Is it just us struggling or is homework/family time balance gone to pot?

On the contrary, I know a lot about it. People floundering with situations they cannot analyse is the greatest driver of MH issues there is. Why do people consult therapists? In order to understand the problems they cannot get to grips with on their own.

Bobochic Wed 07-Dec-16 09:32:04 in large part because they lack the skills to work out solutions to their own problems.

WTF, sorry but you evidently know nothing about mental health.

Clavinova Wed 07-Dec-16 08:33:52 I googled and came up with this article in The Guardian;

Thank you, much appreciated :-)

"We are going to produce a generation of burnt out young people with mental health problems."

We have an awful lot of adults with mental health problems, in large part because they lack the skills to work out solutions to their own problems.

10h per subject at A-level.

So 40 hours, plus 20 contact hours a week. 60 hours a week - really? Sorry but I would hugely dispute how worthwhile that amount of work is each week. If you need to do that week in week out A levels are not for you.

I'm sorry but 3 hours per evening is way too much & I would be removing my children from any school that expected that.

My dd is in year 10 & the maximum homework she is set is 90 mins & that's only 1 evening. (It's approx 6 hours per week)

Even ds's selective private school only set about 90 mins per night (with 2 hours on one night)

You are a long time dead. Extra curricular (ds's school calls it co-curricular) activities are just as important. My dd dances 2 hours every evening after academic school ends). We are going to produce a generation of burnt out young people with mental health problems.

2 hours for an 8 year old poor poor child

Agree!

As a teacher, I usually recommend students planning 15 hours a week for homework in Y10. This is usually done 3h per evening, but leaves both weekend days free. If you know you're busy on a certain night, do an extra hour on another or at the weekend to balance it out. In all schools I've worked in this is usually enough, so any "extra" time should be used for review and revision, rather than waiting for a test to be scheduled. Keep to the 15h during every Holiday, but redistributed throughout the week. I also suggest upping to 20h in Y11, and 10h per subject at A-level. If you struggle to fit it in, consider what needs to be cut, but make time to do something you love - whether it's organised sport, family cinema day or Xbox - as everyone needs a break from work

Thanks, Clavinova

Out of interest I would also add that this is a great skill to have mastered for both HE and working life.

OP I have two DC who are academically ambitious, have lots of extra curricular activities, active social lives, do vuluntary work and our extended family lives a three hour drive away.

Every week there is a hell of a lot to fit in!

My advice is to accept that sometimes school work will take over and preclude much else ( especially around exams).

At other times, DC need to learn to assess effectively what needs to be done, how long it will take (realistically) and where the gaps are in which to do it.

Some tasks need prolonged quiet time. Others boil down to much less effort and can be done anywhere.

The trick is not to underestimate the former and not to turn the later into a three act drama.

I googled and came up with this article in The Guardian;
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/21/brexit-will-drive-eu-students-away-from-uk

Bobochic Tue 06-Dec-16 20:45:56 "Abroad" is not a country that collects data ;)

Sorry, I didn't realise I would have to type the name of every country.

You can look it up. perhaps you can suggest where I can look it up as I can't find it here: www.ucas.com and I'm not really getting anything from Google searches.

I know how you're feeling stormysunshine. Also seeline. DS is in Y10, we have no weekends, no time to even discuss basic family plans, meals are 15min then he puts his plate away and he's back to homework. His grandmother said yesterday she's scared to call him because she doesn't know when he's free to talk. Bedtime has been pushed later and later and I am going to put a stop to late nights because of his mental health. In our case, commute is only 15 min. He does have an extracurricular passion which is music, but last weekend he had only time for academic homework and revision for exams this week, no music at all. They say next year will be even worst.
Agree with ealing in that spending time with grandparents and extended family is important.
I think all the emailing back and forth from teachers, the google docs, the downloading, the website based research,... it actually makes our children waste more time than when we had written down our homework in class and we just had to open our books and get on with it!

Sounds great to me. Dd gets an average of half an hour a week

Anyone see the TV prog on S.Korea schools, from 8 am until midnight. Kids in the UK have it easy.

No... bobochic you weren't directly comparing France and the U.K. However, you did make a sweeping statement that at least one piece of evidence contradicts about the standards in U.K. secondary education versus other European countries.

Again, no country is perfect, or has a perfect education system. Even Finland, long associated with excellence in European education sometimes has negative press too.

8 year old child with two hours homework a day??

I would be questioning why her education, that you're paying for, is so crap that it needs 2 hours a day on top!

Homework is pointless. Proven to be in primary.

UCAS don't collect data on HE outcomes.

fourcorner - I'm not defending French education versus the UK (though French 17 year olds are impressively good at maths by TIMMS comparison).

MumTryingHerBest - it's UCAS data. You can look it up. "Abroad" is not a country that collects data ;)

Bobochic Tue 06-Dec-16 18:15:42 EU students perform better at U.K. universities than U.K. students and than international students.

Sorry off topic, but wondered if you could give me a link to this data?

Do you have any data that shows how UK Students perform at universities abroad?

ds1 is a year older. He walks to school and is out of the house from 7:45- 5;30pm (activities)
He gets a similar amount of work and has to rearrange his work schedule on weekends because he visits his dad every other work. In reality it's only 24 hours so he crams it into one session on Sun afternoon/evening. On the weekends that he is with me, he sees his mates who also live locally. For him, listening to music/gaming on his own or hanging out with mates playing basketball is his idea of optimum downtime.

My kids sometimes use form time to get started on homework which reduces homework time later.

He does sound incredibly conscientious - I have a 15 year old DS and he does nowhere near that amount of homework, he is 'average' at school - certainly not a high flyer - actually I wish he would do a bit more homework.

"Look at where the U.K. sits in the international league tables. I really don't think that the work ethic among U.K. schoolchildren is that great."

Interestingly Bobochic OH works in many of the countries that offer a "better" education than we do, and his main issue is that these people might be highly qualified and able to pass exams, but they can't think for themselves and have no initiative. They all want him to hold their hands and tell them what to do. And as a result he makes a lot of money out of freelance advisory work.

Although our kids have to go through a rigorous system that I don't necessarily agree with they are encouraged to be individuals and work things out for themselves.