To think DD can't do all this homework in 1 night?

[Ashor]

• timetable of her life schedule (this is actually homework set) and to write 500 words on why time management is important.
• 750 word essay.
• PowerPoint on cells.

In 1 night???

@DinahMorris yep that completely stacks up with what we were told. Each subject will have 8 hours taught time plus a minimum of 3 hours homework. Then they should allow a minimum of 2 hours per week for consolidating their learning, research and extending subject knowledge. So 13 hours x 4 subjects = 52 hours per week..... I need to tell DD she's slacking if she only does 50 hours 😁
.....I guess it also depends on the grades they are shooting at. In my day I did very little work and just winged it during the exam (did well too) but there's absolutely no way I could do that with the current GCSE and A Level syllabuses.

It's absolutely reasonable and normal at A level,. If you haven't done A levels then I can imagine it would be a bit of a shock though!

No big deal if she's reasonably good at her subjects, but I can see it being a problem for a student who's struggling.

Poor form by the teachers, at any level, to set homework due tomorrow though. (Assuming your DD isn't fibbing about when it was set.) The student might be working or have other commitments, might have planned on doing another assignment that evening, or just Shit Happens and then there's no chance to do it another day.

For some perspective: that's 5 pages of essay writing, plus a PowerPoint.

Too much IMHO.

As a college instructor, I have 5-page papers that my students have to write, BUT I set the due dates for those weeks in advance.

@bpisok 8 hours of lessons per subject? Wow! How come? That's double what a lot of students get.

I teach A level at my school - I don't think that's fair to set it to be due the next day unless it's something simple. Some kids may have a job/caring responsibilities/loads of other homework. IMO they will learn time management better if they actually have time to manage their workload!

My DD used to get this all the time at GCSE level.
I formed the opinion that all the teachers thought their subject was the only one that anyone was studying.
I suppose the idea was that homework would be set a few days in advance, but nine times out of ten it was set at the last minute.

This, and the assumption that every family has a state of the art lap top for each family member plus unlimited broadband, printer and plenty of coloured ink and paper.

I remember being reduced to tears one night because the printer broke at 10pm and DD was distraught at the prospect of getting a detention.

This thread is scaring me! My eldest has only just started school so this is all years away for me, but is 3+ hours of homework a day really and honestly an expected and acceptable amount these days? Or are you all just trying to make the OP feel bad...?

A levels were quite a long time ago for me so maybe my memory's failing me, but I can't imagine I had more than 5-6 hours of homework a week in total. That was with two essay-based subjects plus 1.5 others. Is this really what my kids have got to look forward to ?

It doesn't really work out as 3+ hours per day of homework. For those taking 4 subjects it is up to 16 hours spread over the week, and students will have some study periods.

But yes, there is a lot of study required at A level. I'm not sure this is new - I'm in my 30s and it seems similar to the average workload when I was in school. As I said upthread, A levels were the hardest I've ever worked. It was worth it though.

@LittleKitty1985 - yes it's a lot more than most. It's an Inde and they start at 8am and are expected to stay in school until 5 unless they don't have any afternoon lessons in which case they can leave at 3. They have a card to swipe in and out of the 6th form library and they monitor how many hours they spend in there. There's a permanent librarian in there to make sure that it's quiet (although they have meeting rooms with glass panels facing the librarian that they can book out for project work - so big brother is always watching).
They have 2 x 3 hour lessons per subject (normally a different teacher for each) and 2 x 1 hour tutorials which is an hour on their own with each teacher - from what she has told me it's a generic chat about the topic, recommended reading, discussing what they have read and any additional help (several of these have resulted in additional homework eg read xyz and we can discuss it next week)

There's only 30 girls in Year 12 and the largest class size is 5 - so there is literally nowhere to hide. You can't fade into the background, if you don't do the work you will get caught

My daughter is in 6th form and they appear to have lots of ‘free’ periods during the day
I suspect that the expectation is that they use that time for homework

That's funny because I found GCSEs harder than A levels in terms of workload. I don't think the homework volume was much more per subject, and we only had 3-4 subjects instead of 9. But I'm my 40s and this was before AS were standard. Clearly it's all changed now. Gulp.

My DC’s went to a selective indie in London and I don’t think they ever did three hours homework a night. They both got all’A’’s but also had music and sports clubs each week which were equally important so three hours a night wouldn’t have been possible.

My dd is in the upper 6th doing A level maths, biology, chemistry and Welsh baccalaureate and doesn’t have that level of homework. She does get free lessons during the week and does some work in these but pretty sure it’s nowhere near that amount of time.

I once did a 3000 word essay in one night, it's doable, though not enjoyable!

I think that sounds fine, but then I’d only consider that an hour and half of work.

A 750 word essay is barebones, it should be really fast to write. Her life schedule shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to write down, and for the time management piece she can just google and then write down some simple stuff in her own words. Presumably the PowerPoint is on things they’ve learned, not a brand new subject, and if so that should be really fast and easy too.

At her age I had a few 2000-3000 essays to write each week and about 12 hours of math.

The irony of being about time management but they give it them day before.

RE. The time management in one night, it is probably some sort of statement to say if you had managed your time well this 500 is easy in one night. If you haven't managed your time and struggle to do this along with other delayed work then that proves the point 😂😂

For some perspective: that's 5 pages of essay writing, plus a PowerPoint.
Bit of rounding up there. Unless someone has massive handwriting.

My A Level coursework are a few thousand words and they are only just getting to the 5 page mark (typed).

It's not a huge amount of work for a 6th form student. They have free periods, often have morning registration time (or mine at all and additional time later in the day).

Some.6th formers, especially at the start of the year, seem to think college is like GCSE where someone spoon feeds you everything but with the benefit of optional deadlines. It's not like that.

That is definitely doable. I used to regularly do around 3 or 4 hours at Alevel, usually because I should have planned better. She obviously left it a bit late. Help her to plan her Tim better

The posters saying they refused to do homework at a-level are likely to get a shock when their children do a level. I am a secondary teacher and we expdct 1 hr of h/w for every hour in class so a lot of the learning goes on at home. The idea that you could just skip it and still get the grade you are capable of is laughable. Students are probably doing between 12 and 16 hours home study a week but they will get some free periods.

Also we are encouraged to sanction students who don't do homework, we run detentions for sixth form and make phone calls home for lack of effort. If it is a recurring problem it can even result in your child being kicked off the course.

Plan her time

Hmm.. My boys never had that quantity of homework.

Much younger they learned to categorise homework set:
Priority 1 - an interesting task that will further learning
Priority 2 - an important task, required to embed learning, or to be built on in a future lesson
Priority 3 - a task with little meaning for me, but the teacher will mark it
Priority 4 - a task with little meaning for me; the teacher may check it has been completed.

Alas there was a fair quantity of 3 and 4 from teachers who were told they had to set homework. They rattled through 3 and 4 (often at school in breaks or frees) to do the bare minimum to avoid getting in trouble, so they could focus the time they had on the real stuff - 1 and 2, plus optional, independent tasks.

This approach served them well and they were 'successful' in school.

She should have a home work timetable to follow

The is devised by the school & shared with all pupils/staff