How much work should year 11 be doing?

Please listen to those of us who have had children go through this. Mine were high achieving mainly 9s and a some 8s sort. Absolutely too much work being suggested by your Dh for weekdays. For the start of year 11 it is mostly about completing homework and establishing their most effective revision techniques. For mine that was flashcards for subjects such as History and English, online for maths and science and they spent time finding the best ones. They had a lot of down time as they had already been in school for 6 hours, learning for 5 of those.

Your Dh is going to cause your child to have resentment and burn out. Revision is about effective, focused activity not a strict time tabled thing. Ds1 would often finish the topics earlier than planned but not have enough time to start another and so would just stop as he had completed his planned revision work.

Remember that they are still learning new things as they haven't finished the curriculum so anything like past papers will not be of benefit until much later in the year. In terms of times, mine came home but it was only a 25 minute walk home so in the door by 3.30pm, got changed, made themselves a snack and chilled for a bit, then had a "homework" slot which we always had since they started in year 7. Time to chill again before a family dinner and then free to do whatever they wanted. Often this would be a TV series with us and later gaming with their mates.

My daughter just did homework with a few hours revision over the week coming up to November mocks.

Same again I think for Jan mocks.

For real things she did about 4-5 hours a day over Easter. Term time until then it varied - she was in classes until 5 some days so no revision was done then just homework other days maybe 2 hours.

Quality is as / more important than quantity - 2 hours randomly reading more won't be as good as a 45 minute session specifically targeting a weaker area.

There is no way she could have kept up that pace from September.

I teach English so my out of class work covers two subjects.
Like I said, they get a suggestion of work which goes up to 2.5 hours a week after January. It's not mandatory, and I don't expect them to do it all - but "spend an hour making revision notes on the characters of x and y and their relationship", which is one task, is more useful to them than "revise for one hour."
January is when we have our mocks.

This is not a good idea - I have a DD who did GCSEs last year, in Y11 she just did the homework that was set. She probably reached that many hours of revision in the weeks just before and during exams.

For AS this year she did have to work a lot harder - assuming he wants to do A levels, how will your DS cope with Y12 and Y13 if he needs to do 20 hrs a week for the whole of Y11 to get decent GCSEs?

They really, really need their rest, downtime, fun, lie-ins, parties, sports and time with friends if they are to stay on an even keel imo.

I have DS1 going into yr13 and DS2 going into yr11.

I think how much they should do at home very much depends on the individual and by this stage should really be decided by them not dictated.

DS1 needed a little help with organisation so we sat down together to work out a weekly timetable for him making sure we factored in things like sport and 'chill time'. We didn't set a min amount of homework every day/night but we did plan blocks of time allocated to a subject and made sure all subjects were covered. He got all 8's and 9's so this worked for him.

I don't think he stuck to it religiously but he said the process of preparing it and having it available to check back to helped. As did building in time for other stuff.

DS2 will be very different. He is much more independent but also a bright, lazy student. I very rarely see him do homework. He tells me he does at the end of the lessons, on the bus, with his mates online at midnight etc. I have learnt to judge him on output rather than input. He gets good grades and stellar reports from school so I can't say he doing it wrong.

If I took his phone off him he would be livid and it would make no difference anyway. Both of mine work later in the evening after they have had some chill time.

If I were you I would suggest agreeing targets for him to aim for related to output and then suggesting help with a weekly timetable designed to work towards the targets and see where that leads to.

Your suggestion is WAY over the top. Far more than his peers will be doing.

Your dh is just being ridiculous. I fell very sorry for your ds.

That sounds like way too much and he'll likely burn out before exams.

DD just did her assigned homework (which was replaced by revision prior to tests, mocks etc). She did a few bits and pieces of extra revision e.g. making flash cards as she went along. I doubt she did more than a couple of hours a night except before mocks/exams when it ramped up. Although she spent a large chunk of Easter working on her art and drama portfolios. And she definitely had one full day off at the weekend.

