# Homework Rant!!!!!



## sabby52

Why do parents do their childrens homework?? :growlmad: Over the past 3 years I have witnessed a lot of homework being done for kids and I am sick and tired of my sons work going up against an adults work!!! :growlmad: I really do hope the teachers realise it is being done for them!!!


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## lindseymw

There is a few parents that do their kids homework (more so when it's something crafty.) It doesn't really bother me to be honest.

Joshua had to make a didgeridoo. He started it and very quickly lost interest as he's not an arty person so left me to do it. In all fairness, I'm not particularly arty either so it looked like a kid had done it anyway. There wasn't a competition/prize as to who did the best one.

Written & maths homework, we make sure Joshua does it himself.


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## DJJ

I had the opportunity to visit an infant school 2 weeks ago.while walking round the head teacher showed me a display of summer holiday projects. she admitted that parents would have done some if it but she was of the opinion that its a good thing if parents can work together with their children and produce something together.


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## OmarsMum

Omar have to draw every book cover he reads in Arabic, I help when he's tired or too sleepy. I honestly don't see the point of drawing the book cover. He is given extra in English & Arabic in addition to his homework which are more than enough 

I don't really care if parents help their children or do their homework, at my boy's school they rely on in class assessment and it is ongoing through out the academic year. Homework as in writing is only for practicing their spelling tests. 

Last year in reception they had to do a habitat diorama, all were done by parents, my boy helped us in gluing and cutting, he also collected stones & shells from the beach but we did the majority of the work, he gave us instructions and he chose the habitat ;)


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## sabby52

I have no problem with parents helping their children, if my son needs help he gets it and if he has a project to do we will sit down together and throw ideas around but the end result will always be his. I have a problem with the work being done for them, I have actually witnessed one mother sit and do her sons homework while he was out playing :shrug: her excuse, it was to warm to bring him in to do homework :wacko:

Plus everytime my son has homework or a project there is always a note from the teacher asking for the work to be the childs work and not the parents.


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## LoraLoo

Reminds me of the decorate the egg competitions etc. I leave mine to it (as school ask) yet the winners are always the ones blatantly done by the parents. 

For maths homework eyc I always sit with mine and help them count out beads or whatever but they find the answer.

Kids get far too much homework at too young an age imo


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## Cattia

Yes, this is a pet hate of mine too. I actually have friends who do this. The child gets set a homework like make a mobile or a noah's ark or something and the mums do it all, maybe the child just helps a little bit. In many cases I think it's because the mums are too controlling and want the work to look good. Obviously I have no issue with parents helping their children with work but I think the work should be the child's OWN work. It's really giving out a very bad message to kids when they work hard on something and it looks frankly a bit crap, because after all they are only five years old, then they take it into school and see that all the other kids have ones that look amazing. I read a meme on facebook the other day that said 'When you do something for me, all I learn is that you do it better than I do'. I think this is so true and we should encourage our children to do their best and take pride in the fact that they had a go. Oh dear, sorry, you got me going there!!


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## shanny

There is a massive difference between doing it for them and doing it with them!!

As a teacher we can tell the difference!


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## LaughOutLoud

At my girls school they expect the parents to help in the early years but as they move further ahead, then the work would be just solely for the child to do.


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## Larkspur

I don't see any harm in parents working with their child on something as long as they are not actually doing it for them. In the long run, it's not really helping the kid for the parent to actually do the work. The kid isn't learning and acquiring the skills, which is the whole point of education.

I don't understand why your son's work would be "going up against an adult's work" though. Surely they are graded against a curriculum and a set of achievement standards, not graded as a comparison against works produced by their schoolmates? :confused:


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## tommyg

OmarsMum said:


> Omar have to draw every book cover he reads in Arabic, I help when he's tired or too sleepy. I honestly don't see the point of drawing the book cover. He is given extra in English & Arabic in addition to his homework which are more than enough
> 
> I don't really care if parents help their children or do their homework, at my boy's school they rely on in class assessment and it is ongoing through out the academic year. Homework as in writing is only for practicing their spelling tests.
> 
> Last year in reception they had to do a habitat diorama, all were done by parents, my boy helped us in gluing and cutting, he also collected stones & shells from the beach but we did the majority of the work, he gave us instructions and he chose the habitat ;)

Being curious what's a diorama?


