we never got homework at primary school and when i got to highschool I used to brush it off night after night, i honestly dont know how i made it through lol - just crammed b4 the exams i think, I would'nt have made it thru the ncea system they have now thats for sure.
its really sad that some children dont have anyone at home to be interested in their homework with them BUT I think when you're thinking for a class you also think about the children that do and are motivated to do work.
we never dont bake or dont look up interesting things or go exciting places bcos of homework - but it is something we MAKE sure we make time for.

Yep. I don't think that you need to start creating good habits in early primary, intermediate is plenty enough.

Yep that ...

Ill stop excusing homework when a/they can read, understand, and do it themselves

We consoldate learning in MANY ways ... Im forever asking what/how they think something happens ... or I answer questions that arise. We read together and discuss things that arise ... but I dont need to read and discuss platapus just because this is the reader they have for the night - and they arent doing anything to do with them at all in class

I think encouraging kids to read, and ensuring reluctant readers are given books that interest them is really important and working on things like spelling or whatever is probably good too... but if there is too much parental involvement required, especially if the child can't do what is asked then I don't see the point.

I am happy to enable homework to be done - provide a space for it, do a visit to the library or set up a computer for an age appropriate internet search but I am not going to 'do' the homework.

I don't see the point of doing homework which is going to stress out the child and/or the parent. When the child is old enough to do the homework without needing a parent on hand then it should be encouraged more. Doing homework with 3 children who all needed listening to and supervision was taking literally hours a day! So I stopped and the kids did what they wanted/could. They are all great readers and read for pleasure. We do maths and spelling games in the car. Works for us.

Last year DD would get spelling on random days, she had a homework sheet she had to do, it was usually Family of Facts, maybe a crossword, and some grammar questions. I never pushed her to do it, I wanted her to do it, not have to make her do it. By term 2 she hardly did it.

I'm dreading this year, she has the DP as her teacher, and he's a tough nut.. I like the idea of going in and telling him what I think of homework... not sure he'll be very receptive to that.. worth a shot.

Tell me about it. My older ds had his first research assignment last year, and he had a bad case of 'if its on the internet, it must be true.' Honestly, I tried to get him 'researching' properly (we have a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica here) and how to write a bibliography etc, but not sure how successful I was.

And I am anti homework for primary school, too. My kids seem to be doing alright without it.

They do have reading logs (the younger ones do anyway) but otherwise, we engage in learning at home, and share with the teacher about what is happening (eg: trying out a science experiment at home, and emailing pics to the teacher and having ds talk to her the next day about it.)

I ended up teaching DD the same way I used to teach year 5s - give them a big piece of paper, and a bunch of post-its. Only important stuff goes on the post-it then they can sort it into groups of things that are similar. Plus you have to find it on 2 websites (or an encyclopaedia and a website) and there has to be an author and a date! Mean mummy but it worked!

We just revised how homework will be done at school - more activity based (so encouraging families to play games, write shopping lists and add up costs, cooking/weighing, and heaps others) Better than boring old worksheets!

I guess if families aren't doing that stuff already, it could be good but it's high on my dread list with DDs homework this year, those things are family life and parenting and I don't like school even suggesting what we should do in family life. I guess it's in how it's presented though, and whether there is compulsion.

I guess I'll find out next week what her homework consists of.

I'm so mean that I'd only let my kids do it at the library (no computers).



If I had to pick between them I would want worksheets. What we do during 'normal family time' is our business and I don't wish to have my afternoon activities or interaction with my children 'scripted' by teachers or schools. JMO.

I think that in a way its a good idea, if its stuff that is either not done at all with kids then its a good chance for kids to be involved or its already done then its easy enough BUT in some cases, like on a a daily basis or even a weekly one, as much as I'd love to be able to do that stuff with my school aged child after school, it would be sometimes near impossible... like for example baking... if I bake, I bake when there is the best time available... often that will be when my kids are out or asleep so I have maybe one child to bake with and not almost four IYKWIM... as much as I love doing stuff with my kids, sometimes I don't WANT to have three (or four) children involved in a process that takes me 10 minutes but would take us over half an hour not including cooking time. Because it wouldn't just be the school aged kid who'd want to do it. It'd also include the preschooler and toddler and the baby needing attention because its arsenic hour and we eat at 5pm anyway and the dinner is usually prepared earlier so only last minute things have to be done...

Baking for fun is done on holidays and weekends (to include the school aged child) or with children at home during the day who want to do it. And my school aged child tends to disappear during the process only to return at the licking the bowl stage anyway

Something like a shopping list would be okay, that's something I do sometimes do with the kids, we write it together.

Worksheets, providing I didn't have to do them with the child, as in sit down and prompt every single thing, would be okay I guess. And provided there was a point. Just to say that homework is provided I'd rather they had to do something outside that involved running around than sitting down completing a worksheet.

I guess the challenge is, it depends so much on what family life is like. Some kids get little opportunity to engage with their parents or whatever that the 1:1 time with homework might be really valuable time OR could impinge on what little time they have together. Some kids have done and get the chance to do that stuff regardless of what is suggested by a school. They might have sports or groups that are important to the family, they might have after school care to attend which might do homework or might not. Other children might have older siblings so they join in the gang and everyone does homework together. Others, like my DS, have younger siblings who are at a different stage so doing the homework has to be juggled with the preschooler, toddler and baby.

Of course that has been our choice to do it that way but for Years 1-3 I think reading is enough. From Years 4 onwards I could see worksheets and simple projects that require supervision and the occasional help from a parent to be appropriate but really simple and taking no more than maybe 20-30 minutes. From intermediate I'd expect them to have developed the the skills at school (like how to look up a book in the library, how to do a computer search, how to read something and then rewrite it in your own words) and to follow that up with a home based project that is relevant to that, again with parental support but not done by the parent and from high school they should be able to do it as a given. I don't know how that idea fits in with the curriculum as it stands, I've not looked past the first few years. I know that kids are meant to be able to retell a story which is really all research is in a way.

I think once high school arrives, particularly if children are wanting to or expecting to attend higher education then being responsible for your own learning is essential. The kids I've seen that have bombed at university have often had a lot of external pressure and no internal motivation so when the teachers and the parents are no longer part of the equation is all goes to custard. So I do that that encouraging independence and motivation is really important. And I think that can come from teachers and parents but there has to be that just right challenge... not so hard they can't do it, but not so easy they can't be bothered.

I guess the thing is too, no matter how cool teachers make home work... it'll be done by those who want to. Those who choose not to will either not do it because they feel that their children need other experiences or involvement in other things is more important, parents have made an informed choice or it will not be done because the parents don't actually care about what their kid does at school, don't care about learning and can't be bothered at all and wouldn't do it no matter what it is... The first set of kids will do fine without homework the second set of kids won't but not because they haven't done the homework per se but because the parents don't care about the education.

And then there is probably another group of kids whose parents actually can't help them because their own literacy isn't good enough, they don't have access to a reliable and functional computer that can do the work and they are a bit lost in the process. They're the parents who could benefit from help so their children could learn but how you do that I have no idea. So the kids don't do the work because they don't have sufficient support but not because the parents don't care but because they can't help.

What a ramble...

Totally agree KM (not about it being a ramble though!)

Luckily homework like that is optional and the principal is not keen on any children being punished for not doing it! That was my argument too.... its the kids who don't have the support who end up being punished (with silly homework club and stuff)

One part I do like was homework included (for year 3 and up) visiting the library, belonging to things like local sport clubs or St John etc. Things that a lot of our kids do anyway