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.

@MrsBlondie Our school is a new free school. The teachers are using google classroom to set a timetable of 4 lessons per day. They are being quizzed in all the subjects, but this is normal when in lessons too. They’re meant to spend 60-90 mins on each subject, but my dd will start at say 10am and finish at 12pm. So it’s not a full timetable, but enough to keep them busy for half a day theoretically and the teachers are online and able to answer questions via messaging and email. They respond very rapidly.

DD swears blind that she’s doing more work now than pre lockdown, yeah right. She uses Microsoft Teams and has about about one live lesson per week.

The quality of lesson varies but she goes back part time on June 2nd and more support will be available then.

DC2 (Y8) is doing lots - not doing her best work, not necessarily applying or stretching herself, but putting the time in, and enjoying some of it and doing the bare minimum on others - doing maybe 3 - 5 hours per day, variably.

DC1 (Y10) did nothing for 6 weeks. Very able. Is now doing 2 hours/1 subject closely supervised per day. I think it is unsurprising that young people are hugely de-motivated in the circumstances.

Year 7 dd who had zero motivation to do school work.I feel that it would of been more beneficial to have the secondary school kids back before primary years because education wise their work is harder for parents to help with.But I think the goverment were looking at childcare over education hence picking the youngest to go back first.

0% here.

I've emailed the head twice now as my son (S6 in Scotland) hasn't had any work given to him. I believe it's because, although he's on a form class register, he's not on his subject registers for some reason. It's not a large school so kids shouldn't be falling off their radar but that's what's happened in his case.

As a teacher I have 90% of year 8 and about 75% of year 10 doing all their work. Because if they don't they get me calling parents and also head of year hassling them too. It's taken a bit if cajoling but we are getting there. Never believe what friends say - one of my students used to claim he did no revision but got great marks. He had loads of tutors and worked his butt off but it wasn't cool to say that !

DS in y7 (state school in a demographically mixed catchment area) has a full timetable set for him and is working a full school day, every weekday. In reality, he sometimes gets distracted and wanders off from time to time, plays with his sister, goes in the garden etc so it's not the full 6 hours. But he's handing in everything he's set, even if he does cut a few corners here and there. Some work is marked, some isn't, and there are open-book assessments for most subjects at the end of each topic. I'm relaxed about subjects like textiles and DT (sorry, textiles and DT teachers) but strict with the other subjects.

@Tvee It sounds as though we may be at the same school. My son is doing everything set, but I have to literally sit with him and keep him on task for the whole day, or he's be staring out of the window daydreaming. He's such a faffer that on a good day he'll start at around 10am and finish around 2pm, but there have been occasions when we've taken it right up to the 4pm deadline. The teachers are very responsive if there is a problem though and we have had some online parent consultations in the last couple of weeks which was welcome (by me, not him!) DS tells me that some of his friends have said they are not doing all of their work, which wasn't helpful at all, but they have two working parents mainly, and if mine were left to his own devices I doubt much would get done.

Y10 DD started off at pace, but there has been no online teaching (they are set work for the subjects according to their normal timetable) and in the last week has let things slip - she has a reading week this week, and I think she took that as an excuse to not do anything, but the school are still setting revision/recap/consolidation work for this week and half term, so she's going to have to catch up.
There's some tentative talk about the possibility of Y10 and Y12 getting some time in school before the summer holidays. She says most of her peers are completing all of the work set - but not all. Some have done nothing in some subjects, but I'm not sure what their circumstances might be.

@mumsneedwine that’s great, sounds like a really good school.

@BrownSauce sounds like my year 10. He’s had exams this week and it’s sent him off track (doing the tests and nothing else so 1 or 2 tests a day and that’s it). Just had a word and hopefully he’ll get back on it after half term😳

Would be great to get some time in school for years 10 and 12 if just to demotivate those that are struggling a bit.

@sunshineanddaffodils I am with you all the way. Think everyone is trying to make it work. Fingers crossed.

I mean motivate not demotivate🤪
@mumsneedwine That’s great to hear thanks.

My eldest is trying her best but her motivation is starting to run out. We as her parents are trying to keep her going but it’s hard and there doesn’t seem to be much feedback from school but I imagine they’ve got their hands full keeping tabs on the kids who are more vulnerable than my daughter. I get the impression from what she’s told me some of her friends fall into that category- either additional needs or a chaotic home life or both.

My youngest is at a school for special needs and while they’ve handed out a few worksheets they’ve also stressed that as most of their lessons are learning through play and sensory activities as a class so the worksheets aren’t important and to just let him play all day if he wants. Which makes sense and is a relief as we’re never far from a meltdown in this house anyway.

My dd is year 8 and she is meant to do 3 hours a day.
1h maths, 1h English and 1h other (she can pick)
There has been loads of work set, all online with Seneca, kaboodle etc, and they are just meant to work through it.
I suspect she is doing a lot more work than a lot of her year. She is doing it willingly but she loves school and is desperate to go back.
She has virtual form time once a week and of the 30 kids in her form there is always only the same five girls on it.