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## OmarsMum

This is a diorama, he chose marine habitat
 



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## tommyg

That is cool and yes a picture can say a 1000 words.


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## sabby52

Larkspur said:


> I don't see any harm in parents working with their child on something as long as they are not actually doing it for them. In the long run, it's not really helping the kid for the parent to actually do the work. The kid isn't learning and acquiring the skills, which is the whole point of education.
> 
> I don't understand why your son's work would be "going up against an adult's work" though. Surely they are graded against a curriculum and a set of achievement standards, not graded as a comparison against works produced by their schoolmates? :confused:

Alot of the work my son gets home is projects and competitions, so if the parents are doing the kids work then yes my son is up against adults :wacko: Last year there was a litter competition the little kid that won admitted to my son that his dad drew the picture. They had a project to do over midterm and alot of the parents done the projects for the kids, there will be a first second and third prize for the best so again my son is up against adults work. :growlmad:


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## tommyg

sabby52 said:


> Larkspur said:
> 
> 
> I don't see any harm in parents working with their child on something as long as they are not actually doing it for them. In the long run, it's not really helping the kid for the parent to actually do the work. The kid isn't learning and acquiring the skills, which is the whole point of education.
> 
> I don't understand why your son's work would be "going up against an adult's work" though. Surely they are graded against a curriculum and a set of achievement standards, not graded as a comparison against works produced by their schoolmates? :confused:
> 
> Alot of the work my son gets home is projects and competitions, so if the parents are doing the kids work then yes my son is up against adults :wacko: Last year there was a litter competition the little kid that won admitted to my son that his dad drew the picture. They had a project to do over midterm and alot of the parents done the projects for the kids, there will be a first second and third prize for the best so again my son is up against adults work. :growlmad:Click to expand...

I completely understand your anger and fustration. Surely the teachers can tell when a child presents something that isn't really theirs? I think I would take it up with the school to make competitions only to be for work completed within school time. 
Homework done by parents defeats the purpose, and as you say it is unfair on children who do actually do their own.


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## AngelofTroy

This brings up a question for me, although my son is too young for homework yet, I've always wondered: 

If your child is given, for example, 10 spellings to do, at primary school, and they ask you if they are right.. Do you correct them? Tell them which are wrong and to try again? Or do you leave the mistakes in for the teacher to correct? Or something else?


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## LoraLoo

AngelofTroy said:


> This brings up a question for me, although my son is too young for homework yet, I've always wondered:
> 
> If your child is given, for example, 10 spellings to do, at primary school, and they ask you if they are right.. Do you correct them? Tell them which are wrong and to try again? Or do you leave the mistakes in for the teacher to correct? Or something else?

Here amy brings spellings home on Monday to be learned by Friday. They do look/cover/write with spaces for 3 attempts. If the first ones wrong I say 'look carefully at the word' we sound It out, then she tries again. I think it's important the teachers can see any mistakes.


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## Cattia

AngelofTroy said:


> This brings up a question for me, although my son is too young for homework yet, I've always wondered:
> 
> If your child is given, for example, 10 spellings to do, at primary school, and they ask you if they are right.. Do you correct them? Tell them which are wrong and to try again? Or do you leave the mistakes in for the teacher to correct? Or something else?

My daughter is in year one and they have not had spellings to learn yet. I was told not to correct spelling in her writing at this stage as they still write phonetically. I'm unclear how she will shift from phonetic to standard spelling but I assume it's all part of a plan.


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## sabby52

AngelofTroy said:


> This brings up a question for me, although my son is too young for homework yet, I've always wondered:
> 
> If your child is given, for example, 10 spellings to do, at primary school, and they ask you if they are right.. Do you correct them? Tell them which are wrong and to try again? Or do you leave the mistakes in for the teacher to correct? Or something else?

