Are You Living in a Homework Horror Show?
Should infants be doing homework? Why are boys falling so far behind? And are children’s brains inherently influenced by their birth sex? Lots to digest.
Today we’re going on a deeper dive on a subject which will touch lots of political hot potatoes and if you have children, will doubtless reflect aspects of your own experiences. This piece started with my own personal struggle to get my eldest son to do his homework. In a tale as old as time, my six-year-old is approximately 0% interested in any kind of school after school. Blue Peter aint his bag. Here in England, we start our kids in formalised education relatively early (for the youngest cohort, this is shortly after their fourth birthday) and there is a greater focus on early academics than in say the American schooling system. Every nation has its own teaching style, ours funnels students into specialised subjects earlier whereas other systems offer a more generalist approach all the way up into higher education.
Homework for children as young as mine is another hallmark of our system and until 2012, the department for education recommended an hour of home study for all key stage one children (4-7) every week. Since then it has been used as a guideline across all state schools. In reception (age 4-5), my son was given reading (ideally every day, at his early pace we’re talking more like 2+ hours a week just for this), writing and more general online sheets and that has continued into year one (5-6).
I cannot explain how painful the early months of home reading were for us both. Even when it was ‘Pit Pat, Tip Tap,’ it was like getting blood out of a stone. He absolutely did not want to be doing it. There was a moment early in year one when we turned a massive corner and it was like a dam burst, but up until that point it was this nightly moment of dread which often led to sourness between us. I mostly managed to keep my patience (I’ve written about extending my window of tolerance here) and I enjoy teaching my children in general, but I was highly aware that I had absolutely no experience nor understanding of how to support him through this critical period. Sometimes I said the wrong thing; I can think immediately of several sessions where I regret my behaviour. Trudging through treacle for 40 minutes at 7.27pm is never going to be ideal, but when you’re a working parent with other children, the reading most often happens too late in the day. It’s safe to say that neither of us were at our best. In saying that, our sessions did definitely contribute to his breakthrough, so I can’t take that away from the story.
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