Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

How much supervision is "normal" to give to Yr 8 (DS) re homework?

33 replies

Blewitt · 04/04/2019 13:17

Ds Year 8 is completely hopeless with his homework. I don't think he would do any if I didn't look online and tell him exactly what he has to do every night. He has no idea mentally of what he might have due and more or less all of them seem to take him by surprise. He says he didn't get the sheet, he can't remember doing anything in class associated with what is set etc. What he does do is pretty poor but he seems to get away with it and I'm not about to start doing it for him. I just want to know if this is typical of a Yr 8 boy and will he at any point start to take responsibility himself? I could just do nothing and let him get into trouble and have detentions but they don't really seem to bother him. When I have left him to self manage, nothing gets done.

OP posts:
Leiasbuns · 04/04/2019 13:58

My year 8 ds is exactly the same. I’m always envious of parents with similar age children that are so much more motivated just to get on with it and those parents never have to get involved at all!

My younger two children in primary school are showing potential to be more independent I think. Especially my youngest. She’s v hardworking and self motivated, so I’m hoping I’ll only have to go through this once!

BarbarianMum · 04/04/2019 13:51

Ds1 is Y8. He still needs a bit of a prompt to check what homework he has due and to plan / pace bigger pieces. I rarely get involved in the quality, although I do still insists he drafts bigger pieces of writing and allows himself 2 days to work on them. I also help test him when he's been revising.

Beamur · 04/04/2019 13:45

My DD is yr7 and requires minimal supervision. I'm not sure that's normal either!
I'd err on prompting him to check his own planner rather than you do it for him. He should be doing that himself. Do you have to sign it off weekly?

Original poster
Blewitt · 04/04/2019 13:44

A routine I am sure would help, it is tricky though for us as evenings are all different and sometimes I am home later than I would like him to start doing it. DH just asks him what he has and he always says nothing so when I get home I have to get him going on it. He refuses to do anything in advance of the night before as he says he needs the pressure of having to hand it in the next day to actually be able to do it at all! My DD is the complete opposite (thank goodness, I could not cope if they were both like this!). He says he will buck up in Yr 9, when he starts GCSE options but I don't actually think he will, homework just doesn't seem to have registered as a part of life for him, as soon as I mention it he goes off in a huff, moans that he goes to school to learn etc etc. I dread bringing it up!
Appreciate there is no normal but just getting a feel if this is what others deal with I suppose!

OP posts:
TeenTimesTwo · 04/04/2019 13:41

My DDs are not 'normal', here is my experience:

DD1.
For 3-4 years she would come home, take her bag upstairs, get changed, come back down. I would say 'do you have any homework?' She would reply 'I don't know' and went upstairs to check her planner.
She needed help with anything that wasn't completely straightforward until at least y10, but at least would do it willingly Turns out she has dyspraxia.

DD2 - Comes home, knows pretty accurately what homework she has been set and when it is due. Seems to need at least 24hrs to psyche herself up to doing a piece of h/w. Can do many home-works quite well independently now in y9 (big improvement from y7/8) provided I have 'set it up' for her, but 'research' type needs a lot of help. Generally reluctant to do h/w and leaves it until the w/e if possible. This is partly character and partly because she has SpLD and finds school very tiring.

TooDamnSarky · 04/04/2019 13:26

no idea what is 'normal', but in my case...

DS1 did everything with no input from me. He hated even discussing homework with me, and always seemed to get everything done on time. Very occasionally he got super stressed if he miscalculated how much time he had and had to rush.

DS2 would tend to put his head in the sand and hope that homework would magically disappear if he didn't think about it. But all I had to do was ask him every few days what he had to do to make sure that he remembered to make a plan. And occasionally help with homework if he was feeling confused. I never actually looked up what homework there was. We'd have a major melt down about once every 6 weeks when he'd completely forget about something until the night before, but he always got stuff done by the deadline.

MrsBlondie · 04/04/2019 13:26

Sounds similar to my Yr 8 boy. Although he does remember being given sheets/set tasks etc. If I didn't say to him he wouldn't bother doing any of it! I usually say to him "right 6pm lets do the maths HW" etc. He'll do it and Ill be hovering around in the kitchen near him to make sure he does it. He does the bare minimum too!
We have told him he needs to pick up his work come Yr 9 and he has agreed.

littledorothy · 04/04/2019 13:23

Would setting him up on a routine help ? Give him a fixed time for homework and play (games/tv/friends), and a special time each day to update you on whatever happens at school ?

Some child who may not work well with ad hoc instructions or are generally careless may work better when given a timetable/schedule with some sticks and carrots.