What percentage of secondary school dc do you think are doing their home learning?

[sunshineanddaffodils]

Ds and dd (year 10 and 8) keep telling me they’re doing loads more home learning than their friends. Bearing in mind they’re not doing more than 2-3 hours a day (sometimes less) I take that with a pinch of salt. It’s made me wonder though how many secondary school dc are actually doing their home learning.

I was shocked when I looked at my DS's (yr10) messages from his science teacher on teams, she said only 4 students had done the work, out of a class of 30, wth?
Also his English teacher has been setting work a few times a week and she said everyone needs to catch up so presumably most aren't doing it all and handing it in by the deadlines. I must admit I have been kicking my DS up the backside to get it done but he has done it.
My other DS also yr 10 is at a different school and I have no idea who's doing what there as we get no feedback.

My DS (yr 8) is doing a good 3hrs a day. It's a massive struggle as he is dyslexic and dyspraxic and I have three primary kids to help as well.

He struggles so much that it's a massive stress and generally a row to get him to do that much. Much of it has to be submitted to be marked, but I have been very honest with the school in that we are focusing on the core subjects and trying to fill in some of his gaps rather then worrying about RE, Art, food tech etc.

I am really keen for him to return to school but as he is on the shielding list, who knows when that will happen 🤷🏼‍♀️

DS Y10 has full timetable and live classes. He logs on at registration at 8.30 and then follows a normal school day and is then given homework each day and also usually a day’s worth of homework for the weekend. He has had tests, work is marked and also does some collaborative work with some of his classmates. They are also given optional weekly house challenges eg best drawing, photo, but DS has opted out of those.

His school have told us that they are not reopening after half term for Y10 but are going to continue this system of remote learning. So I assume most students are doing the work.

My two both have a full timetable of lessons every day (year 8 and year 10). They have Google classroom and the year 10 has mostly live lessons. The younger one has done cookery practicals ok, but has ducked out of PE on a couple of occasions! I am really happy with the way their school is dealing with things (state grammar).

My daughter has full days of Zoom lessons and this week is doing her Summer exams. It seems no different to her normal school day minus the practicals. She is in an independent school though.

My Yr 9 DD says that less than half of her year group have been doing the set work.

(She hasn't tried to use this as a reason not to do hers, so I'm inclined to believe her).

Mine do about an hour a day.

My yr9 follows his normal timetable and does 5 subjects per days (4 on some - he doesn't do the pe or reading lessons as he does those outside school hours). Some subjects he'll get done in half an hour others an hour + so I'd say he's averaging 3 hours actual work but there's a lot of faffing around/distraction in between so it stretches out over 4/5 hours. All his work has to be submitted but there's no feedback or homework set (& he's the sort of child that will NEVER do the optional extras or challenge questions ) I do worry how much he's missing but any involvement from us meets strong resistance and causes huge argument so I guess I have to be thankful he is at least getting on with the basics.

Mine haven't missed a lesson since lockdown. 9-4 every day.

All work is live and online.

The concern is my sons hobby is coding and he is passionate about it. So, given the chance, he would be at his computer 8-6 which is very unhealthy.

DS13 has lots to do, plenty set by majority of teachers, lots of support and feedback. I am.pushing this from son as his teachers seem thrilled that they are getting feedback and interaction!
However, it's a struggle and he is not really that bothered, I have to make sure he's up and ready to work in the morning and then there's a lot of fannying about and general procrastination! I'd say he's doing about 2 or 3 hours a day at most. I'm not trying to replicate his school day and timetable.
Some teachers are setting work each week, a couple of tasks. Others are setting 2 weeks worth at a time. Some want it submitting the same way they are setting it - via the homework app. Some aren't asking to see it, but I wonder if they'll expect the children to bring it in once they do go back?
I am printing a lot off for him, but if I didn't then it'd be chaos getting him to write out questions and tasks in his book as well as then answer them! All that writing you know!

A mum on the year 8 Facebook page we have going has said she's having to buy new exercise books as her school ones are getting filled up.
I am probably doing too much for him but I'd rather that than have him do nothing at all. It's not easy when I'm trying to work from home too.
I feel secondary school children are being forgotten about under the general line of they should be self motivated and can work independently. It's not always the case and they are missing out. Articles and pages on social media offering advice are all geared towards primary school age kids and i'm really fed up of Facebook posts about 'hey, you're not a teacher, you shouldn't be stressing about homeschooling. We're in the middle of a pandemic, you are keeping your child safe and happy in a time of crisis' and 'never mind maths and spellings, today's homeschooling is about counting how many flowers we see on our daily walk, and baking a cake'. All that is great for the under 10s when you can spend the day doing a bit of work and a bit of play but not when you've got teenagers who would do little else but play on consoles and phones given half the chance. Yes, I'm.generalising a bit and I don't mean to trivialise how hard it is for everyone trying to homeschool children at any age but I just feel our kids are the forgotten ones in all this!

@mymadworld, my son is the same. Won't ever do the extra bits. If he is asked to write between 5 and 10 lines for a task, he will do 5. No more, no less!

