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.

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.

Id love to see an actual study showing this. It was preached alot to my DC along with charts showing things like 90% attendance = drop in GCSE grades. But no data to back this belief up.

I agree with your dd. 2 hours is way too much.

My 10 year old doesn't do homework as her school says it is optional. Most of my friend's dcs of that age don't do homework either. Kids are at school for 5 days a week, they don't get enough time to simply be kids as it is.

Sorry just seen it's for a Year 10 pupil! I still think it is too much. My Y11 dc doesn't do anywhere near that amount and is doing well at school with high predicted grades.

Way too much. There's no evidence that homework improves outcomes. I pity the poor teachers who are presumably having to waste time setting and looking at this stuff when they could be planning or doing another million other more worthwhile things.

She's at school all day then comes home to another two hours' work? No thanks. I don't blame her for digging her heels in.

I'm a teacher of a core subject in a secondary school and I'm dreading my DC coming home from school with crazy and pointless homework.

Year 10 is age 14/15. Not age 10.

If they missed 10 percent of the course work then it stands to reason that they are not going to be equipped with the knowledge for their exams, unless of course they use some of their own time to catch up.

I would not be wanting grades 8/9 if it takes 2 hours a night to get there

suggests to me most kids are not that bright and the schools pushing them unnecessarily to get the grades they should be teaching them to

schools fault here as asking kids to make up for their short fall

Those 8/9 grades will be with you forever and will help with UCAS applications. Worth 2 hrs per day for 2 years (excluding school holidays) surely if it means you get your pick of Unis / onto the course / onto the career ladder that you really want.

I agree. It clearly doesn't mean that much to a lot of people. It's quite sad really.

It won’t mean much if it takes 2 hours to get them

a child who needs to revise that much to get an 8/9 isn’t clever enough to do the courses that require 8/9

they wouldn’t cope with such academic courses

you are not doing your kids any favours stretching them beyond their capabilities

But do they? Not being funny, but how much class time is spent on repetition and revision? Quite a lot from what my DC reported for the GCSE years. Which is odd too because we moved from one school that started them in yr9 to a school that started them in yr10. The school that only spent 2yrs on them got better results than the school that started them in yr9…so clearly any link between presenteeism and grades is tenuous at best.

2 hours per day 5 days a week works out to be about 33 hours per subject per year in private study. It's hardly excessive. Yet you think that's too much and kids that put this work in won't be able to cope with academic degree courses?

Give over. 🙄

Well it depends whether the days your children miss are days of new learning or days of revising things already learnt. How would you know. And it's very difficult for children to have gaps in their knowledge when the rest of the class has moved on to the next work.

I’m not convinced that 2hrs homework/day = 8/9 grades. Yes some time spent on homework is beneficial say practicing maths equations, but I think there’s a point where not only do you get diminishing returns but additional hours of work can actually lower grades. How many times does one need to read The Inspector Calls? Or draw a self portrait? Homework should be tactical and skills based, not busy work that stresses and drains enthusiasm for learning.

I think it’s wrong to tell children too that if you dont do 2hrs a day, you won’t get high grades and will end up in a boring low paid job. There’s no evidence this is a magic one size fits all recipe for success.

I think too, it is in part the application of the Tory myth that the high paid rich folk are there because they worked harder compared to the low paid poor folk who didn’t work hard (lazy sods)- only it’s being applied to schoolchildren as a microcosm of society and taught to them like a religious belief.

Academic success has tons of factors and hard work is one which is a double edged sword and so should be more carefully considered rather than touted as the primary factor behind success.

Sorry but what a load of waffle, a) it is not common in state schools for many children to get all 9s so the idea that those committing to 2hrs revision to attain 8s/9s is not exactly mind-blowing! You won't get far at A level stage or degree level on the back of high intellect alone, you will need to put some effort in.

Plus, there are loads of studies on attainment and attendance, look at the studies showing attendance and gaps between rich and poor.

Hard work is by far the best way to become successful. If parents and schools are telling children they don't need to work hard because the best jobs will always go to children with rich parents, they are not doing a very good job themselves.

suggests to me most kids are not that bright and the schools pushing them unnecessarily to get the grades they should be teaching them to

Most kids are average. As you'd expect.

schools fault here as asking kids to make up for their short fall

What does that mean? What 'shortfall'? Do you not think it's schools' responsibility to help students achieve their potential?

I agree with this. It's a real shame for those children.

It is certainly not going to equate to guaranteed high grades but this thread isn't about that, if you need to revise to achieve more average grades or even low grades rather than none at all then how is revision not beneficial. Qualifications opens doors for people, an education is a way to level up, it's about having options in life.

Wow! I’m surprised by the responses. It seems a normal amount to me. My year 11 son does similar, and I certainly did when I was at school- and I was never a particular hard worker…

Have just asked my son who was at Grammar School and he said 2 hrs homework never happened. My other son and daughter who also went to Grammar school never had more than an hour max and did their homework at school!
All high achieving Uni graduates now .

Im on the fence. My dc did basically none at this stage of the year, but 2 hrs or more during exam season. Came out with 6 9s, 3 8s and a 7. Revision before exam season was making anke flashcards. Was at a bog standard state comp. now at a top ten 6th form and manages to get all study done during frees, plus working two evening and one weekend day.

I think that’s the point though. A child manages their learning and naturally this would ramp up towards exams. You would expect to spend more hours revising for exams than on homework.

2 hours seems completely arbitrary- what is this based on? People insisting unless these children do precisely 2 hours per night they won’t get good grades. Rubbish.

I have just checked DD2s school homework expectations for Year10 next year and it says 14 hours per fortnight so is considerably less than DD1 is required to complete.

DD1 has told me that because she is in top sets for English/Maths and Chemistry though officially the school does not set in Chemistry. The three teachers concerned are notorious for supposedly setting more homework than the other teachers. So maybe the school are putting their higher attaining pupils under more pressure with a higher workload.

I do think though that DD1 who is at the top end of her Grammar school cohort should be expected to produce consistent academic work. This should be of higher standard than DD2 who is nearer the bottom of her school's cohort.

However, as stated previously, I think DD2s achievements will be equal if not greater than DDs1, when you throw in all the obstacles placed in her way.

the idea that those committing to 2hrs revision to attain 8s/9s is not exactly mind-blowing!

No, it’s false advertising imho. Saying it’s time spent rather than quality of work done or any other factor for that matter. There’s no proof that if a student spends 2hrs/day homework then they will get 8/9s. None.

there are loads of studies on attainment and attendance, look at the studies showing attendance and gaps between rich and poor.

I’ve looked at them and they don’t account for confounding factors like home life, quality of teaching, quality of educational resources, etc. You can’t be saying rich kids are naturally smarter and harder working than poor kids? Can you? Please say Ive got wrong end of the stick here. They over simplify a correlation into primary causation as if showing up to a school even an Inadequate special measures school where students throw each other throw plate glass windows is all that is required to “attain” good grades…

You won't get far at A level stage or degree level on the back of high intellect alone, you will need to put some effort in.

True, on some effort, but why specifically 2hrs a day? What makes it superior to 1hr a day? Besides, I found that work smarter not harder was key to succeeding at degree level. In addition, you don’t have as much time in a classroom compared to GCSE because the ratio of teacher-student learning vs independent learning shifts more and more to independent learning.