In primary 1 and 2 (reception and year 1) my son done look, cover, write, he learned the spellings covered them then wrote it down, if he got them wrong I left it, no sense pretending he could spell it as they had little spelling tests on a Friday. Primary 3 and now 4, (year 2 and 3) he just has a list of 15-20 spellling that he learns Monday - Thursday, he has a spelling test on friday then we get the result of the test on a Monday any spellings he struggled with in the test are added to his new list that week (just extra, not part of that weeks spelling test) and he works on them some more. 

We have been told not to correct the childs spelling, if Dec is writing a story and he cant spell a word he sounds it out, if it is a tricky word he looks it up in the dictionary. In younger classes they just spell things phonically :flower:


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## sabby52

Cattia said:


> AngelofTroy said:
> 
> 
> This brings up a question for me, although my son is too young for homework yet, I've always wondered:
> 
> If your child is given, for example, 10 spellings to do, at primary school, and they ask you if they are right.. Do you correct them? Tell them which are wrong and to try again? Or do you leave the mistakes in for the teacher to correct? Or something else?
> 
> My daughter is in year one and they have not had spellings to learn yet. I was told not to correct spelling in her writing at this stage as they still write phonetically. I'm unclear how she will shift from phonetic to standard spelling but I assume it's all part of a plan.Click to expand...

I worried about the shift as well but Dec is now primary 4 (year 3) and for the past year he has left phonics behind, he understands silent letters and some letters making a different sound in some words. :flower:


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## AP

We might correct the odd spelling if we know and Alex has got over excited or carried away, but we do help and we do allow mistakes to remain so that the teachers have a good idea of what she needs to work on.
Honestly, I couldnt care less about competitions or who does what, as long as the teacher have a good gauge of what Alex needs to work on. 
The parents that pretty much do the work for their children arent helping anyone, really.


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## sabby52

Dec came home last night and didnt have his usual Monday night Maths test, I was worried that he had mislead it so I spoke to his teacher this morning and I couldnt believe what I was hearing, the 3 primary 4 teachers decided to change the maths test from Monday night homework to Friday class work and the reason being, the parents were doing the tests!!! I actually laughed at him because although parents doing homework really angers me I honestly didnt think they would do the childs maths homework, apparently a lot of the children were getting 40/40 on the test but when they were giving a spot test in school they didnt understand the questions :dohh: This is why I always leave decs first answer, if he gets a maths question wrong I explain it to him let him work it out again but leave his original answer so the teacher can see that he struggled :shrug:


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## sabby52

AtomicPink said:


> We might correct the odd spelling if we know and Alex has got over excited or carried away, but we do help and we do allow mistakes to remain so that the teachers have a good idea of what she needs to work on.
> Honestly, I couldnt care less about competitions or who does what, as long as the teacher have a good gauge of what Alex needs to work on.
> The parents that pretty much do the work for their children arent helping anyone, really.

Oh dont get me wrong I couldn't care less about competitions either, but when my son spends alot of time and effort doing his own work then comes home heartbroken, not because he didnt win but because the boy/girl that did win didnt even do the work :nope: As long as Dec is doing well in his class work and every day homework I am happy :flower:


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## lau86

I can understand why you're annoyed sabby, I would be too! Not fair at all. I can't believe parents are doing their maths tests!! How is that helping them?!


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## Eve

I've seen it here too. My son needs help with writing sometimes as he has motor delays and stuff so I help but not do it for him and you can tell what kids have their parents do it for them. What does that teach them? Nothing good! 

I do correct K's spelling as we work on it at home and she does it at school. If she spells something wrong, I erase it and she does it again until she gets it right for practice but they have tests every Friday to see how well they are doing. I love seeing her progress as in kindergarten she didn't have anything like that come home.


