Formally withdrawing child from homework

ska_lover

I know a very intelligent young lady, who, at secondary school, withdrew herself from one of her subjects classroom time entirely - with the head teachers consent. This young lady genuinely believed that the subject teacher was a buffoon and convinced her head teacher that she would have a better chance if she were to teach herself.

She is now in her second year at Oxford.

claire16c

koalamummy wrote: »

Unfortunately if you are one of the children with a more natural aptitude for a subject you tend to find that you spend a lot of time sitting bored beyond belief waiting for the rest of the group to catch up.

It adds up to an awful lot of time. M:(

Weren't you put in sets so everyone in your class was of a similar ability?

It sounds like your school was not very good if you had that much time spare. There is no way I could have ever got out say an English book to read or start painting a picture for art, in a maths class! Lol plus lots of subjects would require extra research on the Internet or practical stuff like art & textiles, it's not like you could just whip out a sewing machine during a chemistry lesson.

We always had work to fill the entire lesson, I mean the teacher would always have been talking for large parts of it too. It's not like a teacher would speak for 5 minutes & then leave us to it. They'd be demonstrating stuff etc

Poppy9 wrote: »

With mixed ability classes pupils often spend time waiting for slower pupils to finish work so some use it as time to start on their homework.

Also sometimes pupils have free lessons because the teacher isn't in and are told to "get on with some work".

When I was in college on day release years ago we would have lecture then we had to so some questions and I always finished way ahead so the lecturer would give me that week's homework to do.

If our teacher wasnt in - which was extremely rare we either had a supply teacher or would be told to work from a certain page in a textbook. And even if we had been given free time, I would estimate out of the 200odd school days a year we probably had maybe 5 lessons a year where a teacher would be ill, hardly enough to do an entire years homework in! Plus we didn't have mixed ability classes, we were set for everything apart from stuff like music, art & drama.

The only free time I ever had at school was a few free sessions we all used to get in the 6th form. These hours depended on your time table & mine very luckily worked out to be on a Monday morning so that was spent having a lie in, and the other was a Friday afternoon so that was spent going home early for the weekend lol! I think I had a couple in the middle of the day but 1 hour was enough to maybe do some German grammar or start an essay, but not enough time to do coursework etc And I probably spent a fair amount of time chatting with my friends in those too!

onlyroz

ska_lover wrote: »

I know a very intelligent young lady, who, at secondary school, withdrew herself from one of her subjects classroom time entirely - with the head teachers consent. This young lady genuinely believed that the subject teacher was a buffoon and convinced her head teacher that she would have a better chance if she were to teach herself.

She is now in her second year at Oxford.

Well I've done that myself - I didn't formally withdraw myself from the lessons but I decided to ignore the teacher and teach myself the subject instead. I did the same with poor university lecturers. In the approach to my GCSE and A Levels I also didn't attend the exam preparation lessons because I knew I'd be able to study more effectively at home. As far as the school knew I was off sick.

mrcow

Formally withdrawing a child from homework is giving them the wrong message. i.e. that they don't have to bother completing set work, or that set work is pointless.

If your daughter is struggling to keep up with her peers/workload, then you need to speak to her secondary school when she starts and they can alert teachers who can make individual allowances.

But withdrawing her from homework isn't doing her any favours at all.

What if the homework is revision homework for end of year tests/exams, GCSE mocks, GCSEs? You're suggesting she turns up to tests completely unprepared? And performs poorly for everything?
Or learning something specific that's been taught? You're suggesting that she doesn't need to do any learning in her own time?
Or doing some private preparation for an assessment? You're going to send her in completely unprepared when everyone else has it all covered?
Or completing an assessed piece of work? She's going to just not bother handing anything in?

Are you suggesting that she's just not going to bother?
How is that going to benefit anyone? Least of all, her.

She's just going to get even further behind and struggle year on year until she loses any confidence she did have.

