Year 10s - how much work are they doing?

[Dancergirl]

I posted recently about my Year 10 dd who seems to have very little homework at the moment.

We have just had another row about work in general

I spoke to the HOY who went over what dd should have had during that fortnight. Dd more or less agreed. HOY said she should be doing 1.5/2 hours per night. I reminded dd that even if she is set less than that she should be revising/going over work or using online resources such as My Maths (her weak subject).

I told dd I would try and stop nagging her and trust her a bit more. However....in the last week she has done very little work again. She gets home late after CCF on Fridays so no work. Saturday - nothing. Sunday - she did some but not sure how much. Last night - nothing or very little. Tonight - it got to 9.15 and she had done nothing.

I don't want to be the sort of parent who's always nagging about homework But on the other hand, I really believe success at GCSE is about hard work and I don't want her to not fulfil her potential.

Parents' night is coming up in a few weeks time. Maybe I should lay off her completely until then and see what her teachers say...?

Feeling like a rubbish parent at the moment

[BertrandRussell]

Is she meeting her targets? What sort of marks does she get for the homework she's doing?

[Dancergirl]

She's had a few tests recently and she's done pretty well. The only one which wasn't great was Biology - it was a topic she had missed a few consecutive lessons on due to illness. She caught up with the missed work but it's not the same as being taught the topic.

[BackforGood]

It really does vary considerably - some dc do very little and still manage to do very well in GCSEs, other dc can be working all the hours there are, and still struggle. I think you would need to find out from marks she is getting in tests and for homework assignments how well she is actually doing, and if you feel there is room for improvement.
I have 2 dc who are past that age, and neither did anything like what your dd's teacher feels they should do, but both did well enough in their GCSEs....
Which, in itself, poses a question about what "well enough" means to you, and to them I suppose. In theory, both of mine could have got higher grades, but - dd in particular - needed to learn that for herself. There's not many teenagers that will just hear their parent imparting some wisdom and then accept it and change their habits, IME.

[RalphSteadmansEye]

Ds is doing about 10 hours a week, I would say. Certainly no more than that but rarely fewer than 8.

But he's only taking 8 subjects and has two study periods a week in his timetable so I suppose it could have been more.

[titchy]

I very much doubt either of mine did anything like that tbh. Maybe half an hour in the evening and a couple of hours Sunday afternoon.

Obviously it ramped up considerably after Christmas of year 11, but not much in year 10.

One has 10 A and Astars, the other I'd expect similar from.

Maybe relax a bit?

[BertrandRussell]

10 hours a week in Year 10? Gosh.

I have a year 10- I would imagine he spends on average about 40 minutes a day on homework. He usually has an essay, either for History or English that he "pecks" at during the week, then writes on Sunday. Then about 30 minutes maths, science and Spanish, I suppose. Looking at Show My Homework, I realise that he doesn't get homework for his other subjects.

[RalphSteadmansEye]

To be honest, that's slightly less than ds had in yr 9.

I think it's fine. Maths x 2/3 a week, science the same, English usually one big essay/piece and one smaller one, history the same.

He works well, doesn’t procrastinate, and is done by 6.30 mon-fri with nothing left for the weekend. It's fine.

[WildStallions]

My DS does about an hour a week.

But as he's on track to good grades I don't care.

I really, really don't think you should be concentrating on hw. You should ONLY worry about subjects she's doing badly in.

And for those subjects doing more hw may or may not be the answer.

[Dancergirl]

Thanks all, really helpful.

Feel very guilty now She's generally a conscientious girl, does a lot of dance outside school but is very well organised and gets things done when needed. I really should trust her a bit more. I suppose I was just worried when the school say it should be 1.5/2 hours per night!

And downtime after school is really important too, she has a long day and doesn't get home till 4.40pm. The last thing she needs is me hassling her.

[BertrandRussell]

Mind you- when I say that ds does about 40 minutes a day, I don't know if anyone saw this picture I posted last week

[Louise43210]

Don't worry. Year 10 son similar. He works hard all day at school so I don't worry too much. If she has a weak subject she could have a tutor for it if you have the money? Takes the battle away from you then?

[kjwh]

Our son's homework varies enormously between subjects. A few give regular homeworks once or twice a week, which is fine because they're usually relatively short/easy to do, such as a worksheet or learning for a progress test. Others are a pain in the neck as he can go weeks with nothing and then gets a huge assignment which is going to take several hours at very short notice, i.e. for 2/3 days time not even over a weekend. Makes it very hard to plan for. And yes, this is all as per "show my homework" so it's not as if he's forgetting about it to the last minute.

I've been drumming it into him since year 7 that he has to stay on top of things, revise topics as you go along, etc., whether anything has been set or not, all to avoid the last minute panics as the tests/exams get close, but the teachers really don't help with that mind frame at all, as the teachers themselves seem to go into panic mode as the end of year tests loom closer and set vast amounts of homework/revision etc in the last few weeks, which is really hard to manage, and completely unnecessary after months of giving out very little homework!

To the OP, I wouldn't stress too much, but I'd certainly keep an eye on it and maybe see if you could work with your child more, i.e. test them yourself occasionally from their books, or buy revision/practice manuals early and start working through them.

