Homework Battles ?

[fossyant]

Anyone else have them ?

9 year old daughter, great, get's it done as soon as she gets it.

11 years old son ~(coming upto SATS) get's more homework but, OMG, do we have a battle with him. He's a clever lad, but won't apply himself. Homework - we get strops, I can't do it, yadda yadda. Even sitting with him he has a paddy.

We even go to the library to do it. We also let him do 15 mins, then do his own stuff, ten back for more. This is the second day of the battle - we had it last weekend.

At present the teacher is putting them under pressure for the 'oh so important' (for the school) SATS. The high school doesn't take them into account, and only grades the students after their first year.

My daughter is quite rightly upset as we are waiting for son to complete, he even had the carrot of we'll get you a new bike if you rattle this off quickly, nope didn't work. Wife and daughter have gone to Wales for the evening and bank holiday now, as I can see this battle lasting at least all evening.

We've even said, OK, if you can't do it that's fine. He knows he can't as the teacher is a right battle axe.

Anyone got any good ideas, anyone else getting the same ?

God knows what it will be like at high school with MORE homework.

 

[MattHB]

Distractions are a huge pressure on the youngsters at the moment. With so much technology vying for central stage in their minds!

I teach 16+ at college, mostly boys, so my experience is probably not quite relevant.. But we try to find ways to integrate their loved technologies into the work they need to do. Can any of the homework be submitted electronically? If so there are some pretty cool websites for most subjects that help research, including maths and English.

Trying to fight is never going to win, as you'll blow up against struggles for independence and control, but if you're able to steer in other ways, and find out what the barriers are, it can be surprising at the results.

It can also be useful to try to help him make plans and goals for the future. Like trying to introduce GCSE choices and even jobs ideas! He's very young, but it's never to early to start IMO. If you can establish goals, he'll develop his own competitiveness and that might help drive him. Without those things he might not see the value in it.

good luck tho, hard times for both of you. But what he does now, and the habits he forms will very much shape his ways of dealing with things later.

 

[gb155]

Anyone else have them ?

9 year old daughter, great, get's it done as soon as she gets it.

11 years old son ~(coming upto SATS) get's more homework but, OMG, do we have a battle with him. He's a clever lad, but won't apply himself. Homework - we get strops, I can't do it, yadda yadda. Even sitting with him he has a paddy.

We even go to the library to do it. We also let him do 15 mins, then do his own stuff, ten back for more. This is the second day of the battle - we had it last weekend.

At present the teacher is putting them under pressure for the 'oh so important' (for the school) SATS. The high school doesn't take them into account, and only grades the students after their first year.

My daughter is quite rightly upset as we are waiting for son to complete, he even had the carrot of we'll get you a new bike if you rattle this off quickly, nope didn't work. Wife and daughter have gone to Wales for the evening and bank holiday now, as I can see this battle lasting at least all evening.

We've even said, OK, if you can't do it that's fine. He knows he can't as the teacher is a right battle axe.

Anyone got any good ideas, anyone else getting the same ?

God knows what it will be like at high school with MORE homework.

My kids are the same. Son and daughter same ages and we have just the same scenario as you with both mate

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Noodley]

Just let them make theor own choices. No need to make an issue out of it.

 

[fossyant]

I do think they (the schools) put too much pressure on them at this age.

He's just finished it actually, so we'll head out for a few miles MTB'ing tomorrow as no girls around (he does want to go night MTB'ing again).

I wouldn't mind, but he is a really bright lad - I do appreciate the technology stuff and maybe hand it in via word etc, but in Primary they don't allow it - he'll breeze it in high school.

He's spend most of this week's dinner times making a video with Microsoft Photo Story to show his sketches of "Henry's cat" that he has done to muisc - it's impressive, but come just writing stuff down, nope.

At least I'm not the only one.

 

[vernon]

I think that you find yourself the unwitting victim of the unintended consequences of schools wanting to avoid having the finger of failure pointed at them. The pressure on schools to do better than the others that have similar intakes and to improve their positions in the league tables neglects the effects that this has on pupils. Yes it's nice for kids to do well but it's all to easy to forget that they are children and deserve to have a childhood unsullied by the sometimes unrealistic pressure from their schools for them to do well. Schools are kidding themselves and the kids' parents when they sell it as maximising life's chances - it's maximising the tenure of the head teacher and senior management team.

 

[fossyant]

Quite right, Vernon, but who want's their kid to turn up and get shouted at as they were stressed out about homework.

