To think two hours homework a night is not excessive for a year 10 pupil

[Challenger5]

DD 1 is adamant that two hours a night homework, is against her human rights. She has been stomping around, refusing to start her homework. DD 1 is being exceptionally rude to me swearing at me for sending her to a prison camp and claiming to be-having a nervous breakdown due to the schools expectations.

I am trying to calm her down and reason with her, that two hours a night is quite proportionate for a year 10 girl at a Grammar School. This especially as the school as stated her target grades are 7-9 in all ten GCSE subjects.

She has also informed me that her head of year as given her a after school detention, today for calling her English teacher a 'mean cow' for a poor homework mark. DD denies calling the teacher that, saying she was misheard when she pulled her face at the teacher.

DD is saying the detention is unfair and against her human rights because it is grossly an excessive punishment even if she had accidentally muttered 'mean cow' when the teacher spoke to her. DD argues that her face pulling was justified because someone has to stand up against the schools unrealistic and unreasonable levels of homework demanded.

I have been through the whole education system including grammar school up to Masters degree and did very well across the board.

It's very rare that I have ever had to study for 2 hours of an evening after having school/ college/ uni all day. The only times I would have done this is when I have an exam or assignment deadline coming up.

I certainly never had this much homework in secondary school, unless I was choosing to put extra work in (e.g. going overboard on an art project or something).

So yes I think it's excessive as a regular level of homework for year 10. When is she supposed to do The Rest of Her Life?!

Good on her for campaigning against it, it's good life experience to stand up against authority when you feel they are getting it wrong.

Both mine managed to do their music, dance, sport, guiding/scouting and have a social life with that level of home work. It's not difficult!

Oooops thank you, that definitely makes more sense. I thought she said her child was aged 10 and gets 2 hours of homework a night.

Well if she's 14/15 then two hours is not too much, we definitely get that much if not even more here in Ireland.

"We need people that are interested in acquiring knowledge, not just doing the minimum to pass exams. If you have a child who seeks that intellectual stimulation and doesn't see it as a hardship then it should be supported IMO."
From Goldenbear: (sorry I don't know how to partially quote).

But if a child is very bright, then they won't need to spend hours doing homework and revision, as they will have already understood the concepts in the first place. And I agree they should be supported if they want intellectual stimulation, but wouldn't that be better spent independently researching subjects they are interested in, or learning new subjects from scratch etc, rather than spending hours doing homework on things they already know?

Tranquiltortoise, I am educated to Masters level and don't understand how you didn't have to study for 2 hours a day at degree and post degree level. I studied English Literature and only had 7 hours a week in uni- there wasn't a notion of a 'day' at uni like work, you were very much expected to go away and think for yourself.

I think it’s a lot, my DC gets about an hour a night and she is at a selective school with high expectations. Her friend’s parents make her get up at 5.30am every morning to revise for her GCSEs. In the first half term of year 10. To me that’s child abuse!!

catsonahottinroof, surely that depends on the subject, possibly Maths and the sciences but it is not going to be possible to learn everything you need to know from a lesson in English Literature or the humanities. At GCSE you will be doing independent learning, that is part of the educational experience, it is simply not possible to not do homework that is often revision by year 11 and achieve the highest grades across the board for GCSEs however bright you are! Besides, the two are not mutually exclusive, a child who is very bright can and probably would read around other subjects or undertake other interests aswell as the homework.

Equally, it doesn't make you not bright if you have to complete homework for higher grades.

Sounds like she's not actually doing 2 hours a night - just complaining about it! Surely the 2 hours will be a guideline amount and the reality will be less?

I remember my school suggesting homework should be 1.5 hours in Y10. Occasionally it would take longer, but mostly it was no more than an hour. Plenty of time to do lots of extra curricular activities.

Your DD needs more than 4 weeks of Year 10 to be able to make an informed judgement about the actual amount of homework being set. Nobody is going to take her complaining seriously at this early stage in the year.

Thanks for replying, yes you're probably right about english literature and humanities - I think you would need to do some work at home for these to get the very top grades.

It's not about getting all 9's anyhow. I wouldn't expect my child to get all 7's even without working really hard to be honest.

