Holiday homework

That is so mean. My girls get holiday homework all the other holidays but summer is a bit hit and miss. When they do get it I make them do it the first week they're off as they're still in school mode then. Can't offer much advise, but maybe talk to the school and ask why they feel the need to give homework when the children are meant to be relaxing.

We always get homework but it is fairly voluntarily but DD always liks to do it. The Summer one is a preparation for the next term's topic. While I don't mind the work as such, we do a bit like times table and spelling anway, DH and I work so the only time off are the weeks we are actually away. So a lot is done at weekends or after a holiday club and that sucks.

DS's school are giving them challenges to complete (6, so 1 a week), all voluntary.  We've also been told what their topic is for the start of next term, in DS's class it's museums, which has given us lots of good ideas for day trips.  They've asked us to try and do something around the new topic (thinking scrapbook, collage).

eh no. they don't have any homework for over the holidays at all. if their teacher decided to give them any I don't think id make them do it either. holidays are holidays and school days are school days. I hate homework at any time. they go to school to get taught for hours on end so I don't see why they have to do it at home too.

I wouldn't be happy about it tbh.

We keep up the reading and will do a bit of time table games, that's about it. They'll be lots of parks here and some 'alternative' education. Write shopping list for cake ingredients, follow a recipe etc. Bit of gardening & bug spotting, few museum visits and then we're going to try out geocaching.

Dd school normally gives a project to be done in holidays.
Doesnt bother me. Is 6 hrs work, over 6 weeks, really that bad?

Eldest does have something to do over the holidays but it's to write the teacher a postcard about something fun/place visited over the holidays. Wouldn't be happy at anything more than that, holidays are for fun and chilling out.

See, if all parents of the kids I teach had such great ideas as this to do with their kids over the holidays,  I wouldn't feel the need to send homework home over the summer. Personally, I will not enjoy doing it during the holidays when my son gets to school age but then again I will try and do nice, "alternative education" activities like you have suggested!!

Unfortunately, the children I teach will be plonked in front of a tv, Xbox or iPad for most of the 6 weeks and this does have a negative impact on their learning :-(. However, most of the parents won't bother their backsides to do the homework anyway so all in all its been a huge waste of paper and a waste of my time preparing it 🙄.

Your kids will benefit so much more from the activities you have described than most home works set in the classroom X

I think the idea that learning is part of every part of their lives is a brilliant idea. Researching something new, making a book, writing a story, solving problems, reading. None of these things should be confined to school. And why can't doing them be fun. Turn going to the museum into a treasure hunt with a prize at the end, or learning about the Romans could involve making their own board game. Maths races, learning times tables using playground chalk outside. If you can make learning fun and part of play you are giving it a really positive association which will save an awful lot of nagging and arguments over homework further down the line. We home educate for this very reason. Learning and play and fun and adventure are generally all the same thing. I suspect that the teachers won't care what they are learning about as long as they are learning something. 6 weeks is a long time to go without learning anything. Xxx

DS's school are really hot on homework

They get given some every holiday (Christmas, Easter & Summer) and they even got given it before they started YR!

DS didn't do the Easter homework as he's in YR and he was really tired and needed a proper break Nothing was said as we kept up with his reading

We've already started this summer's homework as he signed up to the library reading challenge on Saturday He doesn't finish school until tomorrow so I don't know what else will be given yet...

When he goes up to Y1 I don't think the homework will be optional any more so he'll just have to get on with it

rant alert!!!

see I'm just not into my kids being indoors that much. I think kids should be out playing with their pals, exploring their environment and socialising with kids their own age. learning how to deal with situations like rejection, friendship fallouts, making up again, helping each other, sharing and taking turns and working together etc. I'm not stupid enough to think any of my kids will be going off to uni. my boys will be in overalls like their dad by 15 or 16 and my girls will probably get jobs in a shop or a pub or café or that till they settle down themselves and theres NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!!!

most of the kids round here only come in to eat and do their chores and sleep. mine aren't even doing that tonight. theyre camping out in the garden again. learning isn't all about academic stuff. its also about learning how to relate and actually deal with your peers so you aren't on netmums 20 years later worrying about playground mums who didn't speak to you and bake you cake. learning how to fix your car or van with your dad coz you will need to do that as an adult too. learning how to make bottles, wind babies, change nappies and potty train so you know what to do when you have your own and your not on netmums neurotic about bloody weaning.

weve forgotten how to teach kids actual life skills and let them learn things for themselves that aren't academic. weve stopped passing these things on down generations so now weve got forums upon forums full of people that have no idea how to approach a situation with a neighbour or other person, no idea how or when to wean, cant change a plug let alone fix anything without phoning someone and sit alone and lonely with no pals living hundreds of miles from family but hey its all fab tho coz they went to uni and got a degree in something fancy to be this useless and miserable.

I agree with you right till the end. You are talking mince about degrees.

its a fact though Katie. uni and staying on at school is pushed pushed pushed these days in schools. before there was a career advisor who would take a look at the individual kids and their (I dunno how to explain this) smartness I suppose, look at the things they were really good in and give them proper good advice on a reasonable career path.

folk from my walk of life mostly - yes mostly aren't for the uni, theyre much better suited to a trade and family life but because of the system theyre not supported. **** av got one wee boy whos wanted to follow his dad all his life and his teacher ripping the pish out an 11 year old coz the council have cancelled the mechanics course and he might not be able to now. the system and a lot of parents too are pushing kids that would be much better suited down another career path into staying on at school, sitting exams, going more into education and coming out with a mountain of debt before they've even got themselves a credit history and a payslip.

al be honest. I'm not much into this uni thing, sure doctors and whatever need to go to uni but docters don't really come fae Oakley. welders, miners, mechanics, fabricators, jiyners, plumbers, butchers, glazers, landscapers all do and the system lets those lot down. theres a whole snobbery to it. those with a degree and kids at uni and a newbuild in a town or city sneering down at the ones leaving at 15 for blue collar work, on the tools and settled with a family and council house by 22 and I hate it. also if folk want to have a whinge about "immigrants coming over here and taking our jobs" etc, its because of this education system that we need these immigrants, coz were fast running out of joiners builders and plumbers when the last gen retire. they all went to uni and now work in maccy ds coz the other folk from their uni with the real breeding, the real family money and the real connections got all the jobs and theyre now too old to re train

I wouldn't happy.  Holidays are for holidaying