Please fess up, how many hours a day schoolwork are your Primary school juniors doing each day?

[JMAngel1]

Just read a survey on BBC website that said poorer families are only doing 4.5 hours each day with their children whereas wealthier families are doing 6 hours.
My two are year 3 and 5 and we do 1.5 hours in the morning of. maths and english and then 1 hour in the afternoon on their school website looking at history/science/RE powerpoints thatkind of thing.
I thought we were doing a lot!
They do Jo Wickes, creative art time, chores and we go for a walk or cycle so we still fill the school day with activities.

What are your junior primary school children doing each day?

I’m at “wealthier” end but DH and I both work full time in demanding jobs. No way I could do 4-6 hours schooling a day. If anything, “poorer” families or those with a SAHP are doing way better at schooling than us. It’s more to do with family set up/availability than wealth.

That survey is a nonsense and primary kids do less than 3 hours a day of academic work at school.

I'm a teacher and my daughter is taking her 11+ in September so we are working really hard to maintain a good level but we never do more than 4 hours in a day (it's usually 3 and that produces a lot of work).

It's not the length of time you work but the focus of the student the and quality of the work that matters.

I feel really guilty but only 2-3 hours. They are keeping up with their set work but are so anti doing anything extra that we find for them, not sure what the secret is to getting them to do 6 hours like some on here!!! (Although that might be a bit much). They are learning new skills though - my 9 year old learned sewing and knitting (his choice) and the older one has learned how to use the big lawnmower for some pocket money. Both have been cooking a lot and getting exercise outside. It's not ideal that they are not doing much school work but I want them to be happy rather than stressed, especially just now.

LOL - This is a self reporting survey. These people are not telling the truth!

I think it’s important to be led by the child and what they need.
For some that’s routine and academic work.
For others it’s more reading and pastoral care.

Year 5 child only 3 to 4 hours a week, that's all the school are setting. We are both wfh so don't have any spare time to set any other work. We are getting him to do the year 6 work on a friday but that doesn't get marked

You are not supposed to do six hours.
If you break the school day down, there are about three hours of actual academic learning, if that. The rest is assembly, break times, pe, moving around, setting up and tidying away etc.

Im getting sick of the bbc at the moment. They seem to have become the government propaganda channel!
I used to have a lot of respect for Victoria Derbyshire as a journalist but she is one of the worst at the moment.

At home my child is getting 1 to 1 supported learning with me. I am not a teacher, however the teacher sets appropriate work and I sit with dd and reinforce and explain the concepts and make sure she has understood before moving on.

We are doing around three hours work together and dd is also doing plenty of extra child led independent work too. This is extremely important as it fosters a love of learning.
Our education system is quite rigid and can be suppressive at times.

We are probably one of the ones distorting the statistics, she's doing "educational" activites for approximately 9 hours a day but that also includes online dancing lessons and cookery lessons and because she attends a forest school we also get instructions sent for building bug hotels and things like that, the current outdoor actiity is map reading skills. It's easiest to work set hours and she is happy to sit at her own desk with a pile of work sheets with regular sessions also on the computer doing purple mash or read theory and watching bitesize. She works independently very well which is why for us it works.

I do know just how fortunate I am

'Fess up' 😡

Meh. My child nominally has 6 hours a day of "homeschool" timetable but they are filled with exercise videos, silent reading, drawing the same thing over and over. Actual academic learning, virtually none. I couldn't get him to engage with anything the school set and I've long given up.

You could call it 3 mins a day or 6 hours a day. Either way, it's meaningless.

What’s right for one isn’t another

Ah well based on @peajotter’s explanation, the whole surgery is pointless.

Based on that criteria DS (year 6) is doing 7 hours.

Based on the reality of what we’re doing, he’s doing 5 hours (9-3 with an hour for lunch, I’ll count his break time as work as he’s choosing to listen to the Harry Potter audio books which is educational).

Based on the work set by school, he’s doing about 3 hours.

I think this is on the high side for most people but much less that the over 6 hours that the study suggests he is doing.

Looking at how the activity was reported, I'm pretty sure I could bump by about 4hrs up to 7 and possibly beyond! Equally though, I could report my DC did 3-4hrs of additional learning at home on a normal school day. Probably not the best way to measure these things.

Dd is 10 and in year 6.

She does everything that her teacher sets everyday- that is at a push an hour.
Then she reads for half an hour.

My Year 5 does about 45 minutes maths and 45 minutes English from school.
Half an hour reading of his choice.
Half an hour of TT Rockstars or similar.
Half an hour of BBC Bitesize of his choice.

So a total 3 hours school work a day. And his teacher keeps saying he's doing loads!

Then another 6 hours of playing Minecraft and watching Horrible Histories which I'm also going to say is educational, right?

