this is a very American issue. In my entire student career in Italy, home assignments were never graded. Maybe you had a project or two through university, but otherwise I got all my grades for onsite tests.
Not sure if those two were just old school (they'd occasionally hit us/ pull ears too) but damn was I ahead of all the other kids when I came back to the USA
Also the two teachers had the same class of kids for all of elementary school, teaching 1st through 5th grades sequentially So they got to know the kids quite well