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Original poster

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

438 replies

Challenger5 · 03/10/2022 20:49

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.

OP posts:
Hesleepswiththefishes · 03/10/2022 22:18

She sounds exhausted but my dc2 is in yr 11 and does 2 hours Sunday to Thursday, and has 2 pt jobs..but we all have different limits

Hesleepswiththefishes · 03/10/2022 22:20

And at a big standard secondary

keepingwarm5623 · 03/10/2022 22:21

9.5 hours a week is what my DC get at a standard comprehensive and seems reasonable as long as there is some flexibility around when it is done. My DC tend to do a couple of hours each day on the weekend then it's only an hour a night to do.

WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 03/10/2022 22:21

Looneytune253 · 03/10/2022 22:05

Gosh she's got a shock coming when she goes to college if she does a levels. My dd gets that much for each of her 3 subjects most days.

When doing A levels, students are NOT in 'class' 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week though. They're often actually 'in class' only half that approximately.

It's not uncommon for A level students to go into sixth form/college at 8.45am, and be done at 1pm, and then not be back til 12.30pm the next day. And sometimes have an entire day off. (Or a day where they are only in 9 til 11am.)

ExtraOnions · 03/10/2022 22:21

I think any homework is too much … I don’t remember that much when I was at school in the 80s.

Jolie12345 · 03/10/2022 22:22

Far too much. I wouldn’t have done it as a teenager and it would have had a negative impact on my results due to the stress and anger.

Also, I assume you pay a decent price for a first class education. They should be teaching her well enough when they are being paid too so that an hour or less a night is adequate

Hawkins001 · 03/10/2022 22:22

This reply has been deleted

Previously banned poster - this has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Would the UK adopt these hours ?

Children attend school five days a week. The school hours depend on the grade and the area, but, usually, kids start their days at 7:30 or 8:00 and finish at about 17:00. The school year in China typically starts in September and ends in late June or July.

Leftbutcameback · 03/10/2022 22:23

I don't think there's any suggestion it's a private school? Most grammars aren't.

Leftbutcameback · 03/10/2022 22:24

That was in reply to @Jolie12345 . Why doesn't my reply button ever work!

PugInTheHouse · 03/10/2022 22:24

Definitely not comparable to A levels, DS is in college 16 hrs a week compared to DS2 in Y10 at school 35 hrs a week. More work is bound to be expected for A levels.

Foronenightonly01 · 03/10/2022 22:25

I suppose an important question here is are they actually setting two hours worth of homework a night? As mentioned by posters above in some school it’s timetabled but not always set…..just wondering if your dd may actually have less but is wasting time so it’s taking her 2 hours….IF they really are setting 2 hours a night I agree it’s too much, but I’m not sure I believe it!!…

ChiefWiggumsBoy · 03/10/2022 22:25

I agree with her sorry.

HailAdrian · 03/10/2022 22:29

I think it's bloody ridiculous. Ds is in y7 at a regular secondary school and gets multiple pieces of homework a day. I make sure he does it but I don't think it's necessarily right.

Delatron · 03/10/2022 22:30

WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 03/10/2022 21:52

Exactly. It's fucking disgusting. Homework should be banned altogether IMO. They are at school 7-8 hours a day, 5 days a week. PLENTY of time for them to learn all they need to know. If they're not learning it, and need 2 hours EXTRA at home, someone needs to look into the teaching standards.

Show quote history

Agree with all this. Poor kids. When do they do sport/hobbies? Down time?

Sounds like a typical grammar school - no wonder they get good results. Cream off the brightest kids, put them under a load of pressure, give them hours of homework and ta da - fantastic results. (At what cost to mental health?).

Think you’ve lost perspective OP. I’m with your DD.

FacebookPhotos · 03/10/2022 22:32

2 hours per night seems a lot in year 10. I’d say about 8 hours per week is normal though - which is a bit more than 1.5 hrs per day. I’d expect 10 hrs per week (so 2hrs per night if none at weekends) in year 11. My school recommends 10 hrs study per subject per week at A level, which works out as around 15 hours per week outside lesson time if doing 3 subjects. And I have to say that the top end do seem to do that much. Which is, at least in part, why they are top grade students.

Parents are obviously free to feel that is unreasonable, but they need to not moan at schools when their kids do worse than those who are completing that amount of work. GCSEs and A levels are a competition. There are a set proportion of students who will get each grade.

