I like Elizabeth's practical suggestion, but will add: do consider, and encourage your son to consider, the possibility that this teacher knows exactly what she's doing. Did I understand correctly that the higher weighted Maps task is for work done in class? She might well feel that it should be highly weighted because, being done under her eye, it is a much better gauge of what children can really do, as opposed to what gets done in an uncontrolled environment where help may be available. She may be right.
I know people tend to think of a high grade as a reward for work done, but really it's "supposed" to be a measure of what's been learned. If someone does 200 hours of homework which attracts no grade credit at all, but helps them learn the material, and then is given a grade for what they show they can do in a 2 hour exam, that isn't intrinsically unfair - also, it's what much of the world does! - even though it may be unexpected.
Indeed, a move towards such a system may be what's needed to give schools the freedom to stop giving kids so much useless homework and to let them let kids have the freedom to do what will help them learn rather than what will garner immediate marks. It may be hard to do all at once, but downweighting homework is a possible step towards it. A clumsy one, admittedly - if this were the intention it would be better to introduce more freedom into the homework at the same time, also to explain the rationale. Still, it would be a pity to reinforce teachers' feelings that they can't do this.
Last edited by ColinsMum; 09/22/13 02:42 AM.
