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.

Sounds a lot to me. I have a year 11 and year 12 and rarely see them do homework!

At fourteen, I attended a highly competitive girls’ private school 8-3. I did 2 hours a night, and 3 by my senior year. If you want top grades and scores, you have to put the work in. As long as teachers mark the work, it’s reasonable.

I got top grades without doing 2 hours a night. Plenty of kids do. Even for my degree.

Mental health is far more important.

Some of these schools sound awful. 3 hours a night? You can get the top grades without doing that - if you’re bright and work smartly. Maybe if your parents have put loads of pressure on you to get in to a highly academic school - then the school piles more pressure on. I’ve seen children like this have massive breakdowns.

GCSEs aren’t particularly hard and definitely do not require 2 hours every night. You listen and work hard in class. Do some homework. Revise well.

2 hours every night Yr 10 is way too much. They'll probably be completely burnt out with a cycle of mock mocks and mocks on top of that schedule. Burnout- just as they should be peaking.
1 hour quality, relevant, focussed homework is way better than 2 hours quantity, and more than enough. You can't expect 2 hours quality after a day at school.

I'm with everyone else that it's far, far too much.

An hour a night should be plenty for year 10, maybe 90 minutes occasionally but two hours a night on top of a full day at school is absolutely ridiculous.

I didn't even do that much work for my A-levels outside of school time.

It feels far too much. Unless GCSEs have suddenly got significantly harder, I don’t understand it. I got top grades from a rubbish school with no-where near that much homework and I had a Saturday job like most of my friends all through 6th from. Surely a selective girls school should be able to make the girls do less given the major advantages of a bright cohort? Where is the time for sport etc and spending time with friends? I don’t think it does young people any favours to be glued to their books all the time. They need time to build soft skills too.

Dd2 is y10 and would feel the same as your dd about 2 hours of home work a night! Maybe In the last couple of weeks of revising for GCSEs, but not at the start of y10.

dd2 is not at grammar, but she doesn’t even seem to have homework every night, let alone 2 hours of it. She’ll do just fine in her GCSEs.

The issue is lack of organisation not the amount, she can't expect to do no work from Thursday to Sunday.
What time does she start school? Mine used to start at nine but I'd get the earlier school bus and get there around 8, go to the canteen for a warm drink and do an hour's worth of homework.
Sixth form I did the same without choice, if I got the college bus I got there an hour early almost, if I got the public bus I would be late, there i went to the common room instead. It was easier when you're fresh and awake than after a day at school, and it gave me plenty of time for extra curricular after school.

Also the work will be set so it takes that time for the middle achievers, if she's aiming for 8/9 she should be able to finish quicker if she focuses

I think my sons school expect 2 hours, but the fist hour is in school, 3-4 and then the other hour is at home, but obviously if you do a bit on saturday and sunday its less each weekday. The hour at home is all things like 10 minute quizzes on apps, so my son will do a quizz whilst waiting for a bus so its not that onerous.
He goes to a comp and its in the bottom 10% of all schools for results and this compulsory hour of supervised homework is part of their raising standards..

I’m in my 50s now and went to grammar school in the 80s. 2 hours at GCSE/O level was absolutely the norm, and three hours at A level. My DD did similar at a good comprehensive - they had homework clubs which were brilliant and made a big difference; she got mostly 9s and 8s. It’s not that big a deal - an hour before dinner for written homework and an hour after for reading - it doesn't map perfectly but it’s fine and perfectly doable.

Just because 2 hours is the norm at some grammar schools doesn’t make it necessary - you’d probably have done fine with one hour a night. GCSEs really aren’t that hard. Bright child would get top grades without that level of work. They don’t require hours of study every night.

Poor kid, that's her childhood draining away

It's irrelevant that she thinks it's too much. If that's what's set, then that's what she has to do. Her swearing at you is what I'd be concerned about, and I'd be giving knocking that on the head. The detention is something she'll have to do too. A lesson that life's not always fair and sometimes you just have get on with it.

2 hours a night is not enough for year 10 Imo. That is the expectation for DS2 in year 9. He will be doing 2.5 hours a night in year 10.

The new style GCSEs are difficult and require time and effort to get top grades for the vast majority of DC.

DC will ime rise to the challenge of hard work and high expectations. Attitudes of laziness and poor work ethic need to be rooted asap before year 11. Stick to your guns op.

I hate that phrase, I teach my kids life should be fair

It should be but it isn't.

2 hours isn't unusual, my DD's often had that much 14-18.

This is it really - it shouldn't be 2 hours a night, and it isn't. The maximum they set could be 9.5 hours over the week, and most schools have a policy of not setting it for the next day, as you say, which means she never has to do any on Mondays, Thursdays or Fridays if she sets aside time at the weekend.

My DS is at a highly selective grammar school (Year 9, but first year of KS4). He can get set up to 7.5 hours of homework a week. He attends either music, sport or chess extracurriculars every week day (his choice!), so he has to be organised. He does around 2 hours of homework on a Saturday and the same again on a Sunday, so he only has 3 hours left to do across mid-week. He is an early riser though, which helps at the weekend as it doesn't feel like it has taken much of his time.

It’s fucking ridiculous. They’re clearly not teaching them everything they need to know in school if they expect them to do a quarter of the work at home.

Delatron, it is nothing to do with brightness, usually the children that are bright seek that intellectual stimulation or review their knowledge and working in the evening for longer than the bear minimum is perfectly normal.

DDs English teacher has emailed me saying her homework was unacceptable, for a girl who should be aiming for at least grade 8s in both her English Language/ Literature GCSE's

Two things here. Firstly, yes homework should be done to an acceptable standard, but it's understandable that it isn't if DD feels she has too much. Plus (as per a lot of comments in this thread) there is homework that is actually valuable and homework that isn't).

Secondly - DD should be aiming for 8s and 9s??? Does she need 8s and 9s for future career plans? I don't think teachers should be putting pressure on students in this way. Saying she is capable of getting 8s and 9s is a different matter. Then there is an element of DD accepting if she wants to do less work, she may get less good grades.

@Goldenbear or they are able to self manage their work and don’t need to do an arbitrary 2 hours a night.

Yes we are getting similar levels, I am trying to cut back my dd's workload and spread it out. Burn out is a thing. So if some of it is optional, always give your dd a break instead. Early nights, good diet and lots of exercise.

The school system is turning our children into work horses. My teens do more school work hours than the average job by multiples.

Is homework not just the best way to check understanding? A 45min lesson on trigonometry only passes the info one way. Setting some trig homework (30-45mins) then checks understanding as the work has to be completed without teacher assistance.

Then the French teacher does the same with verbs, 30 mins

Then the English teacher wants 3 chapters of The Woman in Black Read for tomorrow ready for critique, 45 mins.

There's your 2 hours.