Sixth Form Teaching Hours

Berlinbabylon, I hope you are right. Your DS maybe very gifted and organised, thinking and working smart, which is exactly the right thing to do. And the amount of work he has to do outside of the classroom may well depend on the mix of A-levels he is doing.
Hopefully the mocks will show he is a straight A student, in which case he can look to ensuring his UCAS personal statement is full of all the placements he has done and the responsible positions he has had in his extra-curricular activities, etc, etc. Indeed he needs to plan downtime into his schedule so he can be relaxed and ready for every class before it starts. Knowing what each lesson is going to be about before it starts is the key to being able to use the teacher as a resource, rather than metaphorically sitting in the classroom with a hatch open in the top of his head hoping the teacher will pour knowledge into his brain. Proactive rather than reactive, is the ticket.

Hoghgyni, and others, it is unfortunate that too many bright students sail through GCSEs and get great grades and then think this is all they have to do at A-level.
The jump from one to the other is in fact a quantum leap and many suffer from this.
Old fashioned O-levels were much harder and a far better preparation for A-level.
They CAN do it, proof is that French Students study 9 subjects to the equivalent of A-level, so any normal hardworking student should manage 3 or 4. Whenever I had French or German or almost any other European students in my tutor group, and I had lots come over for a year or two, they all felt they were on holiday! They got better grades than the Brits even though it was all in a foreign language and could not understand the wingeing, Brit snowflakes who felt it was all too much for them!

At ds' college it appears to be 5 hours per subject which is slightly more than I had at my school (I think it was 4.40 with an extra 35 mins oral lesson for German). So he has plenty of free time for study as he's not currently doing an EPQ or any enrichment courses. I am hoping that, having coasted his GCSEs, he won't think he can coast his A levels too! But he really does have plenty of time in his timetable to get his homework and wider reading done so I am not hassling him at home if he's playing on the xbox.

Dd gets 4 double (90 minute) periods per A level so 6 hours per subject in total.

However she has less teaching weeks per year than most schools. (Sept - mid June)

Captured that sounds like a good start. At least one of DD's high flying chums at GCSE has had to transfer to another 6th form & start again after getting UUE as his predicted grades in the summer. Quite a few took the approach that sailing through GCSEs had set them up for life & were sadly mistaken.

Ds1 has 5 hours per subject and does 4 A levels, he also has assembly for 1 hour, a guidance tutorial and several hours of free periods in which he does work so it is done in school time rather than at home.

They work in lesson and then are given "homework" to cement what they have learned, plus they have wider assessment stuff too. As Ds1 got 9s in all his A level subjects he is finding classwork easy at this stage and is working through tasks and projects that are on Moodle. This I believe comes under the wider assessment stuff.

But Ds1 is motivated and engaged, some of his friends aren't but luckily he has never bowed to peer pressure (his mates were gaming whilst he was revising for GCSEs and it showed in their results).

Sorry, just reread your first post. why are you worried this isn't enough?

In most schools or colleges you'll find the staff teach each subject about 9 hrs per fortnight. On top of that they should be setting 9 hours per fortnight of homework.

Provided the teaching is up to scratch and your child does all they are asked to do then they should get adequate grades.

If they are not using their study periods for study then you should be worried. It matters not where they do the studying, provided they have access to all materials needed for it, but they should be using this time constructively.

I have written a book aimed at 6th formers which is based on my time as a teacher and tutor. I managed to get students to achieve their best and get to the uni of their choice most of the time, including Russell Group unis, even though I was working in a state school. When I retired my ex-students and colleagues, including my Head of Sixth, urged me to write a book on this as they didn't know anyone else who had such success. I do not know how to pm on this forum , and I don't expect the powers that be want me to advertise on it, but if you find a way to pm me, I'll show you how to preview the book on Amazon. It covers everything a sixth-former needs to do and how to thinkand work SMART, not harder, to achieve well.

As a retired sixth form tutor and teacher, I have to ask, why are you asking this question? What are you worried about?

DD in in year 13 and has 2 x doubles and 1 x single hour long lessons for each subject, so 15 hours in total. She also has around 3 hours each week this term for her EPQ. That leaves her around 15 hours each week for self study. She can come & go as she pleases, but tends to get in at around 8.30 each morning and leave at 3.30 unless she has a later lesson.

1 hour lessons, 5 hours per subject. 3 hours for an A Level subject is not enough at all in my opinion

We only have small groups so there's no escape if you haven't done the work. Current yr12 are great though. Really taken to 6th form style well, doing the extra reading and non contact work well so far.

Flipped learning 🙄
Fine if you have a group who are mature and independent (my y11s one year were ace at it and my y7s last year were fabuyat prereading before class). Not fine if it means half don't bother to do it and then you're stuck. I agree it's like spoon feeding at times.

I know!!

They're hard work as they're still very much used to bring spoon fed.

We set lots of research or (hate this term) "flipped learning" ready to add detail and depth next lesson. It's a gradual process of getting them to be more independent.

You're expected to set it for them? So you plan twice as much work as you do teaching?
Bloody hell.

We teach study skills, self quizzing, revision strategies, have some extension work from class but then it's on them to grow up a bit.

Similar in its 4/5 hours a week BUT....We are expected to set 1hr non contact work for every hour we see them plus also reading and homework on top of this. This is basic requirements, not going above and beyond.

So 3 A levels should therefore be about 35-40 hours a week minimum.

MsAwesome
Do we have the same students?

It's when I go through the long term course plan for 2 years and they say "but what about revision if we are doing things til Easter". I point out that I'm teaching things properly in detail and all those study periods from y12-13 outside of the 5 hours a week per subject are for THEM to be receiving content, making notes, doing mock questions and so on.

My sixth form students get 5 hours a week per ALevel. Except the further maths students who get 9 hours for maths and further maths together.

I am currently trying to train my new year 12 that those "study periods" on their timetables are actually for studying rather than hanging around the common room. Some are more receptive to this advice than others.

5 hours a week is the norm everywhere I've worked. There is an expectation of independent study on top of that that's a mix of self directed and homework.

If staff are absent then they wouldn't get covered but would send work in. If 6th form can't cope with a couple of hours self directed study through materials given by the teacher then there's something wrong.

4 hours per week per subject.
So 12 hours.
He will get 3 extra for further maths after Christmas.
It's a minimum of 1.5 hours travelling each way and he has lessons every day.
So his travel time is more than his contact time.

TheOnly,

How long is a period?

55 mins, 6 periods a day.

DD has just told me she has 6x50 minute periods per week per A-Level, so 5 hours.

Also, one of her teachers is giving each student a 121 in one of their free periods. There are only four kids in the class.

Comprehensive school.

Our students get 9 hours per fortnight in each of three subjects. This is standard. I'd be surprised if teachers are 'often' absent. The pressure for A level grades is high, and most teachers drag themselves in when sick.

TheOnly,

How long is a period?

DD and DS had 5 1-hour lessons per day, and started with 4 A-levels - so with your structure would have had 24 hours per week taught out of 25 at school!

Do you have e.g. 6 shorter periods per day, or just no study periods at school?

Ours have 6 periods a week for each A Level subject, so 18 lessons a week for those studying three subjects. EPQ for those who do it/enrichment/form time on top, and then one afternoon per week of sport.

Sounds quite good actually - almost 5 hours per subject. She'll be expected to put that much self study in on top.