# Spanish parents urged to put children on weekend homework strike



## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ed-to-put-children-on-weekend-homework-strike



> Parents in Spain are being urged to go on a weekend homework strike this month in protest against the “unacceptable” amount of after-school tasks their children are given.
> 
> The homework load of Spanish children has long been a sore point with some parents, who argue that the burden is too great, places too much pressure on pupils and eats into family time.
> 
> ...


I would be happy to see homework abolished personally, at the least at primary level ages but that is just my feeling. Never liked it as a kid and and not now as a parent.

Seems like this comes up every year a month or so after school starts.

Do people think they have a point or not?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Pazcat said:


> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ed-to-put-children-on-weekend-homework-strike
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't remember ever having homework at primary school, but at grammar school from the age of 11 onwards I had 3 hours of it every night, minimum. I used to do some of it on the bus going to school the next morning - it was a 1.5 hour journey on 3 different buses so it helped pass the time! I didn't get home from school until 5.30 pm so it was eat, homework and bed, almost no time for anything else on school nights.

If Spanish 15 year olds are getting 6.5 hours of homework a week, they are lightweights.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> I don't remember ever having homework at primary school, but at grammar school from the age of 11 onwards I had 3 hours of it every night, minimum. I used to do some of it on the bus going to school the next morning - it was a 1.5 hour journey on 3 different buses so it helped pass the time! I didn't get home from school until 5.30 pm so it was eat, homework and bed, almost no time for anything else on school nights.
> 
> If Spanish 15 year olds are getting 6.5 hours of homework a week, they are lightweights.


The figures in the article don't add up because later it says ...


> “Schools are passing on tasks to families that they shouldn’t be. They’ve made us into second teachers and left children in the latter stages of secondary children with up to 60 hours of schoolwork a week. It starts with children from the ages of three to six doing half an hour’s homework every day. For us, that’s an unacceptable situation.


I would say that neither is true. Children in Spain get a tremendous amount of homework in both private and state schools and in primary and secondary from what I've seen from my own daughter going through the system and teaching some children in private/ semi private schools.
I'd go as far as to say it's one of the main reasons children fail at school. They have so much to do out of the class on their own they get lost, demotivated and bored and surprise surprise many prefer to just play and have fun.


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## Justina (Jan 25, 2013)

*Schools*



Pesky Wesky said:


> The figures in the article don't add up because later it says ...
> 
> I would say that neither is true. Children in Spain get a tremendous amount of homework in both private and state schools and in primary and secondary from what I've seen from my own daughter going through the system and teaching some children in private/ semi private schools.
> I'd go as far as to say it's one of the main reasons children fail at school. They have so much to do out of the class on their own they get lost, demotivated and bored and surprise surprise many prefer to just play and have fun.


Perhaps the whole system has become overloaded with more and more demands so the teacher has to pass it on as homework.
I can understand that too much can demotivate a child but also what could be really sad is if a child has nobody to help at home and offer some guidance.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Justina said:


> Perhaps the whole system has become overloaded with more and more demands so the teacher has to pass it on as homework.
> I can understand that too much can demotivate a child but also what could be really sad is if a child has nobody to help at home and offer some guidance.


I totally agree.
From what I've seen nuturing what is known as the habit of study is fundamental. If you have a child who does well at school, who fits into the system well you're halfway there. If you've got interested parents who also have jobs that allow them to be around to support the child, BINGO the child will probably do all right in the Spanish system. If not, you could be looking at a large number of problems.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Justina said:


> Perhaps the whole system has become overloaded with more and more demands so the teacher has to pass it on as homework.
> I can understand that too much can demotivate a child but also what could be really sad is if a child has nobody to help at home and offer some guidance.


I never got any help at home with homework - my parents just wouldn't have known where to start. They never looked at it when it was done nor ever looked at any of my school books - going to parents' evening once a year was the total of their involvement and that just about terrified them. I used to have to do my homework in our "front parlour" which was a bleak, cold room hardly ever used otherwise whilst the rest of the family watched TV around the fire in another room.