Reception child about 2 to 3 hours at the very most. We are getting through the work that's been set and she is definitely learning as I've seen such improvement with her.
Year 3 pretty much left to do it on own on teams but he gets through all work set and ends up on teams from about 10 to 3 with a 1 hour break, but I must stress that he faffs about .. takes him twice as long to do work so in reality he would have only needed 3 hours max.
And i check all work and randomly test him on stuff through the week and he seems to be learning what hes supposed to.
His handwriting has gone to shit though.

The lines are really blurry because lots of schools set a minimum of academic work, but the other stuff kids are doing all day is educational. But it isn't necessarily broad and balanced, and nor does it need to be.
Mine do work in a lot of hours, because their dad or I wander through and set them up with something. I've one child who will pick an activity and do it. She's drawn an amazing picture this morning while brother was still getting dressed. Some would class this as 'art'. I'm teaching my youngest piano, this wouldn't normally be part of a music lesson in school. My older DD learns guitar but I'm not able to teach her, because it's her thing and she doesn't see me as part of that. Most of what we do in this house could count as a music lesson, but that's nothing to do with homeschooling or lockdown, it's just how we live our life.
Equally, learning to cook. Important, but not schooling.
I feel quite sorry for teachers the next couple of years, as they are going to have kids way ahead in loads of subjects, where they won't be expecting it!

If I totted it up - the "educational" stuff they're doing probably comes up to a lot - because they're obsessed with playing one of the BBC Bitesize games of their own choice, and there's a bitter spelling shed war for who can top the class table.

What I'm actually enforcing (well they've gone to grandparents this week as their mental health is suffering from social isolation and loss of peer contact) is 10 minutes reading, and two 30 minute slots of something educational a day. If I've got time on the afternoon I'll do something crafty with them or bake or something but that's an added bonus.

I'm having to plan and resource everything myself as school have been dire.

30mins reading
30mins times table rockstar app
30mins handwriting practice

Then they watch Newsround, and we get out something like Lego/kinetic sand/paints.

So definetly jot even the 4.5h

Gosh, we would be in the wealthier family category. Eldest is only 5 so definitely not doing 6 hours. I'd say 1 - 1.5 hours, slight variation if she's struggling with something. I haven't been impressed with the support from the school, it's been solely me setting and going through topics.

Ds is year 6
We do a school day of 9-3 (6hrs) but there is a 1hr lunch break and a 10min break every hour. So more like 4 hrs work.
Ds still manages to finish everything set for the week with Friday to spare.
But I guess if we include our exercise as a pe lesson... Or if we count baking a cake or cooking the dinner as a cookery lesson, or tidying his room and putting on the washing machine as pse, then it would be a bit more .

Hardly any! Ds8 is resistant to anything not screen based, so is just doing 30 minutes reading plus, 30 minutes TTRockstars and 30 minutes Education City (on the days it hasn’t crashed!) a day. His school aren’t setting work other than non-work type stuff (scavenger hunts, drawing) which he has zero interest in. He won’t entertain any extra worksheets and won’t do PE with Joe or BBC bitesize as they’re “babyish”. He does read for an hour or so a day but I don’t count that as he always has.
Ds6 won’t do any of the screen based stuff that his brother does, which is all school have asked him to do. He’ll occasionally do a printed worksheet, but prefers me to make my own ( will do 4 of these in one go). We alternate that with reading chapter books together (alternate pages). For him that’s definitely work as he struggles with reading (but won’t entertain practicing on the red reading books school use!) and doesn’t do it for pleasure. He’ll also write stories etc.
Both do 1-1.5 hours a day.
I’d prefer set work from school as I think they’d be more motivated to do that!
My eldest 2 are in secondary and do about 4-8 hours a day (set by school!)

Between 8 and 9am - Spelling Shed and Ttrockstars (10 mins on each)
9-9.30 exercise
10-12 noon - English and maths lessons
2-3pm - topic or curriculum work.

In reality, the lessons rarely last more than 30-45mins each so if I add up actual learning time it would be 2-3 hours in total.

My kids do 1.5 hours lessons a day. And I would say about 10 minutes of that is actually focussed learning. The other 80 minutes is spent faffing! They are 11 9 and 9. I wish they would do more and learn more independantly but its a struggle to even get them to do 90 minutes.
Surveys like this just stress me out and add to my already burden of guilt. DH works out of the house 9-6 each day, and I'm trying to work from home, so realistically can't do any more with them.

It amazes me how many hours some families are doing!

We do 45 mins with year one Dd.

I home educated her older brother until year 6 and we only ever did 2 hours a day maximum in the older years. He still started school in year 6 way ahead of his peers (he’s average, not particularly bright).

I’ve got friends tying themselves in knots trying to do a full school day. It’s really not needed.

(Disclaimer - Dd is not being sent work by the school, I’ve gone back to my old homeschooling favourite work books etc).