But, more to the point, she chose what level of work she thought was appropriate. IMO students who are going for high grades need to be very self motivated. There is more value in 30 minutes of concentrated work that you want to do, than doing hours and hours "just because". Particularly if you are resentful about having to spend your time doing it.

But 2.5 hours a week, multiplied by 10 GCSE's is 25 hours a week.
Or, 3 hours a day after school, and 5 hours each weekend day? I get that some of that is homework, but it's not massively less than the OP's husband is suggesting.

And what is the mental health situation for students/teenagers in that country? The usual ones in the media don't do well in that regard.

I don't know how kids do homework after a day at secondary school these days. It's so intense. All the social pressure and heightened sense of embarassment teenagers normally have, then so much pressure laid on thick by schools to not miss a single day of school or you will fail in life. And so many rules, so many minor rules which get you a detention. It must be like walking on eggshells.

That's not checked work - it's a suggestion which covers revision of all 4 papers. They'd be going some to do it all! I tell them to focus on their areas of weakness, which they know because I tell them. And it's not on top of set work, if that makes sense.

He wants his kid to work 60 hour weeks? With no day off at all? And he thinks that will have a positive outcome?

Does he work 60 hour weeks with no days off?

He wouldn't be allowed to do that to an employee because it would wreck their health. I think that's a good indication of whether it would be an excessive and unreasonable demand of a child.

https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work

Dd1 did nowhere near that amount, just did her homework and revision and got all 9s, 1 x8 and 1x7. She also did clubs and socialising.

DD2 - It would be great if she could actually go to school, hopefully she will be able to sit some exams and pass some. One of the things that puts her off is the entirely ridiculous amount of homework they get now, far more than DD1 ever got in a grammar school.

Are you joking? That's far too much. When is his rest day? I think during the week he should do his homework and that's it! At the weekend, homework and organise his notes, however long that takes,

You will not help him by micromanaging his time

As a former academic deputy head, I can say with some confidence that if he actually does all the homework he’s set properly, as opposed to doing the minimum to get by, he will (a) be in a significant minority and (b) have out in the groundwork necessary to achieve genuine revision rather than playing catch-up.

Is this a wind up! Poor kid! There’s more to life than studying for hours in year 11 … where’s the sport, the socialising. There has to be a balance.

He will resent you guys!

He should absolutely have some time to play Xbox or watch Netflix though.

Is he a competitive swimmer? That shouldn't count as downtime!

Is your DH going to help him structure the work that he does?

2.5 hours a week for your subject is still quite a lot, MrsH, given the number of subjects they do.

As a teacher, I think this is a terrible idea!
There's a long way to go until the end of the exam series and students burn out. I set an hour and a half max a week until January, and then suggest up to 2.5 hours of revision activities per week thereafter. Even the hardest working can't sustain the kind of work rate your husband is suggesting.

Y11 is a long slog and starting with a schedule that offers not one single day off studying will lead to burn-out. It's too much.

How many sets of mocks does he have? That sort of schedule in the direct run-up to mocks would possibly be ok, but outside of that he should certainly have one weekend day clear of work, and I would suggest also Friday night. It's also important to make sure that he is maintaining some hobbies/social life and has time to exercise.

Most importantly, any revision time should be productive and planned, not 'oh, I'm meant to be revising now, what should I do? I'll read a couple of pages of my biology textbook'.

If you want a very stressed anxious and depressed teen then you're going the right way about it.

Wow. I mean assuming he gets home from school around 4pm, say 30 mins for a snack and a drink, then work till 8.30? Dinner and then 30 mins to chill? Every evening? For the next seven months? Nope that's not going to fly. Listen to @TeenDivided who, as ever, speaks sense.

I think your DH's expectations are very unreasonable.
If you ask that from September then he will either burn out or just down tools.
Even that amount in Easter holidays would be a good ask.

It's not the hours, it's the quality anyway.

Does he have revision cards / mind maps for topics covered so far? That would be my starting point. Then keeping up with them, and revising well for tests / mocks. Revision for mocks - a proper revision timetable.

y11 is a marathon, they need to pace themselves. There needs to be mini peaks and some rests. You can't run a marathon at sprinting speed.