DS, Y7- pls suggest how to structure homework so it doesn't overwhelm us!

This is a great thread - really interesting to see how everyone copes with this issue. My DS is in Yr 8 at prep school and gets set 2 subjects a night and 3 at weekends. We get home about 4.40pm.

My golden rule is no telly before homework - I have found by bitter experience that if the bum hits the sofa the arguments about when it is time to get down to work are worse! There will be a break for food but otherwise that is an absolute rule.

I don't actually agree with time limits being set purely because my DS would twiddle his thumbs for 28 of the allotted 30 mins then do a bit and declare he has spent the 30 mins so can stop! So the mantra is you carry on and finish it with a reasonable long stop for the infrequent occaisions that he truly cannot do whatever is set.

He works in his room at a desk with no parental input - can't see the point of any deficiencies being masked by parental help. Weekend homework tends to be done on Sunday afternoons. I am lucky that he mostly just gets on with it these days (used to have major tantrums but hopefully those days are past!)

And it had a brilliant psychological effect on dd too. I would say "OK, do what you can and if you can't finish, I'll send a not to Miss Thing for you". This took the pressure off and usually she found she could finish, so I very rarely had to actually do it. I think this depends on the child, though, I suspect that it's not going to work with ds - he would think "Whooppeeee - no homework for me today!"

I send a note to the teacher concerned explaining, and asking if she can hand whatever it is in on x day. Never been a problem - but she is a bit of a goody-goody, so her teachers know that neither she not I are taking the piss!

Seeker, who / how did you ask for your DD to be excused? I love your "rolling homework list" idea - it's just what we need. And the idea of getting her to "size" the homework.

Desperately trying to get all the homework done today so we can start next week afresh - only 2 more pieces to do.....

Don't make an automatic "school before sport" rule either. I have occasionally asked for dd to be excused homework if there is something important happening outside school.

Three stacking trays on their desks: top tray for homework not yet started, middle tray for homework books in progress, bottom tray for completed homework.

DS used the system, mainly. It gave him an additional visual reminder.

DD uses the trays for hats, scarves, pencil cases, bangles, hair ties...
She is happy with her homework planner alone and doesn't need the visual reminder.

his main sport is swimming - but he also runs, cycles and rides (horses), all those are on top of his 2-hour swimming sessions - plus he has to do CCF one day a week

it exhausts me just thinking about it

I think we need to have a 'chat' .... and see which activities he really wants to keep up and if we can sideline some others

I've told him he is extremely unlikely ever to make a living from swimming/sport in general and needs to get a decent education to give him more choices when he's older. Not to mention that he hasn't gone through puberty yet (13 and no growth spurt - apart from feet! - that I can discern ...) and all kinds of things (injury, girls! etc) could happen between now and competing as an adult. But at the moment he's obssessed and can't see the bigger picture ...

seeker, yes, you reminded me of something so important - estimating the time. That's on our flowchart too.

Being able to 'size' a task is such an important skill - I have (grown-up, graduate) trainees at work who don't seem to be able to do that & so get into pointless muddles with their time-management & priorities. Paying attention to that as a schoolchild couldn't be more useful.

Basildon,

I assume the same holds for music at a high level, or dance. And we know kids who manage to excel at both sport and music. I honestly dont know how they do this!

We have been encouraged by knowing older kids who are well organised and doing well academically, though know others where sport clearly comes first. Organisation is obviously key, and the most impressive complete homework whilst waiting to compete.

Year 7 was a problem in that school sport also came into play and DD was in every team. She also needs to decide which of two significant out of school activities she wants to focus on. (Here I have given her a deadline of the end of Year 8 to sort out what she really wants to do.) I would be perfectly happy if she wanted to drop all this out of school activity, as there is plenty going on at school. However she wants to do it, and if so, she needs to do it properly. However she refuses to train on Sunday morning as she demands a lie in, and she needs the down time.

The first step is to talk to the Year tutor so they are aware. My daughter does some homework in the library at lunchtime, and the Year tutor has also been helpful in finding somewhere she can sit to complete homework at school after the end of the school day a couple of times a week before going straight on to training. It is a case of identifying and scheduling in sufficient time to get homework done.

