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 know I posted this before but I think it’s worth mentioning again in the sea of replies in case anyone is getting stressed.

The media spin doesn’t represent what the survey looked at. They asked parents to mark whether they did ANY educational activity within an HOUR SLOT. So a 20 min activity from 10:50-11:10 would tick two hour boxes. Another box ticked for 5 min reading before bed.

Full report here www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/BN288-Learning-during-the-lockdown-1.pdf

About 1.5-2hrs for DS in year 5. We're both teachers so feeling guilty but we're busy working either at home or in school so can't 'teach' him ourselves.
DD at secondary school in year 7 has loads of work & it's quite stressful trying to get her not to get overloaded and worried about getting it all done.
DS in the meantime has become a TikTok expert (he's logged in on my phone so I can check everything he does).
You just have to do what you can to get by!

Holy crap!!
My 7yr does maybe 90 mins. Like, maybe. And that includes a good bit of reading....
We are with twinkl and do worksheets based on the school work. The school work itself takes minutes usually.
But he is happy, and I’m completely not bothered.
Well, I wasn’t until I realised nearly everyone else is doing WAY more.

Thanks @peajotter, I'd missed your original post when I started scanning the thread in panic

We are aiming to do school work from about quarter past nine til half three but I alternate between my 5 year old (year 1) and 9 year old (year 4). I do about half an hour with my youngest and half to three quarters with my eldest.

We then stop for a snack and exercise (garden play, go noodle, trampoline) after they have both done a round of school work.

We are quite lucky in that I work at school but lunchtimes only and haven't had to go in so am fully available to work with them while my husband works at home.

Our school is quite relaxed about how much work people are doing and today my youngest hasn't been able to concentrate so we have maybe done 15 minutes!!

1-2 hours a day (9 and 5) maybe a bit more for the older one.

We're both WFH so it's like a constant juggling act. They both like to read though so probably do thy for about an hour each over the course of the day too.

My 10yo does 9-12 of any type of school work. Including work set online by the teacher reading maths.then the afternoon he will get some exercise in and do something like help with the cooking. That’s what I like to do but not every day goes to plan! My 13 year old just gets on with what ever is set by her teachers which actually doesn’t seem a lot at all.I'm less bothered about school work and more concerned about their mental wellbeing while being lock away from friends!

Our 9 year old is doing around 2 hours a day. We're both working full time and would need to take time off to support more than this as independent work isn't planning out so well.

Year 2 - 3 Oak Academy Lessons plus some handwriting worksheets and mental arithmetic. So 4-5 hours? And I thought we were doing well, not close to 6 hours. Unless you add the hour we walk as PE and the time he spends reading / cooking / at Beavers or doing Beavers activities.

My four year old does 45 mins in the morning. Totally fine with that.

Single parent working full time. I don't think there's much being done at all to be honest!

4.5 hours?! Barely 30 minutes a day if I'm lucky. I've started withholding lunch until they've done a worksheet and read a book. They point blank refuse to do PE and bbc bitesize. They run around and wreck havoc and watch a lot of TV despite me hiding the remote control.

Both wfh so I cant spend all day cajoling them to do things

How does bbc define working or middle class?

ForForksSake: Is Oak Academy good? How does it work?
I've been using Outschool which is small group zoom lessons on different subjects. It's great fun but the curriculum is a bit US centric.

Are people not feeling concerned about the academic dent this time away from education will have in the long run?

At what point is this time going to be made up?

They’ll go back to school 3/4 months behind then need to start their new curriculum, if they don’t and use the first few months going over what they missed from the previous academic year, then surely there will be swathes of children months and months behind where they need to be in terms of effectively accessing the age appropriate curriculum and appropriate exams.

Not to mention that we don’t even know when all children will be back at school full time.

Most things can be caught up by most children. Those who need extra support may need some supplementary learning.
But really if my Y4 can't spell "corrosion" or is a bit slow at their 8 times tables, it's not the end of the world.
If the return to school takes longer then we shall explore what educational materials are available and focus on the essential skills.

Taking out breaks and lunch, DD9 is doing 2-3 hours of work set by the school a day. She's often quite reluctant though and I have to give constant support. If I hadn't been furloughed and was wfh I doubt she'd do anywhere near that independently.