As well as the homework I had a Saturday job as soon as I was old enough to get one - not that my parents wanted me to, but I wanted to have one.

It was all hard work but at least startng work for real did not come as any kind of shock to me.


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## Desiato (Jun 1, 2015)




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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> I never got any help at home with homework - my parents just wouldn't have known where to start. They never looked at it when it was done nor ever looked at any of my school books - going to parents' evening once a year was the total of their involvement and that just about terrified them. I used to have to do my homework in our "front parlour" which was a bleak, cold room hardly ever used otherwise whilst the rest of the family watched TV around the fire in another room.
> 
> As well as the homework I had a Saturday job as soon as I was old enough to get one - not that my parents wanted me to, but I wanted to have one.
> 
> It was all hard work but at least startng work for real did not come as any kind of shock to me.


You didn't get any help and you did ok. That doesn't mean the way you did it, without parental guidance and in a cold room was the best way!
You were obviously motivated and hard working. Lots of people aren't yet they are still intelligent and capable. Given the right circumstances those people too can flourish, but not just by throwing homework at them, and this is one of the areas where Spanish education fails.
Making an effort and being enthusiastic about learning isn't something we are all born with and some people can't rely on their parents for these values either, but it would be nice if schools could guide their students, _all_ of their students to appreciate these values.
Nowadays in the UK the parents, the teachers and even the students can potentially be much more involved than they are in Spanish schools.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

I too went to grammar school six full days a week and long bus journeys. Then it was forced piano practice one hour every night then homework for a couple of hours and on Sundays church choir twice. 

No time to just be a kid.

I'm making up for it now.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

My 6 year old son just started primary and is given up to half an hour a night to do during the week, but nothing at weekends (I think this is less than previous years as the school is trying to cut down). We don't mind it so far, and I quite like it as I get to see what he is studying, what level he is at, and maybe support him better. Also a lot of the homework is just reading the stories they've been set, which is something they should probably be doing at home anyway.

One thing that really helps is living only a few minutes walk from the school. Like Lynne I spent a lot of time going to/from secondary school on a bus, maybe losing up to two hours a day altogether, and generally being exhausted. If a child can avoid doing that then a few hours homework each night is far more manageable.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I don't have any kids but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, both here and the UK. I think homework for primary school children is just plain wrong. I don't know how advantageous it is for older children, but it is can be an enormous burden on teachers especially those with a heavy teaching load. I remember when my OH taught IT in two schools and and had nearly 300 students - that's an awful lot of marking! No free periods to do it in either, because he invariably got taken for coverwhen other teachers were off sick. In the end the stress got too much and he had to leave.

I don't know what stage the students start getting homework here, or how much, but I do know they can go back into school late afternoon and do it, which seems sensible as all the students live locally. There is also a Guadalinfo office and the Casa de Juventud, both of which have free computers with internet access and study space they can use any time.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jimenato said:


> I too went to grammar school six full days a week and long bus journeys. Then it was forced piano practice one hour every night then homework for a couple of hours and on Sundays church choir twice.
> 
> No time to just be a kid.
> 
> I'm making up for it now.


The Like button has disappeared but I really like this!  That you're making up for it now I mean, rather than that horrendous regime you suffered as a child.

My neices are constantly whisking their children off to ballet, music lessons, swimming and goodness knows what other activities outside of school. I think they are afraid the children will be bored (under-stimulated is probably the term they use) if they aren't constantly engaged in some sort of activity. I feel a bit sorry for them really, I'm afraid they will grow up expecting every moment to be planned for them. Life's not like that!


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Lynn R said:


> I never got any help at home with homework - my parents just wouldn't have known where to start. They never looked at it when it was done nor ever looked at any of my school books - going to parents' evening once a year was the total of their involvement and that just about terrified them. ...


I got help from my Mum with French but that was about it at secondary school. I even had to help her with her maths O level when I was 17 because she needed the exam to become a teacher. Both my parents had attended boarding schools and I guess they just thought education was entirely the school's responsibility.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Alcalaina said:


> The Like button has disappeared but I really like this!


