DD has no time for homework!

[bluetictac]

Well not exactly...

DD2 (15 year old) is in Year 11 at school and she’s got her hobbies every night after school. She’s a competitive show jumper and rides almost everyday after school. She goes straight to the yard from school on the tube and that takes 30 mins to get there and another half an hour to get back. So one hour travelling, then she’s at the yard riding, helping people, chatting, doing horse care, having lessons, hacking etc. So she usually isn’t home until 6/6.30.

Then we have dinner and at the moment it’s fine as she can eat in her room and do her homework whilst she’s doing it because DH and I have jobs at the moment where we aren’t home until 7/8PM so we don’t all eat together as our other children don’t mind either, we are self employed/contracted work.

But when we do eat together we aren’t done with dinner until 7 and then she needs to revise, do homework, shower etc. School gives DD an average of 1.5/2 hours of homework per evening and then she usually tries to do 45mins/1 hour of revision to keep on top in subjects she struggles in. That’s almost 3 hours each night.

She isn’t done until 10PM usually and then she needs to read, unwind, shower etc so she’s not asleep until 11PM generally. Then she wakes up at 6AM and 7 hours isn’t really enough sleep for her. She’s exhausted throughout the day.

Any clue how we can help her manage her time better? We’ve spoken about doing more on weekends but she goes to the gym with her friends on Sat mornings and then we usually go out as a family in the afternoon as it’s the only time we have together all week. On Sundays we either relax at home and take it in turns to take the younger DC to clubs or go together with the DC. DD meets friends on sunday as she can’t ever meet them after school and has a yoga class in the evening but does do hours of revision on sundays.

It’s all too stressful!

We are talking about optimising outcomes. Academic hothouses are more likely to be at the top of the league tables because they select by ability, not becasue they give 3 hours of homework per night. In fact, those schools are possibly reducing what results they could have got for several of their students by burning them out.

Is this to do with her dancing? It’s still a problem that she’s doing an A level without optimal teaching.

It's not a problem at all.

I just can't work out how you have a horse and have those sort of weekends! Our horses and ponies are the focus of our weekends. Do you share it?

I too wonder this! I was even horsier than DD so my then DH and DS barely saw us at weekends. Luckily DS was older and did his own thing. But we were out at comps and stables morning till night Saturday and Sunday. I remember one event (long wait between sections) when I minded the pony and DD wrote a school essay!

Academic hothouses are more likely to be at the top of the league tables because they select by ability, not becasue they give 3 hours of homework per night.

It’s actually a combination of ability + work.

You stick to what you think is best for your child and I'll stick to what is best for mine.

It would be intersting to compare outcomes in 20 years time.

I don’t give a monkeys what you do with your kids tbh. Just seems a bit unfair on DD.

Used to work in a yard after school and at weekends. Can I ask does she stay that long there because she helps out in return for something? Or is it socialising? If it was she could clip a half hour off? Exam time everyone always stepped back a bit and then came back full throttle in the summer. I also found it a bit sad that you said yoga destresses her, she's not an adult, can you talk to her and find out is it the non stop moving that stresses her? Is she a good studier? Is she good under pressure at exam time? Have you talked to other mothers about how long homework/study takes? Best of luck OP, I gave up horses because of exams and never ended up going back because of money and they were my life so it's great she has it and may it stay with her for life!

The thing I don't understand is why she is revising an extra 45 minutes to an hour on top of her homework. She doesn't need to do that. Her exams are not until May. It is September. She only needs to revise for tests that are coming up. Presumably she will have mocks before or after Christmas so she will need to start revising for them a couple of weeks beforehand.

Then she can start revising properly in the Easter holidays before her GCSEs. I'm genuinely astonished by the number of posters whose children seem to 'revise' all of Y11.

I don't understand how she has x hours of homework and revision to complete of an evening.

It's September. How does she already have the material she needs to revise? Exams aren't till May.
Surely, apart from maths and English skills, she hasn't been taught enough content in the 3 weeks since school has started to actually be able to revise?

Either way, something has got to give.
You not getting in till 7/8PM isn't her fault. Presumably you knew that this is what your contract would entail, and that this would be ongoing throughout her GCSE year.
You'll all have to compromise. Sometimes family dinner/time may have to fall to the wayside for her to fit everything else in.

I think it may help for her to write down the essential bare minimum she needs to do a day, with rough time scales, and work out where she needs to cut back.
She may not want to, but it is a need.
Learning to manage her time now is invaluable, especially if she's going to progress onto A-Levels and a degree.

