I’d like to sit down with my kid and spend an hour or two going over what specifically was done in class that day. I’d be happy to find it online but a bit of direction from the teachers would help.
How could learning vocabulary at home not help a kid studying a foreign language, or practicing mathematical equations to boost confidence, how could a teacher teach a novel in class if a child hasn’t read it first…etc.
You’re very good at it. A natural even.
not sure if either of the above are clamouring for homework, but there is a huge lack of input from the school. Our school finished up in March at the lockdown and had zero work assessed. We’d get a weekly notification of read page x, and all that happened then was to just read the next page each of the following days. There was at max, 2 hours work per week to do, if the child did it. There was no checking in on kids, no online content and the principal of the school sent more notices about religious issues than about anything to do with the school or actual education issues.
so we’ve gone into this year with nothing happening outside of the school hours. It would be one thing if there was some sort of advice or suggestions or something that could be done at home to link in whats done in school, but there is zero. Maybe some think thats fine, but in times past a lot of kids would have read with their parents or done extra things anyway, but I know a lot of parents take the view that school is for teaching and its the responsibility of the teachers to teach, not parents.
And the fear I’d have is that a lot of the kids will not do anything once they go home. Its grand for us, I enjoy doing a bit of reading in the evening with the lads but there are many more who wont bother. They missed a good chunk of the year already and were behind in where they probably should have been. They’ll all catch up in time, but I’d have thought a bit more work to help them on would have benefited more. To just blankly have cut the whole thing off, school and then nothing with no link up is not the way the elimination of homework should be. Some parents will pick up that slack, I’d imagine many more will not.
If thats being stuck in the past, then so be it, but there has to be balance. There is plenty of time for running around and playing and having the craic which they do. Adding in half an hour of some work they learned during the day is not going to deprive them of social skills or having fun.
1 Like
Sibelius, Lasse Viren and a few FI and Rally drivers.
Fair enough pal. From my reading of it, I think there are a few question marks over the leadership of the school but maybe I’m reading too much into it? And of course it’s always better to have parents that take an active interest in their children’s education than to not.
More than the Micks probably ever did from a tech/industry side of things anyways
1 Like
If the teachers are working that day and a half doing children’s reports is the school considered opened or closed? It’s a good school with good teachers but some of the stuff they do is peculiar to me. Like many schools I am sure, they stagger the starting times now and by alphabetical order, with kids whose name begins with A starting at 8.40am and Z starting at 9am. However this means the whole school finishes 100 mins earlier than scheduled on Fridays to give back to the teachers the extra 20 minutes they put in each morning. Of course this means kids with names starting with Z get 100 less minutes of school than they did last year but this doesn’t seem to matter.
1 Like
The micks invented a cosy tax system for US multinationals to exploit while employing excel jockeys.
3 Likes
Poor auld Zutroy fucked over again.
1 Like
yeah there would be a lot there I’m not exactly enthralled about. It’s always the easiest option they will take. No homework could work fine with some sort of coordination with home life outside of school. But with nothing at all, it’ll just create an issue where some do stuff at home and others do fuck all.
Have you queried any of this with the school?
It will do no harm at all if that’s how you want to spend that time with the kids.
speaking as a parent i feel they get way too much homework, you need to trust that the teachers are professionals I suppose,
In my school we are told to give homework every night, I’d be happy to know that the child spent some time reading a book and discussing it’s content, the school day is plenty long,
But any time spent with your kids is time well spent, so you’re doing a great job there.
@Halfpipe, a schoolday is a day in school with the pupils in front of you, not a day for paperwork or writing up reports, those days will need to be made up.
2 Likes
yup. Same with the covid issue with the teacher of our child. And I’m already being an annoying bolix to them so cant keep being a prick about it. I’m three years trying to get a GDA coach to the club and get in the school. Have offered to do coaching in there under the Hurling 365 thing in Wexford, basically certain classes will come in a bit earlier, usually 8.15 or 8.30, and do a bit of hurling before school starts. Was told no one would be there to open the school at that time so a non runner. The PE in there is a disaster and although I’d be very much one for doing as much physical fitness as book work, what they do is awful. Have offered to help out with any school leagues or stuff and I organised to get a load of free gear for the school, nothing much, bibs, sliothars, balls, hurls etc. I did help out in a sports day they had once, I did some aussie rules with the classes just for something different for them. So I’m conscious that I’m pushing for them to do more or hassling them. Pushy or annoying parents are a pain in the hole at the best of times and last thing I want to do is overstep the mark. The principal in there hates sport of all kinds, so its like banging my head off a wall.
3 Likes
I’m not so confident they’ll all catch up in time. I think huge gaps will open between the children that are getting the extra push/supervision at home and those that don’t, and these gaps will be never get closed. Now granted, this has always been the case to some degree, where children of more involved parents have always had an advantage, but I think under current conditions it’s going to be amplified to a degree that will leave a sizable number of kids out the back.
I fear in 5, 10 or 20 years from now we will have a tranche of adults who will have fallen by the wayside academically and the resultant knock-on affects this will have on society and we’ll look back at 2020/21 with copious amounts of finger pointing.
When the dust settles on Covid it might be worth considering hitting the reset button back to Mar 2020.
@backinatracksuit skillfully made this discussion about homework when my point was about the unsavory practice of teachers harvesting presents from children. You have to hand it to him.
2 Likes
He’s nice like that. He tried to stop you being a bell end but alas, you were insistent
1 Like
How so?
Sorry pal, I actually completely missed that,
The school i teach in doesn’t cater much for the middle classes, I won’t say any more for fear that i appear ungrateful but the adidas shower gel and the worlds best teacher mugs don’t get much use.
2 Likes
You’d lick yourself clean if you could.
1 Like
The Molotov cocktail has brought peace to many a situation.