Bl***y School

lil'misskisses

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Sorry just need a bit of a rant. Im so cross with my daughter's school.

She is 8 years old and a very bright child and I have just had her in tears over formal assessments (exams) she has next week. Im so sick of seeing her so stressed all the time. She is 8 years old. Shouldn't school be a fun learning experience? The school she goes to now formally assesses the kids 3 times a year from year 2 (age 6/7) and they have just written some special papers to cover up to that age so they will now be tested from age 5. Her homework schedule is terrible....last weekend she had 1.5 hr maths and nearly another hour English plus 30 mins reading every night. They were doing charles dickens.......even i dont understand half of it. I just want to know when they think she has time to actually be a care free child and just have fun without this constant worry. She has always loved school but they are just pushing and pushing her.

The school only seems to be interested in the league tables and sats results and so are piling on the pressure. Most of these tests they do under exam conditions are optional anyway. We are going to end up with a whole generation of burned out kids who wanna leave education as soon as they can if they keep up this level of pressure. I know its important but when is enough enough!

She is a really clever girl.....easily scoring nearly 2 years ahead of her age level but she still doesn't feel good enough. It just makes me so mad.

Sorry..... i guess your education system works differently and most of you prob have no idea what im wittering on about but I feel a whole lot better for getting it out....LOL

Emma x x
 

gemlady

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Emma, from what I have heard the schools here aren't much different. Not only homework but endless sports and other extra curricular events that take any free time and keep the parents/guardians constantly on the go!
 

sneakymom

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Emma, I'm sorry about your dd and school .

Here in the US, the public school system drives me NUTS with standardized testing too. I live in VA, and we have these evil standard tests called the SOL's. I hate the sol's.

The teachers have a set standard of what the kids HAVE to learn every year. And everything they learn HAS to have an SOL attached, or they don't learn it. The kids take benchmark tests in 1,2 grade, and in 3rd grade onward they take yearly SOL tests. Dd in 4th grade has one in math and reading this year. My 7th grader has one in English, Pre-Algebra and Social Studies.

Oldest dd tends to be a bit of a perfectionist, and she FREAKED last year when her sister got 100% on every single test she took. Dd missed a couple of questions in English (her weakest subject) and civics. I don't like the fact too that the schools put so much pressure on the kids to perform on these tests. As I said, my kids do really well on them to begin with.

4th grader has had about 30 minutes of homework a night. My oldest has had over an hour sometimes, esp when she had big projects to do.

Vent away, I completely understand where you're coming from.
 

proudkittiemom

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i think thats schools everywhere are schools are like that here too, and we have pssa tests in certain grades and now they have it from a week to adding it all into 2-3 weeks! Its really rediculous, and thats all our school worries about too, and well a lot of kids drop out! And the teachers usually didnt give out much homework but alot still did and they said that they were told that kids should have an hour of homework each night in each subject! By the time schools out is there even enough hours to do all of that ?! I usually found myself not doing the homework because it was too much, even though I knew it! At one point I did want to drop out and that was before they added the 2-3 weeks of tests, I was lucky and only had it for a week! But now I luckily went on cyber school and it seems to work for me


But hey I know what you mean, I am surprised at how much homework my nephew gets and hes in 1st grade! He was getting homework in kindergarten (sorry cant spell lol) Its just rediculous!
to u and ur daughter
Hope u guys feel better, and the best thing to do is don't stress over it that much!
 

jane_vernon

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And they wonder why so many kids these days have depression and social issues??

Its because they are too worried about doing homework and being the best instead of being kids!

Homework should be BANNED until they are at least in year 5/6 - Kids younger than this are just too young to have that responsibility placed upon them.

Sorry for your DD - Poor thing just wants to have fun
 

theimp98

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sorry, but i dont ever remember school being fun,
at least not until i got into college
 

dragoriana

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Originally Posted by lil'misskisses

Sorry just need a bit of a rant. Im so cross with my daughter's school.

She is 8 years old and a very bright child and I have just had her in tears over formal assessments (exams) she has next week. Im so sick of seeing her so stressed all the time. She is 8 years old. Shouldn't school be a fun learning experience? The school she goes to now formally assesses the kids 3 times a year from year 2 (age 6/7) and they have just written some special papers to cover up to that age so they will now be tested from age 5. Her homework schedule is terrible....last weekend she had 1.5 hr maths and nearly another hour English plus 30 mins reading every night. They were doing charles dickens.......even i dont understand half of it. I just want to know when they think she has time to actually be a care free child and just have fun without this constant worry. She has always loved school but they are just pushing and pushing her.