Our son was very reluctant to do anything not set as formal homework in his earlier years, but we've broken that down and now he'll do any "extras" we ask him to, but we're reasonable about it, only do it when he has nothing else on, and we do it with him rather than make him sit and do it on his own. We just chipped away at his attitude of not doing anything not formally set, and after a couple of years he's amenable now, more than anything because he's seen the benefit of staying on top rather than dropping down and having to work even harder to catch up again. A couple of low moments along the way have helped change his mindset. In year 7, he got a couple of poor (for him) year end test results and luckily for us they were in subjects where the teacher hadn't set much revision homework and he knew himself that his revision was inadequate. In year 8, he got a poor score in Maths, his best subject, in the year end test, of just 67% when he's usually 90%+, which set a rocket up his bum as the teacher had set virtually no homework during the year and had only given a token amount of revision homework shortly before the test. Again, a demonstration to him that regular practice and revision was essential to keep his scores high.

And yes, keep an eye on their scores/grades etc to make sure they're keeping up to a high standard and come down heavily at any drops.

[Autumnsky]

DS1 is in Y10 as well, homework around 30 minutes-1 hour a day. He sometimes finish his homework at school, so has nothing to do at home. No homework for weekend and halfterm etc.

I had expected more than this, but I just have to trust school. As the school has very good GCSE grade, and DS is at the top of his class for most subjects, so I hope he will have good grades in the end. The only subject I am worried is English, as his score is not very stable, sometimes he will have a good one, but recently he had a low one. So this is the only subject I will try to get involved. I have asked him to some reading on the website everyday, only for 10 minutes. And I will buy some English GCSE workbook for him to do some extra practice. And as he wouldn't take English A level, he agree that he should try hard on this subjects now, as it is an important subject.

[ifonly4]

Mine is the opposite and is putting in far too much effort as she wants really good grades. Did homework on Sunday, and has spent approx. 4.5 hours last night and Monday! It's far too much. Her school reckon they should be spending 1.5 hrs a night. If they haven't got homework set, coursework to do, then they expect them to be revising.

[BertrandRussell]

It is interesting how schools have differing attitudes. My dd's grammar school's line was that they worked very hard during the day so homework was minimal- usually either finishing anything that needed finishing or doing a bit of research for the next day. The other local grammar school insisted on 2 hours a day and expected parents to police it. Both schools have practically identical cohorts and practically identical results. Not sure what that tells you!

[Socialaddict]

Very interesting thread, following with interest as I feel exactly like OP!
kjws what extras do you do with your DS? I just do not seem to be able to make my Yr10 DD do hardly anything with me. Everyday I have to ask if she has done her hw and the answer is almost always yes. I feel she should be revising and reading extra when no set hw is available but she does not. Her maths test result was not great (weakest subject) but all the other subjects seem OK. I do not think if I should get her a tutor for the Maths or just persevere and try and help her myself. Same applies to the languages. The only thing is that this puts me under so much pressure and no free time whatsoever.

[pointythings]

DD1 averages about half an hour a day, a bit more at weekends, but she does tend to do a lot of her homework during lunch and break with her friends - they go to the library and really hit it. She's getting fabulous marks and is meeting all her targets, so whatever she's doing seems to be OK.

She does get worked very, very hard in class though.

[errorofjudgement]

DD probably does 6-7 hrs per week, more if there are tests coming up or there's a particularly large piece of work to hand in.
She does a lot of dance & drama out of school so has to be pretty well organised to get through it all.
I expect the homework to ramp up after Christmas and to steadily increase from then onwards.
She's in top groups for everything but has to work hard to achieve good results - I think the discipline of dance has helped her develop a good work ethic.

[Steamedcharsiubun]

DS does his HW in his lunch hour and last night did spend about 30 minutes revising for a test. He does nowhere near ten hours pw. It's a regular comp and in the tests he is currently doing all A grades so far.

Life is hugely unfair when it comes to success and trying isn't it. Some DC work very hard but will never get good grades. I knew one of DS mates was pushed by his parents for SAT tests in year six and was given loads of extra work by them. I actually think lots of HW is a bad thing.

[enderwoman]

Ds does about 30 mins X 4 times a week.

I'm interested in those of you who talk about test revision. How do you know how much they actually study? He studies in his room with the door closed. Ds has never asked me to test him on stuff which is why I think he's coasting and doing the bare minimum.

His report grades are fine but I feel that with effort they could be excellent.

[enderwoman]

Just remembered something.
Recently we had a meeting for y10 and the head said that teachers don't give homework for all subjects every week because constant marking is a waste of teacher time. If a teacher has 30 children in a class and spends 4 minutes per book then that's 2 hours of marking. I don't know how many different classes a teacher has but even if it was just a class per year, that's 14 hours of marking. Add tests, assessments, class work etc then you can see that it all adds up quickly to a full time job's worth of marking.

[Dancergirl]

Thank you, interesting responses. You've reminded me about lunchtime homework, I'd forgotten dd does sometimes work at lunchtime so that adds up too.