To ask what amount of independent study is reasonable for Year 11 students per week?

[jillowarriorqueen]

DD1 is in year 11. She attends the best performing state school in the local area. However, she has never seemed to get a lot of homework throughout KS3 and the first part of KS4, maybe a couple of hours a week max.

I have recently met with the Head of Curriculum and Learning and she has been pretty casual about the GCSE results, saying that they only need a bunch of 4s to qualify for their 6th form and that my DD will easily get that.

I agree, she will. But I don't want her to get a fist full of 4s and have to be restricted to applying to her current school sixth form. She is a bright kid, but has fallen into a toxic friendship group that is far from aspirational in terms of academics. She has spent much of her secondary education so far trying to intervene in child protection issues surrounding self harm and suicidal ideation in order to "save" a number of her troubled friends.

I want her to get away from her current school and have the chance to go where her dad teaches, which is much more academic and inspirational. I want her to be free of these friendships that are simply wearing her out and dragging her down. She has said she would like to go there too, but doesn't understand the sacrifices she will need to make in terms of time in order to get there ( It's one of the top grammar schools in the UK, and a state school to boot).

Given that she is in mostly top sets in year 11, I would expect her to be studying for 2 hours a night minimum, but this has met with tears and masses of resistance.

What do you think is a reasonable amount of independent study per week for a bright year 11 with a desire to get a fistful of 7s and 8s? AIBU asking for one hour a night or should I be helping her to aim for more time of independent study, given that school seems incapable of giving much homework. This is a separate matter that I need to take up with them, I know. But in the meantime, what do you think is acceptable study time?

Thanks in advance.

Zippyx I think that approach would be totally unrealistic for the vast majority of students.

When you say revision?
Do you mean on top of regular homework they are given?

Ds1 is bright, but 'bare minimum'. Class clown, social media fanatic, party animal.

I know not what to do with him!

@Oblomov19, ds gets very little homework, but it depends what the homework is and how much. If homework is on the current topic he is learning then I would try to do some ongoing revision/practise of previous topics so they are not completely forgotten. Repetition of the previous topics now will help him not panic when it gets closer to exam time.

Thank you all for your responses. My DD has been in year 11 for a week now and has had NO homework so far. I have an appointment with the head next week.
It is up to school to foster a sense of independent learning and this is not happening. If they were setting suitable homework, it would cause so much less stress at home. e.g. They have started reading The Christmas Carol by Dickens, so set them damn homework on the social aspect of his writing. It's not rocket science!!!
I have taught English myself across KS 3 and 4 and would not miss an opportunity to get my students to learn. WTH is wrong with these teachers???

A whole week into the new school year and no homework, gasp!

You are really not helping if you're leaving her in tears. You are going to have to learn to trust her and support rather than direct her. If she really wants to go to a different school for 6th form, then you need to let her decide to put in the work. If she doesn't really, but is agreeing to keep you happy then going there is likely to make her miserable and/or resentful and not reach her full potential.

We aren't in the UK, but my kid is same age group and best school in our area. She is also very similar in terms of friendships and drama and intelligence and letting things slide. She is not taking any honours or AP classes this year for example when she should be all honours. She is still getting more homework than she can physically do before bedtime every night. She takes an hour to travel home, then homework till about 10pm and still has some left to complete in Advisory next day.

So I would expect somewhere between what your daughter's workload and mine is correct. My kid has finally realised she has to get her gradea back up this year if she has any hope of scholarahips for college. So far so good. I hope your kid figures this out too. It is so hard to help them be self motivated. Especially since I am only using hind sight to encourage her... I was lazy and never did homework or revision for GCSEs. I scraped 1 D, 6 Bs and 2 A*, but should have done better. We naturally want better for our kids.

Mine has no homework either for some reason but is doing higher level maths tests on BBC bitesize, especially on the subjects she’s not 100% confident on. We talked about it and that’s what we decided to do. You set the exam board and off you go.

Thanks for all your feedback. Will take some time to mull over it in a bit more detail.
Re the 2 hours. That was intended to include revision classes and any homework she gets. Right now, she's getting no homework, despite being a week back in school. Sure, they are introducing new modules, but there would be nothing wrong with them asking kids to look something up or do some research surrounding the new topic. I didn't mention that I'm a secondary school teacher myself and so is my husband, and we set homework the first week of term. They didn't get much homework last year either - maybe 5 pieces a week (if that) across the board.
She has all the revision guides and two parents who are both happy to help her to shape her independent revision time when she has no homework/revision classes.
We have currently compromised/caved to her doing one hour, two on a Saturday and Sunday off. I've told her this isn't revision, it's consolidation time, in which she goes through her material and decides what she is secure on and what she doesn't understand.

Again, thank you MN. Really helps to hear lots of different opinions.

I think that every child is different. One studying for two hours is reasonable if they are literally remembering what hey have read whereas four hours could involve a lot of daydreaming!!! It also depends how academic the school is !! Mine all went to grammar schools where they were taught at a fast pace and high level in the classroom and I can never remember them being bogged down with much homework!! I did stress about it at first but TBH it was a relief that I didn’t have to keep nagging about homework!! I do think that Ziggy regime is unsustainable for many young people!!

You do sound a bit helicopter parenty. It's great that you are both teachers and can offer your daughter support but please step back from being teachers to being her parents and wait until she asks for help. She is the only person who can do her growing up, you can't do it for her. Perhaps it would be more valuable to support her more in her friendship issues, rather than being so revision focused? Let her school help her with that and you keep her healthy and sane!

What time does she get home from school? If she's like my kids and home by 4 then 2 hours isn't unreasonable but if she does extra curriculars then 2 hours in unreasonable.

Does she have any weekend commitments? Dd sees her Dad EOW and couldn't really study at his so 4 hours would be unreasonable on those weekends iyswim,

I wouldn't set a time limit tbh. She shouldn't be punished for a productive revision session eg if she does a 90 minute past paper then that should count as a revision session then the next session she might use the examiners guide to mark her work then redo some of her mistakes for 45 mins iyswim. Our school told us that they thought the average y11 concentrated for about 50 mins and that's why each period at their school is 50 mins.