Are any other HGC parents dissatisfied or suspicious about their class?

[Anonymous]

There is very little homework in my child's HGC class and what he does bring home he does in 10 minutes. (No I am NOT trying to make it sound like my child is a genius that whips through homework). The homework is really easy.

My main concern is the written work, I have not seen any class project work come home, the parent teacher conference was useless My child is bringing home I's or ES's on these written assignment notecards, (about one a week). There is no complementary sheets describing the assignments, he has no idea what he is doing wrong or right.

I know the advice is to address this with the teacher and I will, but I am wondering if I am just missing something about how things are done in the HGC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is very little homework in my child's HGC class and what he does bring home he does in 10 minutes. (No I am NOT trying to make it sound like my child is a genius that whips through homework). The homework is really easy.

My main concern is the written work, I have not seen any class project work come home, the parent teacher conference was useless My child is bringing home I's or ES's on these written assignment notecards, (about one a week). There is no complementary sheets describing the assignments, he has no idea what he is doing wrong or right.

I know the advice is to address this with the teacher and I will, but I am wondering if I am just missing something about how things are done in the HGC?

2 thoughts.

1) Which HGC?

2) Impact of CC 2.0?

I am seeing the same with my DC. Nothing earth shattering. In fact there was more home work at his Title 1 school.

[Anonymous]

Can you request an opportunity to observe the class? For what it's worth, my child is at an HGC and only gets homework in vocabulary, math and occasionally science. Her homeroom teacher is of the opinion that homework at the fourth grade level has not been shown to increase achievement levels. I suppose there are differing schools of thought on that.

[Anonymous]

Her homeroom teacher is of the opinion that homework at the fourth grade level has not been shown to increase achievement levels.

OP here, I also agree that excessive homework at the forth grade would be ridiculous, but I am suspicious of the lack of homework and written work that is coming home. Having had other kids in the regular program at this school there is a huge difference between the amount of feedback provided in the HGC versus the regular classrooms.

The teacher conference was useless. The teacher provided a work sample with an I, could not tell me why my child got an I because she did not have the original assignment. She's also been cagey when directly asked questions about my sons progress, "he's doing fine" without providing any specifics when directly asked a question. They are assigned World Wise every week but she only grades one section, does not have time to grade anymore than that.

[Anonymous]

I completely agree! I don't feel that we get adequate feedback (either from written, graded work or from direct teacher feedback). I hardly ever see any work come home, there is little (well, practically no feedback on the teacher's webpage). I feel very much in the dark about what is going on. In addition, my kid gets P's on everything, so I can't even judge how something is determined to be an I or an ES, everything is just P.
Very frustrated at our experience at this point.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what you mean by suspicious, do you mean there's an effort to not actually provide more advanced work? For my daughter, it's a lot better than what she got last year but I don't know what's going on at the home school this year.

[Anonymous]

My child had a very good experience in his HGC but did not have homework everyday and I thought that was a good thing! They are given a lot of time at school to work on their projects and if your child is organized they can get their class work and most of their homework done in school. He would sometimes bring home Math or spelling homework and the big projects (the Native American project, the migration project) did require a lot of time at home. The work he was doing was challenging and I thought the grading was rigorous and helpful. I have heard elsewhere on this forum that things have changed this year with C2.0 and so I am not sure whether our experience from two years ago is comparable to yours. I thought the material they covered, the pace of instruction and the written assignments were very advanced and enriched when compared to the regular Grade 4 and Grade 5 offerings. We escaped the new report cards entirely so I can't comment on the feedback you are getting. It would help if you posted the name of the HGC.

[Anonymous]

In 4th grade I felt there were a lot of projects that required work at home. In 5th grade I felt there was a decent amount of homework, but it was more that the work was more challenging than it was the volume of it.

[Anonymous]

After winter break the HGCs are going back to the old curriculum. Maybe you will see a change then.

[Anonymous]

Actually, HGCs went back to old curriculum already, I think.

While I don't necessarily see a lot of homework either (which, I, too, see as a good thing), my child tells me that he likes school because he's finally learning something.

So, while I'm not getting a whole lot of info from school and I'm not seeing much of his work, I'm going to take him at face value, particularly since this is the first year he's ever said that.

[Anonymous]

HGC's were going back to the old curriculum in 3rd quarter. We're not there yet.

Parent of a 5th grade HGC kid. 4th grade had more homework and was more rigorous. 5th grade (with 2.0) has many same projects as regular 5th grade. That, and other changes (no more changing teachers for subject) was dictated by the administration (whether it was by the individual school or by the county system, I'm not sure). The teachers aren't in favor of many of the changes, but can't say that publicly. The teachers are very supportive of the kids in the program, and are doing what they can within the framework they have been given to do right by these kids. I love the teachers, for both the 4th grade and the 5th grade. I'm thrilled for the peer group and understanding teachers, and for that, even if the curriculum were exactly the same as the regular school, we'd still be at the HGC.

Even with 2.0, the curriculum is what you make of it. If you have a kid who wants to work, and demands a lot of themselves, the homework can still be quite time consuming and the work challenging. However, there is plenty of room to cut corners because the rubrics and grading system is handed down from above, and the kids figured that out pretty quick.

[Anonymous]

My kid is now in middle school so it's been a few years, but he didn' t have a lot of homework on a day to day basis. Have you talked to your child about long term projects Perhaps they are expected to be working on theirs.

[Anonymous]

15:49 Here - along with what 16:37 said, in the 1st quarter the 5th grade was being graded on "collaboration", so a lot of their work was in the classroom with other students.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry to hear this, sounds like it's due to curriculum 2.0 My DS is now in middle school after attending the HGC, which we found to be quite challenging, both in the classroom and for homework as well. I could tell (esp. now, looking back) that the peer group and excellent teachers were so good for him.

We were really pleased with the HGC (not so much with °the current middle school, which is not a magnet and although he' s in all "honors" classes, is not finding them challenging at all....getting straight As without really working hard.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry to hear this, sounds like it's due to curriculum 2.0 My DS is now in middle school after attending the HGC, which we found to be quite challenging, both in the classroom and for homework as well. I could tell (esp. now, looking back) that the peer group and excellent teachers were so good for him.

We were really pleased with the HGC (not so much with °the current middle school, which is not a magnet and although he' s in all "honors" classes, is not finding them challenging at all....getting straight As without really working hard.)

My daughter is in 5th at an HGC. It seems to me that a lot more was expected from her last year pre 2.0. The workload this year seems to be significantly less. Not sure if it's 2.0 or just different teachers, but it's a large difference.