Mojisola

milliebear00001 wrote: »

If a parent wrote to me asking that their child not be punished for not doing homework, then that would be that. However, it would mean them sitting twiddling their thumbs every Monday morning when we spend half an hour close marking each other's English homework task!

But if none of them did homework, you'd have an extra half hour teaching time every week.

mrcow wrote: »

What if the homework is revision homework for end of year tests/exams, GCSE mocks, GCSEs? You're suggesting she turns up to tests completely unprepared? And performs poorly for everything?

Or learning something specific that's been taught? You're suggesting that she doesn't need to do any learning in her own time?

Or doing some private preparation for an assessment? You're going to send her in completely unprepared when everyone else has it all covered?

This is why the personal work should be done in school. Whoever is supervising can see that the work is all the children's own work and who is struggling and who is getting it done in five minutes. That information will help the teachers support those who need it and offer more stimulating work to the high achievers.

Or completing an assessed piece of work? She's going to just not bother handing anything in?

Are you suggesting that she's just not going to bother?
How is that going to benefit anyone? Least of all, her.

She's just going to get even further behind and struggle year on year until she loses any confidence she did have.

If a child is struggling, the parents and school need to work together to help. She should be given work at an appropriate level so that she can do it within the expected time.

Forcing a child who is finding the work too difficult to spend hours in the evening ploughing through work that's beyond her with make her lose confidence in herself!

mrcow

Mojisola wrote: »

But if none of them did homework, you'd have an extra half hour teaching time every week.



If a child is struggling, the parents and school need to work together to help. She should be given work at an appropriate level so that she can do it within the expected time.

Forcing a child who is finding the work too difficult to spend hours in the evening ploughing through work that's beyond her with make her lose confidence in herself!

You're not listening.

This isn't about forcing everyone into the same box.

It's about the pros and cons of telling a child that they don't have to bother with ANY homework at all.

Do you not think that work is already differentiated by ability by teachers? Assessment preparation from a level 7 child looks a lot different from a level 3 child (both of which will be in the same class). Much of the time, it's already been differentiated. Sometimes, when it's research or prep for an assessment, there isn't enough time in class to get it done effectively. All you'll be doing is disadvantaging everyone.

Children need time at home/in their own time to complete tasks at their OWN pace.

We're not all robots who can complete the same things in the same time, on the same day and to our best standard you know. Good grief, if I had to complete everything I did within a set time and amongst 30 other people, I would have hated my school work.

Having time at home to get your head round what you're doing and in a comfortable environment in chunks small enough to suit me was invaluable.

Mojisola

mrcow wrote: »

It's about the pros and cons of telling a child that they don't have to bother with ANY homework at all.

I do think children should do individual work to show their understanding of work covered and their ability to plan and research information; I just don't think that it's necessary to do it at home.

Do you not think that work is already differentiated by ability by teachers? Assessment preparation from a level 7 child looks a lot different from a level 3 child (both of which will be in the same class). Much of the time, it's already been differentiated. Sometimes, when it's research or prep for an assessment, there isn't enough time in class to get it done effectively. All you'll be doing is disadvantaging everyone.

Having been a teacher, I do understand about pitching work at different levels but when children bring in work from home, there's no guarantee that it's their work.

All you'll be doing is disadvantaging everyone.

I don't understand how doing the work at school rather than at home disadvantages anyone. The children will all have an equal chance to show what they know - not what Mum or Dad knows.

Children need time at home/in their own time to complete tasks at their OWN pace.

We're not all robots who can complete the same things in the same time, on the same day and to our best standard you know. Good grief, if I had to complete everything I did within a set time and amongst 30 other people, I would have hated my school work.

Having time at home to get your head round what you're doing and in a comfortable environment in chunks small enough to suit me was invaluable.

You were lucky to have that comfortable environment to work in. There are many children who don't have that. If you had to go home to a cramped environment with several younger children charging around making a lot of noise, no table to work on, no books or computer at home, you might have felt differently.

Children who go to boarding school do their prep in a classroom situation and they usually manage alright.