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## Vickie

I always sit with Hannah and help her with her homework. I correct her if she's wrong and we erase and try again. I don't actually do her homework for her though I do hate having to come inside on a nice day to do homework ;). We still do because I know it is important but oh how I detest it :rofl:


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## AP

sabby52 said:


> AtomicPink said:
> 
> 
> We might correct the odd spelling if we know and Alex has got over excited or carried away, but we do help and we do allow mistakes to remain so that the teachers have a good idea of what she needs to work on.
> Honestly, I couldnt care less about competitions or who does what, as long as the teacher have a good gauge of what Alex needs to work on.
> The parents that pretty much do the work for their children arent helping anyone, really.
> 
> Oh dont get me wrong I couldn't care less about competitions either, but when my son spends alot of time and effort doing his own work then comes home heartbroken, not because he didnt win but because the boy/girl that did win didnt even do the work :nope: As long as Dec is doing well in his class work and every day homework I am happy :flower:Click to expand...

Oh yeah totally! I just will never understand why some parents get so carried away. i watched DH yesterday with DD1 and actually had to warn him a litle of "over-helping" ;)


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## Natsku

My parents never helped me with my homework, I never realised parents actually did that until I joined parenting forums!

I don't agree with primary school kids getting homework anyway, its too much too young, they should have the time after school to relax and play.


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## george83

To all those parents who are annoyed at parents doing projects... I'm a teacher and in my school we've brought in completing half term projects and some teachers have given out prizes for 'the best'. We quite often get together at a staff meeting to choose a winner and we always narrow it down to the ones that look like they are made by children first


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## LoraLoo

george83 said:


> To all those parents who are annoyed at parents doing projects... I'm a teacher and in my school we've brought in completing half term projects and some teachers have given out prizes for 'the best'. We quite often get together at a staff meeting to choose a winner and we always narrow it down to the ones that look like they are made by children first

Definitely not the case at ours- always goes to the most fancy, elaborate one- where the parents have clearly helped. That, or the kids of teachers, governors or helpers. My kids are never fussed, doesn't really bother them, they're not upset easily, but I'll admit it gets on my nerves. 
The same with school plays -it's the same children picked for plays and school assemblies.


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## LaughOutLoud

So this week my year 1 girl got given her homework book and they will get homework every week as well as the 2 reading books they have to read at home. The instructions inside are for parents to help them and teach them the work. It is a lot of pressure on us as we hardly get time after school (she has other commitments) so I've really had to push her with time. If we leave it for the weekend then we can't go out anywhere as we have day trips planned. I do feel it's too much at this stage as they learning in school all day. However, all the parents have found the instructions so mind boggling because they aren't even clear on what we are meant to teach our children and what activities to do!! Hey ho!


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## sabby52

george83 said:


> To all those parents who are annoyed at parents doing projects... I'm a teacher and in my school we've brought in completing half term projects and some teachers have given out prizes for 'the best'. We quite often get together at a staff meeting to choose a winner and we always narrow it down to the ones that look like they are made by children first

This doesnt happen in our school, in my sons class one child has won 3 competitions and this is the child that has admitted his daddy does it for him :shrug:


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## Eve

^Oh that would make me so mad! 

Half the time when J had projects he wouldn't even get them back so I didn't even know how he did on them.


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## jd83

Parents doing the projects completely for their child is just wrong. I will never understand why people want to take that away from their child's learning, to either help them do it, or have them do it themselves. Doing it for them does them absolutely NO favors, and doesn't teach them anything other than their own work wouldn't be good enough, and that they don't need to take time out of playing to do their work because their parent will do it for them. SMH. I would honestly be pretty pissed if our school was awarding projects that were clearly done by parents with no help from the child. OP is correct; its usually blatantly obvious if the child didn't help at all. Honestly, if I were a teacher, I'd probably send a note home to those parents about involving the child in the child's project. That's just me, though. LOL


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## AP

Weirdly after this thread, something happened tonight. DH had obviously told his Dad that DD1 was due to make a rocket and bring it to school. 

Well we were just sent a photo from FIL , of the start of a Pringles can rocket. :grr: wtf is he doing?! I have no intention of even sharing this first project with them, she is doing it herself with any help she needs from us


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## Eternal

Yes, the kids have t shit design competitions or cake design and seriously every winner is clearly done by their parents. My kids t shirts have iron on stuff they draw and glitter and random feathers or something weird stuff to them and they others look like something out of vogue (comparatively)!


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