By the time they get half way though Yr 7 they get much better at getting homework done; it is surprising how much can be done on the bus or tube. I doubt if my daughter ever spends much more than the recommended time on any one piece of work, and we tend to leave it to her, other than keep an eye on the sort of marks/reports she gets. At the moment in Yr 8 she is ahead of the game and other than homework set on Friday and due in midway through next week, it is all done.

She might do a bit better academically if she were able to pour over everything, but she is doing fine as it is, and if she can pick up good organisation skills at this point this is good. Some of her friends in Year 7 were spending two hours on each homework, which struck me as counter productive. If DD did not have the same time pressure I don't think things would be easier. Just more television and more arguments.

Doc - I used to say "school before sport" but both my DS's competed in their chosen sport at international junior level, and from what I can see it seems to be a sport that requires more intensive training than most.

I do think DS1's schoolwork suffered from too much training, but I might as well have talked to the wall, and at age 18 and 6ftplus I couldn't really stop him!

It's hard at first, but after a while you get into the swing of it.

My dd has a lot of out of school activities, so she has to be very organized. One thing that really helps is a sort of "rolling homework list" that she keeps pinned on the notice board in the kitchen. Every day she crosses off bits she's done and adds new ones, with a rough estimate of how long she thinks it'll take. I don't know why this is so helpful, but it is - and she's still doing it in Year 10.

Another thing that we used to do, but won't be able to any more is to have a pretty inflexible "all homework to be done by lunch time on Sunday" rule. This means you start the week clear of work, and there's no last minute Sunday evening panics that mean stress and a late night.

The 4pm rule works well for us.

My DC get in from school at 2.45pm, they're in Y9 and 11. They then relax on FB or PS3 or TV until about 4pm with large snacks as like most teenagers they come in from school really hungry. They then spend maybe one to 1.5 hours on homework. Sometimes they don't have any HW at all, but I don't let them stay on computers, etc in 'homework time' but instead try and get them reading (which DD enjoys anyway) or my DS might go to our neighbours and play football or table tennis in their garden or ours, weather permitting... neighbours don't mind at all luckily.

My DD does dancing some evenings and most of Saturday, but catches up with any bits of homework on a Sunday.

They are generally pretty good about getting homework done, but DS sometimes needs a bit more nagging, especially as he's got GCSEs this year.

If it came to the crunch, schoolwork would definitely come before sport, but neither of my DC participate in sport or dance at a high level, so easy for me to say that.

Basildon - no tips but my sympathies. Both my DS's had training every day for two hours after school, as well as training or competitions on a Saturday and training every other Sunday. In the summer they also had training before school - 7am start.

Isn't the grotty kit just lovely??

DS1 has just gone into Yr9. He comes in around 4.10pm has 20 mins or so relaxing. We like him to do at least one piece before tea. We always ask him to do the homework on the day he gets it.

Basildonbond - that sounds a pretty demanding situation to start with! What's the sport? But basically he has got to get himself organised and time-management sorted. If he wants to compete at this level, he needs to be completely dedicated.

Personally, I would say the homework is a higher priority than the sport, because - despite his abilities - the likelihood is he will not end up earning a living from his sport, so he will need his education.

But time-wise it is eminently achievable. But TV, PC, X-box, hanging out with his mates etc will all have to be relegated to last priority! Special treats for times when training is finished and homework is all up to date!

BigTillyMint - at the boys' school they don't have a homework timetable, it varies. But I'm pleased with how it has balanced out. Generally the smaller subjects (just 1 50min lesson per week - IT, music, dance, drama, art, etc etc.) tend to set just one homework per half term. It tends to be a longer one (an hour rather than half). But this seems more sense to me, as then the teachers have time to mark it properly, rather than setting something basic every week just for the sake of it.

MmeBlueberry - re lunchtime working, our DD does sometimes work at lunch because on somedays she wants to do lots of activities afterschool. If there is netball training afterschool she will get home 6.30+ then goes to guides at 7. It can be like that any day. What I'm saying is there is a definite place for it. She is 13 and is very sociable but has got to make homework timing work for her.

I am reading this with interest because DS has just started Year7. I am glad he did hw yesterday because he is free today. We are doing the xbox on Friday to Sunday only rule. So guess where he is now?!

Great thread ampere!