No, I don’t understand revising now either

My DD1 is year 13 and DD2 year 11.

For A levels and GCSEs school start revision just after Christmas - they run after school revision classes, provide revision time tables, homework is revision, lessons are mostly revision. Then it is properly structured and they get the most out of it.

If it's a decent pony I'd be more inclined to pay a professional to school him/her rather than getting a sharer, that will ease the pressure a bit.

I get this as I have a DC who wants to be a musician and needed a good 2 hours + practice a day plus Saturday Junior conservatoire. School suggested giving music up during Year 11 (as if)..... and this was on top of an hours commute to school.

I'm afraid that your DD simply has to accept that she needs to do more work at the weekend and that some of the "fun" needs to go if she wants to keep on riding at this level. Perhaps she could drop the Saturday afternoon in favour of a family dinner on Saturday and drop the Sunday gym and just do the yoga. Also I don't think it is a huge amount of homework - DC's school set 4 lots of 40 minutes per night and a couple of days 5 lots (and doesn't always give them the weekend to do it either).

I agree its tough to lose out on family/social time but it is either that or cut back on the riding I'm afraid (I found it pretty grim last year too).

I'm another one puzzled at the amount of revision needed at this stage of the academic year. And if she us struggling with the amount now, how will it be nearer exam time, or when she starts a levels.

I'm also seeing that she has busy parents...its clear who she is copying!!

Sounds too much cut it down to 3 times a week with one of the days a Friday so homework can be done at weekend.

School work trumps all hobbies in year 11.

Its only 7months till exams.

Stop all the hobbies, more time to study and sleep and chill.

Then go mad once exams are done.

Can she do homework on the tube? I used to do mine on the bus. Saved a lot of time.

We are a horsey family too. My kids do their homework mostly in the car on the way too and from the stables! She might have to cut out the yoga and the family days out. We prioritise ponies and homework and let other things slide. No one can do it all.

Is there anything that can move to mornings before school?

I am a firm believer in ‘ busy children do best’ but the sheer volume of content in the new GCSSes does mean that if they are going to keep up then they need to be organised . My ds kept up a busy extra curricular life but frankly the rest of year 11 was work based. That means that family time was at a premium. Your dd does seem to have a lot of time in her schedule for socialising and down time and that needs to go. Weekends in year 11 involved at least one full day of work and if Saturday for example was taken up with drama then Sunday was work day .

I would say she needs an evening away from the horses to relax at home and maybe do some homework, the routine she has will effect her when her exams come so make dropping a day now would help.

In terms of tips, ds had all his set books on audio which he listened to for example while doing his Dof E hike , he also read notes into phone and played them back .

Lots of kids that age have busy lives. If she is organized, she can accomplish many things. It might even be good for her.

Speak to the school. If she is aiming for Olympic level eventing etc they may reduce her homework but her education comes first so perhaps she can join the homework club after school to get it done?

The OP seems to have been scared away, but if she's still reading then (like it or not) GCSE results this year will be worth a lifetime of job applications, no matter if the professional show jumping career materialises or not.

And to those criticising the current GCSEs, you're right. I hate them, and I teach a core subject! They aren't a test of anything other than hoop-jumping and memory. But sadly, it's what we've got right now, and the OP's daughter needs to pass at least all of her core subjects.

And that will take her a lot of time this year. I'm already tutoring a student who has activities every night after school, and only now is their parent wondering why they failed two of their most important core subjects when they were expected a year ago to get at least a 6 in both. The answer, sadly is easy - the activities after school compromised everything.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result - the after-school activities 5 days a week are, apparently (in Year 12 now!) to continue, as well as revising for a core subject retake in November. I sense some very difficult conversations coming on with this parent.

I'm not saying it's right - far from it. In my day it wasn't like this. And it shouldn't be like this. But it is like it right now. Year 11s can't be living the kind of life/having the kind of work/life balance the OP describes, and still expect to pass their GCSEs. It won't work.

Hard as it is, right now you need to look to the longer term. In 10 years' time, if the show jumping hasn't worked out, and a 'proper job' is needed, then a good pass across a range of GCSEs, including ALL the core subjects, will be vital. Otherwise, a future of low-paid jobs beckons, or a lot of adult catching up to get the entry requirements for a degree as a mature student.

I'd be thinking a lot about whether some of the show jumping or the weekend time (one, not both) can be rejigged just for the next academic year. This time next year, it'll all be too later...