Year Nine Parents/Teachers

At my DSs school they get 3 subjects on 3 nights per week and 4 subjects the other 2 nights.I think the policy is that homework is 30 mins per subject but in reality is probably half that It is a grammar schiool

Same in my school, Bloss.

Homework, like classwork, is differentiated. There will be different tasks or outcomes depending on the student.

The pupils know how much time they are supposed to take. If the task is open-ended and they are fast workers, they would be expected to produce more than a slower, weaker student.

If I know that they have just spent five minutes on their homework, I will get them to repeat it.

They soon learn the expectations.

Sometimes a teacher will get it wrong and give either too much or too little homework. If the homework is genuinely too much for a pupil, they should be allowed to stop at the end of the allocated time.

Message withdrawn

I set two pieces a week - one finishing off classwork or learning/revising for a test, the other an extension piece to consolidate what has been done in lessons. It should take about 30 minutes per piece, but obviously depends a lot on the child.

bloss on Thu 12-Feb-09 15:03:12
"Our Year 9s do 2 hours a night."

How do you manage that? Does every student get individual homework? Or do you mean, they do a task that is estimated to take the average student 2 hours? Surely they won't all be spending the same amount of time? A project that would take dd's friend 2 hours would probably be a half hour job for dd.

Bagsforlife,

I don't disagree with you! (re homework amounts in different schools and not needing incessant homework), I was just reporting how this parent felt about it. I know of another family with girls at the same grammar who DO feel that they get far too much homework and HAVE complained.

FWIW, about half a term after my DD had started in Y7 at her comp, the Head of Year told all the Y7s they were spending far too much time on homework tasks.

Message withdrawn

How many minutes a week you spend on doing homework presumably also depends on various factors unrelated to the homework itself: how bright you are, how well organised you are, how attentive you are in class, how well you know the subject, how fast you write.

I am often horrified to hear how many hours my students spend doing their (very modest) prepared tasks: I sometimes wonder if they know how to concentrate at all. On the other hand, I am sure some of the brighter students sail through it.

45 minutes for a very bright very focused student might be the same amount of work as 5 hours for a student who struggles or wool- gathers.

Why does everyone think you should automatically get more homework at a grammar school?

They are covering the same syllabus as at comprehensive schools, but presumably most are doing the higher levels in GCSEs.

I really don't see the correllation between going to a grammar school and having lots of homework. In my experience my DCs friends at comprehensives get more homework.

I don't want to hijack this into a comp v grammar v independent debate but sometimes they don't actually NEED incessant homework.

Bargainmad, I would agree with you that 45 mins per week is far too little.

On the other hand, I chatted to a friend only yesterday who has one DD at an all girls comp and another at an all girls grammar. She says they both get a very large amount of homework every night. Her DD at the comp is now in Y10 and has always been set a huge amount (the mum has complained for ages but to no effect). However, she does accept that the grammar is likely to set loads.

My point being that it's difficult to get it right.

As Herbietea says, it's not essential to give loads of homework in order to achieve great results, eg, my DCs comp (who generally set a moderate amount of homework) achieved the highest Contextual Value Added scores (11-16 and 16-18) in our borough and pretty good GCSE/A level results as well.

DS2 in year 9 is boarding. Prep time is supervised and is one and a half hours. If they finish before time they have to read a book until the end. Sometimes he only takes an hour, other times he has to finish it off in his room. BTW, this is a non-selective independent boarding school with a wide ability range.

Finishing off classwork is generally frowned upon as homework. It can make them rush their classwork, and does little to help the teacher assess their knowledge and understanding.

Coursework is disappearing from GCSE. Things are moving towards eliminating coursework altogether, or doing it exclusively in class under teacher supervision.

DS1, now at university but was at 'top' grammar school, appeared to have little or no homework when in years 9/10!!! I always thought it was him being lazy.

Now DS2 at same school is in year 8 and also really doesn't have too much homework. He is much more diligent but still only has about 20mins a night, if that. Occasionally has a bigger piece but really he is not sitting working hard all evening by any means.

It does seem to be just finishing off, researching something or revising for tests. School gets VG results (100% A - C GCSE) so they must be doing something right. They don't seem to have to do any project-type homework.

I think they get much more in Years 10/11 with GCSE coursework etc.

i have the same problem with my son who is in year 9. He gets little or no homework. What he does get is extremely basic (for a top set pupil, state school comprehensive) and takes him about 15 minutes tops. I would say he gets less than 45 minutes a week. I have spoken to his head of year and she said this is a major problem and the homework policy needs to be changed to reflect the fact that little homework is given! I am going to have a word with the headmaster at parents evening this week but I know this will achieve nothing as I wrote to him about homework when my son was in year 8. I am worried if the lack of homework will have any impact on his GCSE results in 2 years' time. He is not very well motivated at the best of times. I have bought some English and Maths CPG workbooks and was going to make him do 30 minutes of each a night but I know this will cause friction.

I really don't know what to do as I am not at all happy with the situation.

ds reckons he is meant to get one a day...

If a top set ever have a finish off homework they also have a proper task set. Otherwise they simply dont finish the classwork as they can do it at home.

DS has already chosen his options! We had a Parents evening earlier this month to check his options were sensible (had had a planning meeting in November), but they will still be tested in all subjects in lieu of SATS!

Teachers are even marking some work now as if it had been submitted as coursework - to make them realise they have to improve to get good GCSE grades.

as a teacher i would say about an hour to and hour and a half a night

If they finish school at 3.30/4 then another hour on top of that is not much to ask imho

How much do people think is too much for KS3?

Mine gets about 45 mins per night

Just checked with DS (Yr9) as he does his homework then stays on his PC so times become grey. (Homework IS always done first though).

He said "what we get is what we are supposed to get"!!!!

On pushing, it is 3 subjects per night, 30m each, with occassional let-offs and the odd Project etc thrown in.