obiwan

Just curious. for those with primary school kids.

1. How many hours a week (or per day) do they spend with homework and studying?

2. Do you parents help them with their studying?

3. Is there more (or less) homework with State schools vs private school?

thanks!

NickyC

My kids went to a private primary (and High) school.

When they were at Primary they had homework from Year 1 (second year of school). Started off with 10-15 minutes reading per night and then progressed to a couple of worksheets each day. They had homework every night Mon-Thursday. No homework at weekends.

I know that our local state school gave out much less homework - along the lines of one worksheet issued on Monday to be completed by Friday. My kids were jealous of this.

Parents were not supposed to help with homework. If the kids had difficulty they were supposed to let the teacher know.

The exception was the bloody projects. We hated them - parents weren't supposed to help but some were done ENTIRELY by the parents. You could tell at a glance because they were perfect in every respect - whether it was an undersea diorama in a shoebox, a model of an Australian invention or a Health warning poster (done them all). They were clearly way above the usual efforts of 7-year olds. Trouble is, when the parents start to get involved you have to join them or your kid is terminally embarassed. Projects ultimately became a competition between parents and had no bearing on what the kids could do!

jad n rich

This really depends on the teacher, what they can be bothered with, no set guidelines unfortunately.

Son 3 in grade 6 NO homework, class next door spelling sheet and reading. Last year grade 5 some maths and reading (10 mins). Son 2 now in highschool, grade 8 about one hour a night, last year in grade 7 it was mainly times tables (again!) and colouring in cover sheets for projects etc, nothing serious. One assignment per term is usually handed out. Often quite hands on stuff like make a ballon powered car and explain why it moves, that was a year 6 example.

jad n rich

Or the projects that get handed around year after year or sibling to sibling, like when some giant burly cauliflower headed AFL kid handed in the electric powered dolls house erm right he really invented that

MrsDagboy

2 boys, Year 4 state primary school.

They have what's called a homework grid which consists of 9 squares. Top 3 squares are compulsory & consist of 10 mins reading/night (they have to tick off each night when they have done it), maths computations (whatever they are working on at the time about 10 mins worth) & spelling words which they have to do various things with eg, write a sentence with each word, put in alphabetical order, put together words which rhyme, sort them out according to how many syllables they have, list other words that end in similar syllables like hollow, mellow, bellow, build onto existing words eg soap, soapy, soaped, soaping etc. There are usually between 30 & 40 spelling words so this usually takes quite a while (probably up to half an hour depending on what they have to do).

The other 6 squares are made up of a mixture of other activities & the child has to pick 3 of those 6 things to do. The activities are constantly changing but include things like

1. Going to the shop & conducting a transaction with the shop keeper (so chose item, take to counter, give the shop keeper enough money, calculate the change & then when it's given, make sure it's correct)
2. Playing an indoor or an outdoor game with an adult
3. Cut out items from the supermarket junkmail catalogues, stick them in the homework book & add them up
4. Interview an older person & find out things about the communities they have lived in & write about it
5. Write down lyrics to their favourite song
6. Adapt their favourite nursery rhyme by using the same tune, but making up their own words eg Baa baa little sheep, would you like to play, yes Mum yes Mum I play all day etc.
7. Tick off household chores that they have done to help around the house

The homework grid was originally for a week, but Education Qld has recently made it departmental policy that homework shall only be given at fortnghtly intervals (because of shared custody arrangements, parents that are busy etc), so the kids now have a fortnight to finish the grid (in response, the number of things that have to be done in each square have increased as well).

There are often also some projects that get given out, but at least at our boys age, they are fairly minor & are only a couple of times/year.

I know that some schools dont give any homework, I think it's alot to do what type of area that the school is in as to whether there is homework given or not.

NickyC

Seen plenty of similar things!

Have to admit Book Week Parade was the thing I dreaded most each year. Had to find a 'book'-related outfit for two kids for seven years (that's 14 outfits ). Most of ours were re-cycled more than once...

