Homework

'A new report from the General Teaching Council for England suggests that although many parents would like to be involved in their child's learning, they don't think they have the right knowledge and skills to properly do so.' (Times, and, no, I can't be bothered to sort out that mess of a sentence from a 'professional' writer.)

The whole point about homework is that it substitutes for the lack of hours in the school day for repetition and for the working out of examples following the taught blue print. It should not be used for such undertakings as 'research' projects, or accession to new material or for recouping parts of the curriculum untaught for various reasons - usually classroom disruption. So why are parents feeling unable to help? Sit there with the reading book, spelling list, tables, number bonds, poetry by heart, to be learned, and refuse them their tea until they have memorised the necessary. Is that so hard? No.

Faced with collecting material on 'Castles, their uses and abuses in the history of the British Isles and elsewhere compared and contrasted', or, ' define the proper use of the ablative absolute with at least 5 examples from latin texts you have studied', and who does not blench?

Tea first, I can do tea, then they were on their own.