2 hours is not much really, i'm sure i did much more, and my daughter and her friends do loads of extra curricular stuff (sport, drama, music, debating, MUN, volunteering) as well as just socialising on top.

You are meant to be busy as a teen! Much better to be busy doing something productive than looking at bloody tiktoc (she does that too😬)

Mine is at an indi though so longer holidays - maybe that balances it out - more intensive spurts but lots of downtime too. Her friend has just changed schools and has actual school on a saturday mornjng now (not sport). That seems like a bit much.

2 hours is not much really, i'm sure i did much more, and my daughter and her friends do loads of extra curricular stuff (sport, drama, music, debating, MUN, volunteering) as well as just socialising on top.

You were lucky! In my day I had to do 17 hours of homework a night, then go to bed in a ditch!!

Aye! And we had O levels which were far harder exams than these dumbed down GCSEs that we could have sat at 11. And headmasters with canes to keep us in line with intermittent floggings to focus our minds.

And we were thankful!

Fair point, but then again it is not what you know it is who, and getting into Oxbridge might be the difference between doing OK and being wealthy.

And obviously it depends what she wants to do - for some things any old uni is probably fine, for others it might really help to be at the right one. Unless she is CERTAIN that her life path does not require the right uni then it would be prudent to assume the worst and work her backside off.

Obviously she is too young to make a reasoned adult decision as to whether she will benefit from hard work or whether he can get away with doing less.

Well it would be, if the workers had the attitude of the ops, dd.

2hrs is not excessive, especially if school hours are only 9-3pm. She could do two hours of homework plus an after school club and still have time to relax in the evenings.

What would she like to do post GCSEs? Has she expressed any interests in a particular career path? Just wondering if it would help her to link the effort she needs to put in now with the career outcome she'd like.

Many people do, only work doesn't finish at 3pm!

Christ 2 hours a night?! If it was revising and by choice I could understand it, but not just homework! I didn’t do 2 hours a night in uni ffs 🤣

Some posts on here are unreal, so the difference between 2 hrs or an hour means going from a high paid job to a crap boring one, seriously get a grip.

I agree with Twilight, revising and set homework are 2 very different things. I am glad DS didn't have set homework, he was able to recognise which areas he needed to revise and those he didn't, it worked well for him. Tonight he has stayed at college as a group of them have decided to spend a couple of hours doing some extra work using the facilities there, they have a good work ethic and are making good decisions clearly so somehow he's learnt to put the effort in without me forcing him!

DD1's school starts at 8.40 am finishes at 3.35pm and she is always home for 4pm, . I agree with posters who suggest that grade 8 and 9s are not everything and need to be taken in to account with mental stress and ability. I also know some Grammar schools are more pushy than others regarding homework and perhaps less compatible for children with other issues.

This is why DD 2 who is a year 9 goes to a different Grammar school mainly because it is less pushy and far more accommodating to DD2s EHCP. This was given to her for her Autism and being a looked after child (she has been with me since she was 4 and now is 13). DD2 was overjoyed when she passed the 11+ despite significant hurdles . In understanding achievement I know that DDs 2 likely target grades of 5-7 are equal if not greater than all the 8 and 9s DD1 might achieve.

The school offers alongside traditional A levels Dance, Photography and some more vocational offerings in Sixth Form . The school also only requires a 5 for Math's and a average of 5.5 over six subjects.

This is a perfect environment for DD2 who unlike DD1 is not gearing up for a RG University.

Find the documentary about life for women in Saudi Arabia (cannot remember the title) and sit her down. Then ask her what human rights infringement is.

She's being a bit ridiculous but quite frankly, this is why I think I will be unlikely to send DD to a grammar school, even though she is very likely to be able to get a place. It's an excessive amount of homework.

Tbf I don't think you worded your title quite accurately for the voting. I voted YABU at first as 2 hours per night is excessive. But then when you say 10 hours per week and she's not doing anything at weekends therein lies the issue - a Sunday afternoon would break the back of it, thats when I used to do most of mine depending on the deadlines.

Let her choose what she does. Let her deal with the grade drop. Let her deal with the consequences. Don't let her be a rude cow. Don't let her change your home rules. Don't let her off with home tasks. Sit back and let us all know how this plays out.

Young people these days…