Lots of tips, which we are going to try. Plus I am going to speak to her form tutor and HoY to check on how long each homework is meant to take, given the homework timetable specifies 16 pieces a week

• good point basildonbond!

I thought I'd have a problem with my son but e just got on with it. Didn't need me because knowing he had to get it in was deadline enough.

We do have a draw in which he puts school stuff instead of leaving it lying about the house but he doesn't put homework in there, he carries it with him, so he always has it for the next lesson to hand in.

They do find their way themselves if allowed to do so. My son was completely disorganised at primary but he has sorted himself out and now, by year 8, he'd go mad if I got involved (other than when asked - like to test on spellings). I always signed his planner on a Sunday so that was my check of the week. Plus you get regular reports so if they don't get a good grade for homework there, hopefully they will want to improve.

He'd usually get homework equivilent to an hour a night in year 7 but some would be for next week and he tended to do those at the weekend. He still had plenty of time in the week to do his hobbies.

not much more to add, but just wondered if anyone had any tips on combining homework with high-level sport?

ds1 has a 2 hour training session every evening and all Sunday morning plus competitions several times a year during weekends

we have disagreements about his priorities - I say homework comes first = he says sport ....

I think the perspective of a teacher/tutor/mother-of-six must really be 'seen it all before'!

My ds is in yr7 too - prep system though, so not yet secondary. However, the homework has been quite a mountain to climb since the beginning of yr6, so we've got our system down. The routine is: back from school around 4.30 (apart from chess club once a week (back at 5.30) and piano once a week which squeezes work time that day); apple; drink; get out the bookbags at once and work out what's on the agenda. It's all done in the kitchen in environment of companionable working - one person cooking & ironing & doing admin, the other chewing on a pencil.

Ds is a disorganised and distracted child, naturally, so what's in his homework diary is only about half reliable. After some experience, we put together a 'homework flowchart' (all smartly laminated) which gets him to ask himself the questions he needs to get oriented ("What day is it? What subjects am I meant to have today? Have I got anything written down for those? If I don't, can I remember why I haven't?"). I find making sure he has everything to hand, knows what he's meant to do, and feels the road clear ahead of him = (fairly) smooth process.

We have to get started on homework right away, that day, because of the distractibility thing. We do often end up with catch-up sessions at the weekend, but at least an inroad has been made, and there isn't that awful rabbit-in-headlights freeze when he realises he hasn't left himself time. (To compound things, when he does get oriented & through the distractions, he likes to do a really really good and thorough job - poster of Perseus that retold the whole story: 1,000 words, we counted.)

Not sure if that's any help - it might just be our rather unique experience.

It's great that you are interested and motivated in supporting him to establish good homework habits.

Q: What do your DCs do when they get home?
The boys (yr7 and yr9) get home at around 4.20. They get a drink and a snack then we chat about their day: highlights, lowlights, any messages, etc.
If they have evening activities, then they crack on with homework immediately. If they don't, then usually they choose to chill first (computer or PC or sometimes outside in summer) and do homework after tea.

Q: Do you time them per subject to avoid them struggling on for 'hours'?
I think this is a good idea. Get them to set a target for how long the piece should take and get them to stick to it.
My boys actually have a tendency to want to spend "too long" on their homework. From early in yr7 I chatted to ds1 about the merits of an individual piece. If he is learning a lot through doing it and if it's an important piece for the teacher, then I don't mind him spending extra time on it if he wants. But some homeworks set have little educational merit, but often have the capacity to take up hours and hours of time! In these cases I insist they set clear time targets and try and persuade them to stick within them.

Q: Do you make them do it all as they bring it home.
We encourage them to do an hour each night (unless they have no homework), as that means generally they can have more free time at the weekend.
If they haven't finished all their outstanding pieces in an hour, then I don't insist they do more.

ds1 pretty much monitors himself and has done for some time, but generally he wants to get them completed immediately, unless it's a longer essay that he wants to spend more time on.
Once they've established a good routine, they see the benefits of getting it done promptly and tend to stick with that IMO.

Q: When do yours do weekend homework?
ds1 often likes to have a session on Saturday morning to do extended pieces or essays or catch-up if he's got a lot to do. I try to encourage him to have at least one day at the weekend which is completely homework-free. We also go out a lot as a family at weekends, so then he has to fit his homework in around the other schedules.