MrsDagboy

I know exactly what you mean, one of our boys had a project about dinosaurs where he had to choose a dinosaur & write about it, so I gave him a piece of cardboard & helped him a bit with creating a title with stamps & left him to it. The project got handed in & turned out pretty simple & not very exciting, just the usual bit of writing with a few pictures etc, but he had done the whole thing by himself. I didnt think anything more of it until at the end of semester when they had a get toegther for parents & students so the students could show them what they had done during the term. I almost cried when I saw some of the other kid's dinosaur projects - there were diorama that looked like a scene out of jurasic park, models that walked & moved & huge sheets of carboard that connected together to make a wall collage with thousands & thousands of typed words telling all about the dinosaur they chose. And my poor boy with his single piece of cardboard & his few lonely pictures with some (somewhat messy ) handwriting in between.

There is no way in hell that those projects were done by the kids in his class (7 years old fgs!) but the kids sat there beaming & the parents sat there cooing like the kids had created Michaelangelo's David or something .

You are right, the next project we had I made a big deal of making sure it was "better" - I still made him do most of it but I helped alot more, I sure as hell wasnt going to let him feel embarrassed about anything that he ever had to hand into the teacher again .

NickyC

Yup - been there, done that!

Only takes one embarassment, then you're on the treadmill for ever more.

It's one of those things that you learn from experience. First project for first son (first time parents us!) we made him do it totally by himself but his efforts were kind of sad compared to some of the other kids. Those kids mostly had older siblings so the parents knew the score. His second project had parental involvement, I can tell you! And so it went on.

Teachers must KNOW the parents do the work - don't know how they can pretend otherwise. Projects should be banned

Mrs Jackaroo

My daughter is 7 and goes to public school (cant compare the two sorry) and spends about 20 mins a night doing homework (which is a lot more than she was doing in the UK!!)

Wendy

7 year old gets 15 minutes of homework per night plus has to read for 15 minutes.

Homework is set at the beginning of the week, and is a little bit of everything. Maths, English etc.

14 year old apparantly doesn't get any, but that's not what the teachers say in his diary. It's usually more like - Homework NOT completed again No change in him there then

JAJ

You should ask the question why your children need to do any homework if they are spending 30-35 hours per week at school. How on earth is that time not enough for them to learn all they need to learn there?

obiwan

Thank you for all your replies, gives me a very accurate idea of what to expect.


JAJ,

I know what you mean, unfortunately I am not sure if this is something a parent would have say in the matter. Unless everyone agrees and we all group ourselves together.

I dont mind 30 mins/day of stuff like reading etc. I think we all agree that reading is good (unlike XBox and gameboy). What i would not want is a case where the poor 7 year old has to study 1 hour a day on various subjects since the school requires it.

On the other side of the coin, I have learned that primary school children in countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong....they study until Midnight! Every single day! then on week ends they taught, classical piano etc.

and they are all learning english on the side as well. so i am thinking, i wonder how this is going to affect the global employment market in the next generation......obviously these kids are going to excel in all subjects (maybe except for physical education class)

Wendy

With my daughters teacher, she doesn't mind if she doesn't do all of the homework. If we are going somewhere or have other commitments she lets her finish it in class on a Friday afternoon. Although my daughter usually does it all on Monday evenings, spend about an hour and half on it.

joho

Homework :curse: Kids in my house dont get any at all ever. Only when I receive a letter to tell me its not been done . Ask them every night, check books, diary nothing, zilch, zero.

Oh well, year 12 and 11, lecture on how are they going get anywhere etc etc every week. Through with it now, its up to them. Cant make them do it if they dont want to so have stopped worrying. Their life. Told them I'm not supporting their wages from MacDonalds as that all they will be able to get. What can you do.

Jo

obiwan

Thats cool, its all given in 1 day as opposed to little each day and the teacher is not too strict.