More interviews and a shock for the students

Yesterday I had four more, indepth interviews with parents of my home class. They all went well, and a common theme throughout was how well their children had settled into school and how they were enjoying it (or it was "ok" in the words of the student). Another common theme was the lack of homework. Given that Jane and I will be providing most of it, we need to discuss how to approach this so that parents feel ok and yet we are not giving it homework for the sake of it.
Last lesson of the day, and all students recieved their Science exercise books back. I checked to see how much work they had done and many had not done much. So to recieve a detail report showing this was quite a shock for most of them. Only two students can hold their heads up high and say they did all the work required. This is ok - as long as it doesn't stay that way. I think they get the idea now that I mean business and that they must complete the work set to a good standard. The timing of the parent interviews has been great because I could point this out to the parents as well.
Now the challenge is to produce a work agreement for all three subjects that I teach so that it comprehensively covers the work they need to practice and the summative tasks. Oh well, back to the keyboard.