My thoughts exactly!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

eep:It's entertaining to have stories about when posters were kids but please note - most of these were in the last century. :jaw:
Education should move with the times.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> The Like button has disappeared but I really like this!  That you're making up for it now I mean, rather than that horrendous regime you suffered as a child.
> 
> My neices are constantly whisking their children off to ballet, music lessons, swimming and goodness knows what other activities outside of school. I think they are afraid the children will be bored (under-stimulated is probably the term they use) if they aren't constantly engaged in some sort of activity. I feel a bit sorry for them really, I'm afraid they will grow up expecting every moment to be planned for them. Life's not like that!


I managed to like it, but then I'm a motivated and responsible poster with support from my family :tongue:


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Pesky Wesky said:


> I totally agree.
> From what I've seen nuturing what is known as the habit of study is fundamental. If you have a child who does well at school, who fits into the system well you're halfway there. If you've got interested parents who also have jobs that allow them to be around to support the child, BINGO the child will probably do all right in the Spanish system. If not, you could be looking at a large number of problems.


Yeah my kid's school is really big on getting them to be independent and taking responsibility for their study from an early age. They want the kids to get into the habit of writing down what pages they've got to study, putting the right books in their bags to take home, doing the work, and bringing it to school the next day. The process is maybe as important as how well they do the homework itself in primary school. Once they've drilled that study habit and sense of responsibility into the kids at an early age then it's half the battle won.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

You send your kids to school to learn so it should be their responsibility imo.
Home life is more important and should never be wasted.

I was shocked to learn the school hours in Europe, coming from Australia we were on 8:30-9am to 3-3:30pm which seems about right, earlier when it was hot too. But to then bundle more work on top of that and possibly sport a few nights and any other activities just gets too much.
Kids should be kids yet it seems like they work longer hours than adults these days. I know when I knock off I'm done.

Our boys who are 7 & 5 don't get any homework at all, but they do bring lots of work back home and are encouraged(we too as parents) to spend a bit of time just talking about what they did.
Now the thing is school has given them confidence in their abilities and you know what they wanted for their birthdays?
A desk and chair so they can write stories on.
On their own accord and in their own time they like to sit and write a story or draw and even do some maths. Nobody is making them do it but they enjoy it.
They read for up to 2 hours a day, in the car and before bed and again it's their call. 

It proves to me that firstly they are happy and learning at school and that the methodology works which is all you can really ask for.

All we can do now is hope that this lasts as they grow older because if I was happy with my school life at one point I certainly wasn't as I got older.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Ultimately it should be the school's responsibility to educate children, but as they say "education starts at home" and it's an exceptional child who succeeds at school without any kind of support at home.

Our kids school is from 9 to 5, with a 2 hour lunch break, and a couple of other breaks. It's a long day, but I like to think it's not too intense. Other schools around Madrid have introduced a jornada intensiva from about 9 to 2, followed by the lunch break and home (or extracurricular activities)


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

jimenato said:


> I too went to grammar school six full days a week and long bus journeys. Then it was forced piano practice one hour every night then homework for a couple of hours and on Sundays church choir twice.
> 
> No time to just be a kid.
> 
> I'm making up for it now.


Thinking about it I'm slightly bitter about it.

It's an easy option for teachers/parents to set kids time-consuming stuff that has to be done. Loads of effort from the kids, little from the teacher.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I like the Spanish meaning of the word _educacíón_ which includes how children are brought up at home as well as how they are taught in schools. You can't meaninfgully separate them.


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## Megsmum (Sep 9, 2012)

My students seem to do nothing but study, I do not give homework as they appear to have plenty from school and after school clubs. 

Personally, I went to boarding school, two hours per night. I am not convinced that Homework benefits children now or then.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Here there are all the out-of-school activities - football, chess, tennis, judo, band practice (we have two bands) as well and very rarely do you have kids who sit at home watching television.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> Here there are all the out-of-school activities - football, chess, tennis, judo, band practice (we have two bands) as well and very rarely do you have kids who sit at home watching television.