Probably averages about 4 hours a day

Less than an hour, husband and I work full time and children have additional needs, we are concentrating on doing enjoyable activities with the children including looking after our horses, walking and gardening.

1 hour

PinkyU no not in the least. The teachers will be aware that they have had this pause in their education and will adapt their lessons accordingly. If anything, school might become rather boring for those who have been covering new material while their peers have not. I don't think any teacher will proceed assuming their intake have covered the whole year's curriculum, unless their school is offering a fully taught timetable online.

It is a bit more complicated for those who are moving schools, but secondaries are used to taking on diverse groups of children who have been taught different things and again, teachers will assume there are some gaps and focus their teaching on those who have not covered the material.

I'm not saying it will be plain sailing, but I think the difficulties will be about discipline and deadlines rather than missed curriculum.

0 hours a day for my 8 year old.

But lots of exercise, exploring and forest school fun!

And I don't work

Year 5 DS

Mon/Tue/Wed 9 - 12noon with 15 min break
BBC bitesize, ixl maths & English, TT rockstars, bug club reading then various worksheets from twinkl. Have just started using Oak academy but not many lessons outside maths/English
Thursday & Friday I work from home so a selection of worksheets printed mainly from twinkl.

Afternoon are a walk or cycle plus lego, drawing, reading, tv.

Games console after 4pm for about 3 hours with a break for tea as he is talking & interacting with friends

I think that’s where my view differs from the majority, in that I don’t see this as having to necessitate a pause in education because I don’t believe it’s anyone else’s responsibility to ensure my child is being educated.

When my lo’s are at school it’s still my responsibility to ensure they’re receiving an appropriate education, to address gaps and bolster learning. Now they’re not in school ensuring they’re receiving an appropriate education is still my job, to me that means learning not just going over concepts they’re already comfortable with, this is what leads to boredom and a lack of motivation.

An hour maybe two for my ds(6). He's year1.

The school sent home a massive work pack that is supposed to last four weeks, it works out as a bit of reading and writing, one double sided maths worksheet, one double sided phonics worksheet and then a bit of 'other subjects' - art, geography, history, science etc.

A lot of the 'other subjects' stuff is things that we teach dc anyway by sort of osmosis because he's still pretty curious. So he'll come out with a random question like 'why are crows black?' and we'll fall down the Google rabbit hole, and we'll discover the actual reason why (twilight hunters so black is the best camouflage) and also the reason that other cultures came up with like the African tale of how the crow turned black (use to be colourful like parrot but flew into the sun and burned black, been black ever since.)

He's into pokemon so will use that as a seuge into world religions (lots of pokemon are based on Japanese kami so watched a few videos on YouTube on shinto).

He's got a crafty corner and I'll set him a challenge like build a bridge that this toy car can drive over and I'll call that a science lesson (physics, engineering).

We play shops and that's maths working out prices and change.

It's all very relaxed here with only a vague timetable of breakfast, a few work sheets and a bit of reading then lunch, then we potter around until it's time to make dinner.

Sometimes the pottering around will be ds playing on a tablet doing phonics or maths games, or watching cartoons. He'll play in his room, help me in the garden, help me clean the house etc (he likes dusting and hoovering, who am I to stop him )

Six hours is ridiculous though. I don't believe that for a second. I reckon the average for primary kids is 1-2.

Single working parent here. My year 3 and 5, work from 9 - 3 with a 30 minute break around 10.30 and and hour for lunch. So all in all about 4.5 hours. That seems plenty. I also work 4 full days a week from home.

My year 5 has a very structured time table and completes all his set work. It is a little less structured for my year 3 and we concentrate on maths, English, reading, spellings & grammar. Anything else is a bonus.

They both do art and baking in their free time, when they want to and we go on a walk or bike ride daily - occasionally we sack this off for a film and a pizza when the weather is dodgy.

I am not a teacher and refuse to be drawn into the world of competitive parenting. We do not turn every toilet roll into something amazing and I haven't turned my back garden into Hawaii or the front room into a cinema!!

We won't truly understand the impact on our children of Covid 19 for some years to come. Right now I am concentrating on getting through each day without shouting and ensuring that my children are as happy as possible.