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.

My year 10dd is doing 6 hours a day and my year 7 ds is refusing to do anything apart from maths. If he put as much effort into doing his work as he did screaming and having meltdowns about it he wouldn’t have 102 outstanding pieces of work.

I teach RS and geography. My year 7 rs classes about half of all students submitting work. Year 7 geography just over half. Year 8 geography and rs about 1/4 year 9 geography less than 1/4 year 9 rs less than that!

We're not allowed to chase work at all even though we know many kids have no problems doing it and are just blatantly lazy!

Why are children from state schools supposed to be doing less? What a crock of shite. DD year 7 (state school) has done every piece of work that has been set since lockdown.

And my 13 year old generally works 9-3 with an hour for lunch every day and sometimes longer if I don't stop her! Even my 6 year old I can keep busy for 3 hours. We

Also I leave a personal comment the everything submitted. Takes me hours. Imagine if they were all submitting work?! I'd have to completely abandon my own children!

Yr 7 DS doing a full timetable and does all the work because he sits at a desk next to me. Saying that, his school has a very high engagement for home learning according to the school feedback.

My year 7 is doing a full timetable. 5 1hr periods per day with 2 30min breaks, same as at school. He's struggling a bit to keep up at times but working really hard and teachers seem very understanding if it all goes a bit wrong one day. He gets feedback on each submitted assignment on Google classroom and also gets emails if a teacher feels he needs a bit more input. He's also able to message the teachers on classroom and can also email them. A teacher from that subject is online during the set period in order to reply straight away but they are aware that circumstances may mean you can't keep to the schedule so they reply when they can for the pupil to pick up the message when they next log in. They've also rejigged the timetable to allow a period each week for an enrichment activity either of his choice or hoy suggestion. His choices of enrichment have been baking and Xbox with his mates!

We're not allowed to chase work at all
Why not?
My secondary school children have been doing about four hours a day, so keeping up with work set and we're getting feedback including a school report from teachers. Can't fault the schools or teachers considering the circumstances. State schools.

We're not allowed to chase work at all
Why not?

In case it adds unwanted additional stress and pressure on some families.

Friend of mine is a secondary English teacher. She’s been setting work for all her classes but says in some classes a third are doing work but in others only one or two children (average Class size 16). The teachers at her school are all getting pressure from the Head to get more done, but what can she do? She said she ran a Zoom session the other day for her Y10 class and not a single child logged in, but she had to sit there for an hour in case anyone turned up.

@Sparrowcrane
I think children from state schools are less likely to do much, especially where parents also have to work from home or go out to work and are not able to help their children.
Secondary school children shouldn’t need parental input unless they have SEN. My infant age dc I obviously support with their learning , my year four and year ten children follow the work set independently . Year four dd has approx four hours a day of work , my year ten six hours. All work is marked for every year group. Primary have some zoom lessons the rest are on seesaw and high school dd uses google classroom.

Dd is yr10. Today she started her work at 8am and was done by 1030. She's spent the rest of the day painting her room with her dad.
It's amazing how quickly she can work when she puts her mind to it.
She understands that the work she is doing now will be an advantage when she returns to school and could make the difference when it's exam time. She is working hard to learn.

I think access to devices is probably a big problem.
I have 3 kids. 1 primary and 2 secondary.

At the start of lockdown we had PC and DH work laptop. Plus tablets and phones.
Tablets and phones are not good for completing the assignments on and mymaths doesn’t work properly.
Obviously DH needed his laptop for work so meant all 3 kids had to share the computer. It’s was a nightmare, created arguments and stress. We were lucky that MIL and SIL paid for a cheap laptop and we paid for another so all 3 kids can get on with school work at the same time.
Year 5 DS2 is doing about 2 hours of work a day, plus then things like board games etc as a family.
Year 7 DD is doing about 3 hours a day, she’s up to date and also does a lot of arts and crafts etc and likes to cook and do gardening etc
Year 8 DS is doing about 5 hours a day, he’s quite slow in doing his work although very intelligent he just gets distracted and finds it hard to get his ideas down on paper.

My DS started at 8.30 and is still working now. He was working with a group of friends earlier in one class as I could hear them discussing their work.

I am a secondary school teacher and about 14% of the pupils I teach have handed work in.

@tinytemper66 that must be so frustrating

Yr9 DD doing all work that is set
Yr 7 DS is not engaging at all, i am working full time not at home and I can’t even get him into school anymore as he is refusing

DS14 is doing 2-3 hours a day timetabled by the school but independently done. Only English and maths is being marked apart from some formal assessments.

Don't know what his peers are doing. It's easier for us because I'm working too so he sits opposite me to do his work. Afternoons are free for him to do what he wants (computer games)

Mine is doing everything that is set, taking about 2 hours a day and it is all being marked very quickly, with helpful comments. I’d like them to have more tbh! Everyone I know is doing theirs.

Secondary school children shouldn’t need parental input unless they have SEN

That's true for work, but what we've learned - the hard way - is that they do need support in time management and prioritising their work. DD's not alone in this, several other kids have got themselves into a mess over this. We're asking 13 year olds to have the organisational skills that most people don't have to use until 6th form at the earliest.

Also, motivation is hard. Hard, hard, hard. I am struggling as a grown up, and I know that many of my friends with uni age kids are having to coach them through getting work done as well. We're all depressed and wondering when this will end, and it's worse for the years who have been told they are not going back until September.

Ds1 (year 9) and ds2 (year 7) are doing everything that the school asks them to do which takes about 2 hours a day.

I've got about a third not submitting any work, another third doing some and ankther third getting through it all and requesting extra (which I provide). We are chasing in a gentle way, taking into account different home situations. I mark and give feedback on all the work submitted. Dd (6) is not getting much school work done...

@artisanparsnips - thank you for that - absolutely my experience too. Problem is that my kids consider themselves too grown up to need my help, but they're not mature enough (or experienced enough) to suddenly have to structure their own day/week/term, and juggle the deadlines. They've had advice from school and from me and DH but they seem hell-bent on learning the hard way. I hope they at least come out of this with some life lessons in time management. Let's face it, many adults are not so good at that. And, oh yes, motivation - hard to force.

Weirdly, my Y10 DS who was infamous for faffing and being disorganised has really adapted to remote learning and does not faff at all during the week and just gets on with his school work.

Can get slightly distracted by PS4 at the weekends but has certainly improved.

My Y8 and Y10 DC (indie school) have a 5 lesson daily timetable, so 25 hours per week, but they also have 2 digital assemblies and an hour of "classroom" time, plus a school wide quiz weekly. In addition, particularly for my Y10, she has 'free' lessons for subjects she's not taking.

They're both keeping up with the work set, there's definitely more for the Y10 than the Y8, and it's being marked with useful comments on a regular basis. Everything is set via Google Classroom, which I've now infiltrated, so although I don't so much supervision throughout the day (DH and I are both working), I check in periodically to check they're up to date and to follow up on how they're doing, what their marks are, and if they've got anything outstanding. This has definitely helped with my Y8 DC, as he had started handing blank work in .

After half term, they'll have exams as normal (although I don't think they'll be as challenging as normal). I think our school is doing an amazing job, and let them know whenever I need to get in touch. They got up to speed with Google Classroom before lockdown (some children left school earlier to shield family, so they needed online resources), and have gone from strength to strength, and kept us really informed with regular updates of what they were doing as a school (daily at the beginning). We've now been asked our opinions on returning to school by way of a survey, and they;'re taking parents' opinions into account when formulating next steps.