SingleSue

Homework causes issues in this house too. Youngest HAS to research everything fully (his rules, not the school's), so a simple set task can take him hours before he even puts pen to paper. He simply cannot miss out the research, if he does, he then cannot do the homework. Even when he puts pen to paper, it then has to be absolutely perfect, again taking a huge amount of time.

Middle son can be the same, he once took 5 hours to do physics homework because he just couldn't leave a question unanswered...he did get an A* though (100%)

Eldest does his as and when, he doesn't have the same hang ups as his brothers and I used to do pretty much all of mine at school, registration was a very handy time as was always reading ahead of my peers (I would get bored in class and the homework was usually the next section...which I had already completed in class as I was ahead of everyone)

Mind you, back in those days, we didn't have coursework or portfolios to do.

bestpud

mrcow wrote: »

Formally withdrawing a child from homework is giving them the wrong message. i.e. that they don't have to bother completing set work, or that set work is pointless.

If your daughter is struggling to keep up with her peers/workload, then you need to speak to her secondary school when she starts and they can alert teachers who can make individual allowances.

But withdrawing her from homework isn't doing her any favours at all.

What if the homework is revision homework for end of year tests/exams, GCSE mocks, GCSEs? You're suggesting she turns up to tests completely unprepared? And performs poorly for everything?
Or learning something specific that's been taught? You're suggesting that she doesn't need to do any learning in her own time?
Or doing some private preparation for an assessment? You're going to send her in completely unprepared when everyone else has it all covered?
Or completing an assessed piece of work? She's going to just not bother handing anything in?

Are you suggesting that she's just not going to bother?
How is that going to benefit anyone? Least of all, her.

She's just going to get even further behind and struggle year on year until she loses any confidence she did have.

I always have and always will help her with school work.

Having home-educated, I am very aware of what makes her tick and how best to help her understand topics.

I have no intention whatsoever of withdrawing her from homework completely.

My question isn't really about my child.

As a teacher, what would you think if a child had gone away and come back with a clear understanding of the topic, or enough information to pass a test, but had not completed the actual homework that was set?

Imagine they hadn't completed a worksheet, wrote an essay, or made a model (or whatever they'd been asked to do) but had been to see a real life version of the same thing, clearly understood it and could answer any set questions about it in a class test?

I guess I'm trying to understand whether it is more important for them to gain full understanding and be confident about a topic or to complete the actual set work, even if it did nothing to help them?

daska

I have 3 completely different scenarios...

DS2 doesn't do homework. All but one teacher so far (he may only be in year one but he's been in 5 different classes!) has agreed that it's counterproductive for him. We don't even bother with the official school reading book, it's far more important for him to be relaxed and engaged so he gets to choose which books are read to him and we have various methods of encouraging him to read bits of them to us - alternate words, using the wrong word, read this sentence and you can have another book etc.

But... with DSD it was really useful to know during years 10/11 that her maths homework was taking several hours instead of 15 minutes. I was essentially teaching her at home because she wasn't 'getting it' during the lessons at school but, because she would insist on doing the homework until it was perfect her maths teacher kept insisting she was doing fine. Well, yes she was, but only because we were doing his job for him! Then she moved schools and they actively assessed and addressed the areas where she needed additional input. (Got a B at GCSE which is not too bad considering she had previously thought she was totally incapable ) If she had been doing independent work at school the teacher would have had no excuse for not addressing the gaps in her knowledge. (Just for reference, the gaps were due to the numerous changes of school she endured during the time she lived with her mum.)

DS1 did very badly in a school where pupils were encouraged to work independently. He now goes to a school where they're not expected to do much in the way of homework until they start GCSE revision and then it ramps up during 6th form. Instead they do a much longer day and have supervised homework sessions (no, it's not private). It's perfect for him as he's dyspraxic and, I suspect, there's an element of ADD. He already has maths and triple science and is apparently on course for the equivalent of 14 GCSEs (I'm not holding my breath LOL)

Very much horses for courses, children aren't all made in the same mould.