Oh and I will add that the class has just been decorated and has had a new carpet, so the kids are expected to take in slippers - FFS. I complained as I'd gone round a load of shops and no-one stocked slippers in May ! Cue kids worried about getting 'told off' by Miss Battle axe for not having any.

It's not a £40 a square yard carpet - it will be a cheap industrial one ! The Primary school is up it's own ass.

 

[vernon]

Parents ought to wrest control from the pressures of 'success' and mobilise by writing letters of complaint against the bullying behaviour of their children's teachers.

 

[Norm]

Hmmm.... this one might not be too popular, but, here goes...

It sounds like you are giving in to him or, should I say, it sounds like he might get the impression that you are giving in to him. He needs to know that there is stuff that he needs to do and there is no discussion and no debate, it's just got to be done and nothing else happens until it is done. No trips to the library, no offers of new bikes, he just needs to get it done and he needs to know that there is no alternative.

Alongside this, take the pressure away whilst he is doing the work, you can sit in the room and help him, you can offer ways to work that don't seem like work or you can just sit in the same room and read a book, just ensure he knows that he's got to do it, whatever it takes.

Now, that said, I know that there are alternative ways to approach it and my suggestion might (does!) seem harsh for a kid of 11 but, well, if nothing else works, then it might be worth a try. If he knows that he's got to do it, then the stress of the battle should go.

 

[vernon]

There shouldn't be a battle because there shouldn't be any homework.....

 

[fossyant]

Thanks Norm.No say it as it is, because we all lose sight some times....

The bike thing was raised by mum (not me). He came home in a foul mood, I turned up from work to see the bike flung on the front lawn. 'Dad this bike is a death trap' - me looks at it, and he's tried riding on the 'ghost gears after the cassette and the frame, and off his single ring - Me "Oh I fixed that" - "no you didn't", he says, "I've done all that" (know it all 11 year old) - I took advantage of it this afternoon in the Giro when Tyler lost his gears - look it happens, he has realised now ! Thank god Tyler did that !!!

Anyway, as mum is away, I've let him play Halo Reach - he's good, mum hates shoot them ups, but I can't get to play it at all.

 

[Norm]

There shouldn't be a battle because there shouldn't be any homework.....

Really? I'm happy that my kids have homework, I like working with them and I'm not sure that I'd be confident leaving everything to teachers, no matter what I thought of the school, I like to be involved.

 

[DCLane]

I've got two boys aged 12 yo and a 7 yo.

The 12 yo did his SAT's last year plus entrance exams for a couple of grammar schools in Yorkshire. To get the place (which he did at a good one) he had extra homework from school, a tutor plus extra homework from the tutor.

He's got a good work ethic, and usually does his homework. However - there are times when it's a battle. He's been stopped from the computer and TV for a week as he's not been keeping up-to-date recently and he likes the very occasional hard-line approach. Conversations are better with all of us, there's no battles going on when he gets a bit slack and it's a better atmosphere all round.

The 7 yo does his homework ... just. He engages brilliantly with subjects he is interested in at that time. Otherwise he doesn't. Last year he did Key Stage 1 SAT's - the school couldn't predict a grade for him (they hoped he'd get a 1C) since he had told the teacher he wasn't doing the work they'd been asking him to do. In great detail. What happened? He got 3C level throughout, with a 3B in Numeracy We knew he was teaching himself at school, together with being massively inquisitive at home. A big discussion with the school followed, together with having a different teacher this year. We're learning to work with him, as are the teachers - and last week we went to the Science Museum Live show in Bradford since he's into science at the moment.

When it comes to the grammar entrance exam / this year's SAT's (they do them every year) we'll just have to see ...

 

[Maz]

Distractions are a huge pressure on the youngsters at the moment. With so much technology vying for central stage in their minds!

You've heard the age-old maxim "Leave kids to their own devices" - this is what is bloody means - ipods, mobiles, n stuff.

I always struggle to get my elder two (15/13) to knuckle down and get their homework done, even with me being there to help and offer advice, etc. Homework tends to be so obscure these days that when they tell me what it is they need to do, I need to ask a follow-up question - "Which subject is that for?". They don't seem to have any standard textbooks which they work through either - or if they do, the damn books stay at school or in their lockers, which is a fat lot of good.

 

[User169]

There shouldn't be a battle because there shouldn't be any homework.....

Well said. Totally insane that 9/11year olds have homework.