What I've never understood is the great divide in sleep patterns for young children in Spain and the UK. In Spain kids go to bed so much later I'm sure they have time to do worthy out of school activites and the usual video games, social networks, watching series, teasing younger siblings, getting on mum and dad's nerves AND homework on top of all that!


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Here are a couple of follow up articles today.

The first one has a a few interesting links to some studies on how effective homework actually is.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/03/parent-homework-children-family-time

The second is various people complaining, fair enough I guess.
https://www.theguardian.com/educati...midnight-parents-around-the-world-on-homework


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

My 8 yr old son is regularly doing 1 - 1.5 hrs homework every day. Personally I think it is too much for a child of his age.

He stays at school for extracurricular activities most days until 5pm. He gets home at around 5.30 and usually completes the homework before dinner time, then goes to bed straight afterwards. If he has to complete his homework after dinner he is really going to bed too late for our liking. The system doesn't seem to account for the fact that the children may not always go straight home after school... what if the parents have to take the children shopping or to have a hair cut or whatever?

He often also has around 2 hours homework at the weekends.

I understand that the schools need to complete the curriculum during the course, but I think that depriving an 8 yr old of any "play time" at home from Monday to Friday is not a good idea.


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## 95995 (May 16, 2010)

Lynn R said:


> I never got any help at home with homework - my parents just wouldn't have known where to start. They never looked at it when it was done nor ever looked at any of my school books - going to parents' evening once a year was the total of their involvement and that just about terrified them. I used to have to do my homework in our "front parlour" which was a bleak, cold room hardly ever used otherwise whilst the rest of the family watched TV around the fire in another room.
> 
> As well as the homework I had a Saturday job as soon as I was old enough to get one - not that my parents wanted me to, but I wanted to have one.
> 
> It was all hard work but at least startng work for real did not come as any kind of shock to me.


I never had any help with homework either (Mum was divorced, we lived with her mother). Likewise I had to do my homework in our (tiny) living room, with the TV on, but that was after I'd made the evening meal, cleaned my Mum's hairdressing salon (we lived behind and over the business), and had counted the day's take, prepared the banking and done the books for the business. I worked in the salon on Saturdays without pay. My Mum never even went to parents' evening. Homework for me was a constant bugbear, never enough time to get it done so I was endlessly in trouble at school. That improved, though, in Lower and Upper sixth form where we had free periods so I could go to the library and get most of it done  Given that throughout high school I simply did not hand in a lot of my homework, I have to wonder what purpose it really serves. I did well at school, but only because the assessment was in those days entirely exam based. Wish I'd had time to be a kid and I would definitely prefer to see that be the case for today's kids.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

The beeb are in on it now.

Parents in Spain go on homework strike - BBC News


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Overandout said:


> My 8 yr old son is regularly doing 1 - 1.5 hrs homework every day. Personally I think it is too much for a child of his age.
> 
> He stays at school for extracurricular activities most days until 5pm. He gets home at around 5.30 and usually completes the homework before dinner time, then goes to bed straight afterwards. If he has to complete his homework after dinner he is really going to bed too late for our liking. The system doesn't seem to account for the fact that the children may not always go straight home after school... what if the parents have to take the children shopping or to have a hair cut or whatever?
> 
> ...


Is he in year 3 of primary?

I've heard that many Madrid schools (including the one mine goes to) make the odd years hard and the even years relatively easy. Apparently they introduce lots of new material in the odd years, and then just repeat it in the even years to reinforce the learning. Also I think they now have tests in year 3 so maybe the schools try to cram stuff into the children so they do well.


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## Megsmum (Sep 9, 2012)

I discussed this with my 13yr olds this evening

In their opinion, the worst thing about the homework is, that it is not always marked, and sometimes the lessons are taken up with marking the previous weeks' homework. 

My 13 yrs olds have on average 2 hours a night, plus extra at the weekends.

That's why they love me..........I do not give them any


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