The school only seems to be interested in the league tables and sats results and so are piling on the pressure. Most of these tests they do under exam conditions are optional anyway. We are going to end up with a whole generation of burned out kids who wanna leave education as soon as they can if they keep up this level of pressure. I know its important but when is enough enough!

She is a really clever girl.....easily scoring nearly 2 years ahead of her age level but she still doesn't feel good enough. It just makes me so mad.

Sorry..... i guess your education system works differently and most of you prob have no idea what im wittering on about but I feel a whole lot better for getting it out....LOL

Emma x x
The school sets the homework times? I would have thoughts the kids or parents would set it at home themselves. I dont think schools should have any say in what you do in your own personal time. That sucks
 

duchess15

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I guess there are standardized tests worldwide. Problem is, these test are totally useless and serve no purpose. Here is Texas it used to be called TAAS, but is now changed to TAKS, which is stupid in itself. The teachers pretty much only focus on what is on the test and I think that our money is going to waste as tax payers on education because of these kinds of tests. The teachers totally lose sight of what is important and what they SHOULD be learning. The only purpose this test has is to see how well you can take a standardized test. It doesn't tell you whether you are smart or not. It is such a shame to see the education getting worse than it already is.
 

kiwideus

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Far out, that's a bit extreme. My son is 6 and the only homework he gets is a reading book that he reads with us - and its easy enough to do in 5 minutes. I am sure he will start getting more homework soon though.
 
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lil'misskisses

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Originally Posted by Duchess15

I guess there are standardized tests worldwide. Problem is, these test are totally useless and serve no purpose. Here is Texas it used to be called TAAS, but is now changed to TAKS, which is stupid in itself. The teachers pretty much only focus on what is on the test and I think that our money is going to waste as tax payers on education because of these kinds of tests. The teachers totally lose sight of what is important and what they SHOULD be learning. The only purpose this test has is to see how well you can take a standardized test. It doesn't tell you whether you are smart or not. It is such a shame to see the education getting worse than it already is.
Thats exactly it here too. My daughter's teacher has already admitted to me that she cant teach how she wants to teach. She feels like her job is to coach these kids through the various tests they have to do. It also moves at such a quick pace. If something really interests the kids she cant stop and do more on that subject and she quickly has to move onto the next.
These tests do not benefit the kids at all.....all they do is place the schools in the league tables.

I have actually kept her off school today. She was up during the night sleepwalking and then she had a headache and ended up being sick. She needs a rest today so I have kept her home. The first thing she said was "but i got my sats today"! She shouldn't be under that pressure at all.

Thanks for the supportive words guys......It really does make all the difference. Just being able to get it all off my chest is a big help.

Emma x x
 

xxtashaxx

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my children are 9 , 71/2 and 31/2 once my son goes to reception he will be getting 3 lots of homework a week plus reading daily. my 9 and 7 year old daughter gets the same homework perweek about 5 sheets plus 30mins reading everynight, im sorry but i dont let my children do there homework , i allow them to read as they read anyway , but if they dont want to do there homework then i will not make them, i dont think homework should be sent out untill the 6th year of primary school so it gets them ready for secondry school.
they seem to forget that children are at school 5 days a week 5 1/2 hours a day , they need *their*own time to be kids and play.
 

lunasmom

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Ugh! Haven't the board of educations learn that children are not really as smart coming out of school when they're being trained for state/county tests?

Michigan has something called the MEAP (Michigan Education Assessment Program) that a bunch of schools in the Detroit area "train" their students for. Basically the higher the test scores, the more funding the school district receives from the state.

The school district I attended taught with the focus on this MEAP. Unfortunately it wasn't until I got to college that I realised how ancient the MEAP was and how behind I was in a lot of areas.
 

whosamyhercules

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Arghh I hated that testing...In my school my senior yr they made it a requirement that you had to show up or the school wouldnt give you your diploma...Which is stupid because by the time we all had our testing at the end of the yr we had already been accepted to schools of choice and making plans for college..Gee I didnt show up for most of my junior yr and I still passed all my classes with high scores. Everything was by the book and every week the teacher had to move onto the next chapter. It didnt matter if someone had questions or needed extra help they had to move on....Or else they could have missed something crucial to our education..I know every day Im using the knowledge of how to find the volume of a sphere and conical shape...Yea right! I wish that teachers could have more control over their curriculum. My friends that are graduating college this year have done nothing but complain because during their student teaching courses its been so regimented they couldnt take the time to even make things interesting for kids....I hope by the time my girls get in school something changes...I couldnt get myself to do my homework how am I supposed to get a 5 yr old to sit down and do it......
 
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