In this household exactly 50%

My A-level class are set work for every lesson, detailed, newly-written PowerPoints for each thing, tasks assigned on Teams with clear instructions and realistic deadlines, personalised emails for those falling behind. Everything is marked and returned promptly and I’m available all the time on email or chat. I also fill in an engagement register every week and chase up stragglers with their tutors who contact parents. We’ve identified those who are struggling at home and who need allowances made for lack of equipment etc.

I spent three hours yesterday morning chasing up on this one class, counselling them over email when they replied telling me they weren’t motivated, giving them hints and advice...it’s so so much work.

And I get 2/3 handing work in on a good day. Bad days less than 50%.

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.

There's no on-line lesson here and little set and what is increasingly busy work - same NHS activities across multiple subjects same for Y8 and Y10. It was better at the start and maths has mymaths so is setting suff on there but many subjects even GCSE ones have set nothing.

They are both getting increasingly fed up.

It's probably about an hour at most for school work daily but they also do dulingo, seneca, BBC daily lessons and Y10 does Tassomai and some textbook/work book/exam stuff with me which probably pushes it more to 2-3 hours a day possibly more on a good day.

It's a state school with mainly disavantaged white intake with a smaller proportion of more I suppose "middle class families" there. Even some of DD1 Y10 friends don't have internet access all week - I expect that's not uncommon.

We're in Wales no not getting back any time soon by the looks of it.

My DC are doing between 3 and 5 hours a day. Y10 dd is doing all her lessons and following her timetable (no google classroom here sadly) and i think she's doing really well. Y8 ds im less worried about so we follow the timetable but aren't really bothering with art, textiles, dt and drama. So some days he does 3 hours but some days a bit more. No homework is being set really but they are still getting tests and assessments.

Yr 9 son can’t work independently hence having an EHCP and having to do homework at school. He is doing GCSE and it is a nightmare he hasn’t a clue what he’s meant to do. He has to mark his own work from the answers they were given so obviously just uses the answer sheet. Not getting any feedback at all.

Really worried about how far he is slipping. It took so much work to get his mental health and academic levels sorted if he carries on without teaching he won’t have a hope of any GCSE grades.

@LizzieMacQueen - have the school changed over to next year's timetable yet? Quite often they don't do it until June, when the S4 and 5s would come back after study leave. (Although I'm assuming they have moved timetable with you, otherwise he'd be a previous year's S6 and for all intents and purposes he'd have already left.)

We changed timetable early because of the pandemic, but it's meant I'm teaching classes of up to 50 kids that I don't know, which makes thing difficult. In some subjects they have one teacher assigned to each year group online - about 170 kids at once!

My year 10 has told me this as well as I've told him he will loose Xbox etc if he doesn't keep up with his work and I'm notified , he claims lots of his friends aren't doing anything but I take that with a pinch of salt as I know some of the mums and they are
Plus tell him well I'm your number not theirs

We get told if they haven't done the work but I'm struggling to find marking or feedback so to what quality he is doing I don't know , I have just emailed school to ask re / marking etc as we use show my homework but no grade or comment is ever put so he could be doing b bit not very well for all I know

I have sons in Year 10 and Year 8. They're putting in, I guess, about 6 hours a day - how effective it is, I'm not quite sure. There's no online teaching so, in theory, they could do it when/how they want but we're trying to keep office hours for all of us.

They are expected to do work in all subjects and I understand that teachers are chasing if work isn't done. I think they have good days and bad days - they're both too stubborn/independent to allow us to help advise how they structure their workload and deadlines, and so they've both ended up in a bit of a pickle a couple of times.

Some teachers/depts are requiring work to be submitted (and give feedback/encouragement), others just ask for evidence that it's been done (uploading photos etc). Other depts are just trusting them to do it which is dangerous as, of course, that's the work that gets left till last and overlooked. Having big issues with foreign languages as the teachers have just sent a few website links and left them to it (=not going well).

I’m so glad to read the varying responses here. I get a bit panicky when I see schools with full online classes etc. This is not my experience with children n state secondary.

For my children (Yr10 and Yr8) it is all uploaded to Showmyhomework or Google classrooms. Different subjects upload in different places so it took me two hours this morning to cross reference all my Yr10’s work and then e-mail her teachers with any follow up questions as well. I know my daughter should be doing this, but she was sat on a chair crying as she was so overwhelmed with what she needed to do.

This is no disrespect to teachers who are doing the best they can in the circumstances (I was one for 8 years) but I will be glad when my children can get at least some face to face time with a teacher.

Home learning is great for children who are self motivated and keen, it is extremely hard work for the less than motivated children who need a teacher at the front of the class and some interactivity.

My DC has audio lessons. Many times she has been one of 1-6 out of the whole class to turn up!