Y10 daughter at a private school. 100% are doing almost full day online: 8.40-3, plus clubs (it's been cut back one lesson but will go to full schedule after half term, we have yet to find out if that means partially in school). I asked her specifically and she said every one of her classmates are logging on. She has loads of homework too.
A friend has four kids at the same school as my daughter, one in the primary part, and they are also remote learning all day, so it's not just the GCSE and A level years.
Parents make sacrifices to afford private school and if they want to retain the pupils they better make sure they are providing value. Our school was trialing online learning before the lock down in anticipation and have done a great job so far, as well as remaining open for 40+ key worker children.

DD 15 is doing 11-4 every day with one 20 minute break. I thought I would have to nag her to do it but she's done it off her own back and said she prefers it to school.

There was a statistic on Newsnight the other week that about 35% of secondary students were doing the home school work set for them with a lower figure for disadvantaged children. (If I remember correctly. )
I was it was so low. DD - y10 - is working every day. Four sessions of 45 minutes and seems to be keeping up.

Mine are doing 3-4 hours a day. They’re getting some good feedback too. Ds1 is in yr10 and had a go at some gcse papers. His teachers marked them and gave him detailed feedback.
Ds2 has been getting feedback pretty much as soon as he’s submitted something sometimes. It makes me think that his teachers don’t have that much marking to do!

My year 10 dc does all the work the school sets and it works out about 8 hours a week. I also encourage him to do revision and BBC bitesize but it is tough as he thinks by completing all the work the school sets he is keeping up. Have explained that other schools are doing much more but it doesn’t always get through to him!

DS says he is doing more work than he would if he was actually at school. I suppose they miss out all the faff of changing classrooms and settling down in each new room. Also they don’t have all the distractions that you get from other pupils in a classroom. The work is much more concentrated. Think DS prefers it to be honest. Think he has got used to having a cup of tea in his lessons too!

Y8 Full timetable of live lessons plus homework (though they have toned it down a bit on that).

Even cookery practicals, art and PE are taught.

It's independent.

Friends state school DC struggling as isn't getting any live lessons so has done very very little.

Year 12 dd is following her usual timetable. They have a mixture of live lessons and independent work set for them. She is pretty happy with it all but struggling to do the extra work she would normally do as she feels she needs a break from the computer, it all merges together after a while. She's a lot less stressed at home than going in to college tbh, she's actually answering questions in lessons which is huge for her so I'm not desperate for her to go in for face to face lessons really.

50% sucess rate here.

One is doing all their work, and the other...

I've got about 90% of my secondary pupils submitting work in my subject. I teach maths from year 7 up to year 12. It's the most vulnerable/weakest ability pupils who aren't submitting work for me, and I'm never quite sure if it's because they aren't doing it or if they can't submit it for technical reasons. They don't/can't respond to emails, and I'm not allowed to phone them, heads of year will do that and I don't always get to know the responses.
I am checking all work that is submitted to me and every email I receive gets personal feedback. I'm not, however, setting formal homework or tests, so the perception may be that they aren't getting the same amount of assessment and feedback as normal. It's taking me as long or longer than it would ever take to mark a set of books though, sure to the format of how the kids can submit their work.

I know in other subjects it's a lower percentage though, and different schools will have different proportions.

@IAmReportingYouForBBQing that sounds great.
It’s interesting to hear the difference in amounts of work dc are doing. I assume schools are going to have to approach this when they go back. I wonder how they’ll work out where gaps in knowledge are, sounds like a difficult task.

My dd is in year 7. It’s a new school with only a year 7 year group. It seems a lot of children are doing work, and a lot are doing good work, as teachers feedback shows. My dd is struggling though. She is doing the bare minimum and not achieving the best she could. She has 2 younger siblings at home who also need my attention and I’m finding it hard supporting all 3.

Her school will be opening the school to children who are struggling and have urged all key workers to send their children in if they want to now. I’m thinking of sending her in part time so she can do some quality work in peace and quiet.

All these with full timetables are they state schools?
Mine struggling without being taught. He needs lessons.

@sunshineanddaffodils She has had some serious wobbles over the lock down. She is very social and started having nightmares, panic attacks and even hearing voices at one point. I'm bipolar and so know that even though it wasn't "bad" voices it was still a very important thing to address.

But by turning it around from an invisible threat to a reason to do "fun" stuff with an underlying educational slant it's eased her anxiety and she is actually blossoming now. She's engaging more with friends on line and will voluntarily open her work books and reads a novel a week. I have had her doing the quizzes on MENSA and she really enjoyed those and scored the same as me and her aunt with 16/18.

Both her dad and I went to uni, I did postgrad and masters so did my sister. She will catch up just fine . I am VERY lucky that as part of my bipolar recovery ten years ago I spent an absolute fortune on craft stuff, sewing machines, Novels I loved as a teen etc . It's very easy to find something to do in this house.... if I didn't have access to it all it would be a very different story. Today is needle felting and then pizza making again. She can eye ball most recipes now and her brothers have put in requests for pizza for lunch.

It's very interesting to hear about lots of schools doing different things with different approaches. Or school hasn't done a single online class , but she is only in year 7.... maybe they are focused on the older kids? The work for her age group is dire. No differentiation between abilities and basically is basic times tables, simple spag task, cooking recipes like flap jacks and milk shakes..... nothing at all that would keep her going for more than 1 hour. We are in a VERY low income area though and a massive amount of kids are on free school meals etc.