Dear Parents/ Carers
Thank you for all of your valiant efforts to complete homework. The new homework timetable comes out today (see minchacademy.net/important docs/day to day) and, as you’ll see, the amount of homework increases as our children get older. Some schools will give more out, others less. We do try to make it a sensible amount but it will always be a source of some contention. In English lessons, I’m sure you can imagine, it reliably makes for a good debate with the children.
As a parent I sometimes bemoan the fact, that with four children, I am constantly chasing one of them to finish their homework or being asked to help. When, on the same evening, one is writing an essay on Macbeth and another is still ploughing through a reading scheme, my brain begins to ache. Our household begins to feel like a boot camp where my sole interaction with the children involves the issuing of orders or instructions and it is only when I get to a weekend of holiday that we get back to a more relaxed and level footing.
That said I see homework as important. As a parent it gives me another opportunity to support my children with their learning and demonstrate to them that I see learning as important. I also see it as not just an opportunity but my responsibility to show them that their school and I are singing from the same hymn sheet and that they need to do what has been asked of them by the school (even if, privately, I don’t always completely agree with it).
I can’t expect you to all agree with homework or even with the way we manage our homework here but if we can do our best to work together in the eyes of the children, then I know this will help them thrive.
I know how much time and energy you put into your children’s learning and it is very much appreciated.
Thank you
Nick Moss