spelling, sums, verses are enough, in my opinion. The other stuff is a waste of time, to me.

I can make a costume quickly, efficiently. My husband can make a working model of most anything. However, I don't believe we or our daughters should have to do such. It's school, not a party venue for hire.

Casting my mind back to when my children were young, the most important thing at that stage of their life for me was to try and imbue them with a love of reading. When they were really small, once I got them to bed, I sat on it and read to them for anything up to 40 minutes, the younger one would come into the older one's bedroom and get into bed with him whilst I read them Roald Dahl's "The Minpins" that was their favourite, it sticks in my mind, but there were many other books they loved, before Harry Potter came along when they were in junior school and took over their desire to consume those. When my husband came in from work, he'd take over the story whilst I got the dinner going. Neither of us particularly gave a fig about creating a model at a teacher's request, and I was and remained useless with a needle and thread. Yes some people have special creative talents, as to model making sewing, mine are in other areas. I recall they both came home with little sampler type nonsense things they were expected to finish, I just sent them back unfinished. I'm probably going to get flack for this but my thoughts were "I don't care if you take after me and are also useless with sewing, unless you are going to do something relating to textiles as a career, it won't matter one iota this time could be better spent on maths, that would be more of a help" neither of them were particularly strong at that, subject had to have coaching for their GCSEs. I don't begrudge people who have such talents, good for them, but it really isn't up to the parent to have to step up to the plate with last minute requests to make the Taj Mahal or Tracey Island out of cereal boxes and yogurt cartons unless the child has the wherewithal to do it themselves, it should be done in the classroom. We both had time constraints with work. Now most mothers work full time, in any case there are umpteen other variables that come into play to preclude these tasks being done at home, chaotic family life, lack of communication, deprivation, poor language skills within the home, not being able to provide the materials. Keep it for the classroom.

When I was a school child in the 1940's and early 50's, both my parents worked full time on shift work in a carpet mill. My dad helped me with my homework and I remember one of our homework lessons was learn to tell the time. My dad made a clock out of cardboard and taught me.

We did the same with our children.

I also think that it's very wasteful to make outfits to be worn once. I could knit Christmas jumpers, for instance, but it's not going to happen, any more than I would buy Christmas pyjamas for children who will have grown out of them by next year.

My grandson is also on the "gifted and able" programme.
He still didn't much appreciate going to school as a nearly 6ft Where's Wally, at almost 12.

Nor does he desrve to be described as a swot. Especially if he just happened to have close relations who could do needlework and make models.

It is clear that family involvement in education is important, but I do not think it needs to be in the form of set homework from school. TBH, I think school should keep their nose out of family life (unless there is a child protection concern).

Families who take an interest in their children's education will do so regardless of formal set work; families who don't will continue not to, and their child's deprivation will be more obvious to the class when the homework is discussed.

School can help these children by making sure that the education on offer in school is good and tailored to their needs.

At our school we were expected to do our Homework ourselves, including projects.
I dread to think what would have happened if our teachers suspected that our parents had helped us with any of it.

I remember the competition at the school gates when the reading books were taken out of the bags, and there would be discussion about how far on the child was in the book, and lots of,’ So and so is on the next book’ etc!
Our head of infants always said that the reading book went home so the child could ‘show off’ how well they were doing, and get praise from their parents.

My DD doesn't do any projects with her DD ....she just doesn't hand anything in and no one has said anything to date....she reads x 2 school books each night with youngest and 10 pages with eldest ( this is the expectation) ....then does 30 mins spellings with them both ( test every thursday) ...so thats more than an hour a night... and thats her lot ....IMO its more than enough

Daddima

I remember the competition at the school gates when the reading books were taken out of the bags, and there would be discussion about how far on the child was in the book, and lots of,’ So and so is on the next book’ etc!
Our head of infants always said that the reading book went home so the child could ‘show off’ how well they were doing, and get praise from their parents.

🤣🤣Reading book competition among some parents is yet another stage after early walking, talking and potty training.

Not a fan of homework but I’ve not encountered family homework. Daughter had spellings and timetables in primary and I would test her on her spellings. When she entered Y7 I would sit with her as she navigated the maths program, but now she’ll happily just sit and do it by herself although often we’ll watch something together whilst she does it and I’m on hand if something’s tricky. Thankfully that’s the only regular homework. And there’s reading but she just does that whenever. I wish I’d had a grown up take an interest in my homework.

Yeah, I’ve had to dive into those school projects with my kids a few times. It can definitely be a hassle juggling it with work and everything, but honestly, I do enjoy seeing them get into it and learn something new. Plus, it’s nice to spend some quality time with them, even if it’s just gluing things together or brainstorming ideas.

I well remember trying to help my youngest son with his Latin when he was 8 or 9 years old and him shouting at me “you went to a convent school so you must know”. I didn’t.

I can’t imagine after a full day at the office coming home and having to help with homework. Times have changed and most mums now work a full day. I worked from home so could help when asked to.

Both of my parents went to boarding school so parental involvement in studies didn't exist in their lives. My brother also went to boarding school so I only saw him on holidays. I always thought that parents shouldn't be forced to do school work. The teacher has enough hours each day borrowing our children and when we get our children back home, it should be our own time to spend with them as we please.

Oopsadaisy1

At our school we were expected to do our Homework ourselves, including projects.
I dread to think what would have happened if our teachers suspected that our parents had helped us with any of it.

Same! Our work would be disqualified if our parents helped. It was considered "cheating".