If kids really need another hour a day of studying, why isn't the school day longer?

Because you’d have to pay teachers for the extra working hours, and the government won’t do that! I’d do away with homework in a heartbeat if we could replace it with supervised independent study at GCSE and above.

hadtochangetothisone · 03/10/2022 22:32

Nope ,,!, I was a refuser beyond reading ... 16 yrs ago. 2/3 went to Russell group unis. (Other went to camberwell art school)

Refuse. They should be playing games and having fun once school is done

FacebookPhotos · 03/10/2022 22:34

Ds is in y7 at a regular secondary school and gets multiple pieces of homework a day.

Year 7 is a whole different ball game IMO. Generally their homework is excessive and pointless. It should be no more than an hour per school night (at most).

HailAdrian · 03/10/2022 22:38

FacebookPhotos · 03/10/2022 22:34

Ds is in y7 at a regular secondary school and gets multiple pieces of homework a day.

Year 7 is a whole different ball game IMO. Generally their homework is excessive and pointless. It should be no more than an hour per school night (at most).

I agree, having to make 2 or 3 'information booklets' in a week takes bloody ages for a start. I'm all for a bit of maths or English revision but otherwise agree that most of the work should be done in school.

Jolie12345 · 03/10/2022 22:39

FacebookPhotos · 03/10/2022 22:32

2 hours per night seems a lot in year 10. I’d say about 8 hours per week is normal though - which is a bit more than 1.5 hrs per day. I’d expect 10 hrs per week (so 2hrs per night if none at weekends) in year 11. My school recommends 10 hrs study per subject per week at A level, which works out as around 15 hours per week outside lesson time if doing 3 subjects. And I have to say that the top end do seem to do that much. Which is, at least in part, why they are top grade students.

Parents are obviously free to feel that is unreasonable, but they need to not moan at schools when their kids do worse than those who are completing that amount of work. GCSEs and A levels are a competition. There are a set proportion of students who will get each grade.

If kids really need another hour a day of studying, why isn't the school day longer?

Because you’d have to pay teachers for the extra working hours, and the government won’t do that! I’d do away with homework in a heartbeat if we could replace it with supervised independent study at GCSE and above.

I don’t think anyone moans when their kids don’t do as well as others. GCSEs and A-levels (and degree to an extent) do not guarantee success in life. In fact, unless there is something very specific you are studying for, the prolonged education can often put people so far behind on the career ladder (not to mention the debt) that they never catch up with those that left school (with good grades or not) and go straight into work.

I’d rather my child was happy, learning social skills, and finding out what they enjoyboutside of study, than being being a A student

Mummyoflittledragon · 03/10/2022 22:44

My dd is year 10 at a selective independent. She probably gets about 5/6 hours a week so what your dd gets does sound excessive.

YetAnotherNameChange52 · 03/10/2022 22:44

I was lucky if my DS did half an hour a night, he still got 11 'A's/equivalent at GCSE. At a selective school, and yes, they also said he should have been doing 2 hours of studying a night (but very few of the kids actually did, and they still mostly did very well).

There's a long way to go before the final exams still, and she needs a life outside of school during the last couple of years of her childhood.

DontMakeMeShushYou · 03/10/2022 22:45

2 hours homework a night is ludicrous.

And I say that as the mother of a child who went to a bog standard secondary school and got 8s and 9s across the board this summer.

Where is the time to learn other skills, to develop hobbies, to take part in clubs, and just to decompress?

Whowhatwherewhenwhy1 · 03/10/2022 22:50

I went to boarding school and it was 2 and a half hours every night. My kids leave home at 7.20 and get home at 4.45 now so I would not want them doing more than an hour a night. School has a minimal hw policy though and the expectation for the kids is that they will work hard in lessons and if tasks are completed well enough and quantitatively enough hw will be minimal. If however students do not achieve the level set they have to complete the work at home.

PinkFrogss · 03/10/2022 22:53

2 hours a night is a lot of work. If a child requires that much homework on top of a grammar school education, it’s possible they are not entirely capable of a range of 7-9s.

Trying to push and pressure them towards these grades will do more harm in the long run.

Florenz · 03/10/2022 22:55

2 hours a night is not excessive. Kids have about 5 hours of lessons in school each day so even with 2 hours homework it's still about the same as a working day. There's 24 hours in a day, still plenty of time for hobbies and activities.