bad school report not doing homework what would you do

badschool report, not doing homework what would you do .

my daughter is 14 was bullied fo ryears in a previous school

we finally changed her school half was through last year and there were some adjustments there also as she is in a class with alot of boys and very few girls to make friends with.

she probably has had a bad report for a few years but alot was going on and she would hide it and we probably didnt have a chance to breathe and follow it up.

this year i did follow it up and found she is polite but not much else. she doesnt seem top work well in class or for homework. she says that school doesnt give homework but the report says otherwise.

perhaps the only way is to make a meeting with her and the school and chat about it all.

i also am extremely dissapointed in my family who consists of older adult siblings and a very invovled grandparent who could easily read the report and comment in a way that she might listen more than if it was only me saying this and also sometimes they listen to siblings or to more voices more than they do to a mother and to one voice. but the rest of the family seem to love leaving me alone to tacklie impossible situations and just say silly things like' well i cant say anything becasue she says that school has no homework"! they say something when its important to them, why do they love to see me strugglin on my own and deliberately wont say anything that could help when they so easily could

anyway what would you do ?
meeting with school?
punishment
reward if it picks up
explain why its important and how would you explain it.

thanks so much

Sue.

I'd make an appointment with the school and her and then put it out there - this report says that she doesn't do her homework but she tells me that there isn't any...I'm having difficulty understanding what is going on.

Then ask the school if you can have another appointment in a month to follow up and see if there has been progress. And in the meantime come down on her like a ton of bricks and insist that she sits at the dining table and does her homework every night (or wherever is practical) and that you are happy to assist or proof read things etc.

14 is sort of a make or break age - good habits now will help her do better later on - but not learning to learn now will mean that it just keeps getting harder.

Also, maybe make a deal with her, if she does an hour of homework every night she can have Saturdays off, or can come home later or do something like that.

The school may operate a homework planner system. Have the teacher write the homework in the book and you check and sign the book every night/week. Have your daughter's tutor check her book once a week: if you have not signed it then she gets detention. You could also stop her going out until you've seen the planner and she's done her homework. Failing that, contact the school and ask her teachers to e-mail you the homework.

You need a meeting with the school to set this up and make sure your daughter is there for that meeting. She needs to take charge of her life and own her mistakes, see that you aren't covering up for her.

HTH and good luck.

As a high school teachers I would definitely be making contact with the school as soon as possible. Her Year Advisor (or similar) would be a good start. They should be able to help you make contact with her teachers for this year. Most schools operate with an "assessment schedule" giving a guide to what assignments are to be given and when throughout the term/semester/year - this way you know when she "should" have things to do. A diary is also a good idea - teachers don't have time to write a students homework down for them (nor should they IMO) but definitely have the ability to check a student has written it themselves - for you to see/follow up at home. Check her books daily or every couple of days - often homework is to finish what was begun in class and this will be easy to see.

I would be trying to get email contacts for her main teachers (English/Maths/Science/History/Geography etc) It is a good way to make contact without playing "phone tag" (getting teachers on the phone/teachers being able to get a "line out" can be tough) Ask her teachers to email you when something isn't done - then you can start the "punishments" - I know the kids I teach respond well when their parents take things like their mobile phone and internet priviliges away :lol:

You should also be able to ask for a progress report halfway though the term - to gauge how she is going.

All the best with it - teenagers and school can be tough :hug:

thanks. lots of great suggestions to follow up.

this daughter is not the best to ' discipline'

she will walk over to narby relatives sisters home etc, when she feels under pressure and truly anything i have tried does not help her obey rules and i cant tie her down.

phone priviledges and internet privileges we can try again but because she leaves and goes to relatives homes nearby i truly wish they would work together on these issues but they dont. they will all happily sabotage me when their support could make such a difference.

with my students i make them take home any marked assessments to show their parents-they need a parental signature on them which they bring back to show me their parents have seen their work, and i record this in my markbook.

I would make sure she is using her diary to record homework, and check that she is doing it. Every subject should give her an assessment schedule -it is worth having a large desk planner and writing all the due dates straight on it so you can clearly see when major things fall due.

Email is the best way to catch most of us since we are usually in the classroom-some subjects may have homework books depending on the school eg maths, science.

One of my girlfriends is a teacher and she has some students who have homework issues, the parents now get the homework assignments emailed to them on a daily/weekly basis, which ever is applicable due to the subject matter.

Have you sat down with your extended family and discussed the issues you are having. Maybe in a "family forum" style meeting, letting them know the issues, you may be able to solicit help.

Also would it be possible for you to study something as well, so the both of you sit down to study at the same time? Just a thought. I know that sitting down with my cousin to study at the same time helped me focus, even though he was doing an adult education type course, from memory he was doing a stonework course so was reading up about the theory of stoneworking, but it helped me see others studying.

I'm glad I popped into this thread. It's given me some great ideas for helping my eldest DSS (almost 13) with homework compliance.

Last year he was in year 7. We had a great relationship with his home room teacher, and we would ask him every single night if he had homework. His reply more often than not, was "no". He would tell us he either finished it in class, or that he wasn't given any. Then we got his end of year report and almost every single class report mentioned his failure to hand in homework, grrrrr! When we confronted him he basically admitted to lying all semester about homework. We basically told him to enjoy his school holidays, because next year (this year now) we were going to be very strict with homework. We've already hold him that if he tells us he has no homework then he only gets 1 hour of electronic entertainment for the night (playstation/computer etc). If he has homework, then once he completes it he can go nuts on the electronics as long as he can prove to us that he's finished the homework and that it's an appropriate standard.

I love the idea about asking his teachers if they can email us his homework though! We haven't found out his home room teacher yet, or what teachers he has for classes, but we'll have to make an appointment with his home room teacher as soon as we find out.

Sorry to hijack your thread! I hope things improve for you a little this year :hug:

Oops. Double posted.

thanks for thatthat was very helpful. thank you. and gave me a good laugh too. very clever.

Do check with the school about the email contact. Some schools are implementing this in various forms.
DD is doing VCE and she can access information she needs and submit it directly to the school.

Another thing you may like to investigate is maybe a youth group/teen group in your area. DD was tapped into one through Anglicare when she was about the same age. She didn't cope very well with my miscarriage and the councellor used to see her after school and drop her home. Because DD was involved in this service she was also eligible for these awesome leadership/confidence camps in the school holidays. It cost me nothing (sole parent), and she really enjoyed herself.

I think kids need sources of friends outside school esp in the teen years. Things aren't so hard when you have people on the outside :rofl:

thanks for that lulu. this is my youngest of several children. with the others they did go to various things that sound similar to what you are talking about. i dont know if it helped them. but definitely having outside hobbies sports interests helps at that age. she is interested in drama which is quite costly and not necesarily so local either so i have not chased it up.

thanks for all the hints everyone has been really helpful and i will chase this all up thank you.

Sue.

Gosh, this sounds like my DS who is in yr 7. He has had a few little projects here and there but no consistent homework.
Luckily next week he gets his school report and we have teacher inteviews on the thurs. So will def. be asking abt the 'homework' issue. I remember going to highschool in the 80s, Im pretty sure we had maths/english every night. My DS - nothing. I also put it down to a 'boys' thing...