To be livid that year 11 DS thinks 4-5 hours/week homework/revision is enough for GCSEs?

[Hotdaisies22]

DS in year 11. Bright boy but has always been poor at doing homework at home despite being well set up for it at home (quiet desk space etc). Does his homework at homework club after school -Mon - Thurs max 5 hrs week (thats only time homework club room is available at his school). We're having conversations that he now needs to up his game these next few months before GCSEs and start studying /revising at home extra time. Getting massive push back and causing a lot of friction. He thinks what he does is enough and no intention of doing more "at the end of a tiring school day" (he only has a 20 min journey to school). What are other year 11s doing? (I'm trying to have conversation with his school on this but so far they've been rubbish - no reply!)

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to encourage your child to do independent revision. Teachers can cover so much in the lesson. I would suggest 2 x 20/30 minute slot per subject per week. Assuming 10 GCSEs that will be about 6 hours a week. Good luck.

YABVU.

My kid isn't going to revise at all. Because he knows eeeeverything already But that's not my problem, is it? They're not my GCSEs, they're his. It's not my life, it's his. GCSEs aren't the be all and end all, your DS could do brilliantly in them and then fuck up the rest of his life. He might fuck up GCSEs and do brilliantly in life.

Ultimately, it's his choice. He will the one who will live with the consequences.

My childs school is recommending yr 11 do 2 hrs a night currently. After their mocks in Jan, they recommend this increases to 3 hrs a night.

I personally think this is far too much when they also have extracurricular stuff, social life etc. However, my daughter is very self motivated so i dont have to ask her to work.

I would use a very hands off approach with him OP. Its his life. If he messes them up, he will learn from it.

Absolutely!

Nothing worse than your child not achieving the grades they need/are capable of.

A statement like that really needs context, otherwise it just comes off sounding completely tone deaf. I mean, there are so, so many things worse than your child not achieving the grades they need. So very many.

Same as my daughter. Even now she is revising for mocks tomorrow.

Nothing worse than your child not achieving the grades they need/are capable of

Believe me, there is a LOT LOT worse than this.

Gremlins I imagine !!

It hit my elder DD quite hard as we had toured several sixth forms with the classmate and his mum so got to know the young man and his mum a little bit. He was a lovely young man with a passion for architecture. The really tragic thing is that it was in 2020 right when Covid was starting and there ended up being no A level exams after all.

My youngest, also a DD is in Yr 13 and her sixth form are fantastic about student wellbeing. It’s a different smaller one from the one my older DD went to. That one was similar rating but very large and more high pressure. It’s one of the reasons my younger DD chose not to go where her elder sister went.

Still plenty of time for hobbies too. We sometimes fail our children with low expectations and cotton wool.

I'd argue the cotton wool approach is the over-attentive, micro-managing one. Surely giving them the responsibility for their work ethic and success or failure is the very opposite of cotton wool?

DD1 got mostly 9s in her GCSEs. She did a lot more studying than that.

DD2 got mostly 6s in hers and she also did a lot more.

Maybe if you can encourage your DS to start doing some revision at weekends?

To be fair for a lot of bright kids, GCSEs are easy, and it's very easy to get good grades, at least in subjects that come easily to you, without having to do much revision. A lot of the exam is just knowing 'how to' answer questions rather than having to learn stuff off by heart.

So much of it is learning by rote, so that once you 'get' how to do a particular equation in maths or 'analyse' a poem by picking out the metaphors, similes, etc. there's not much benefit in going over it again and again.

That's why so many people whizz through GCSEs with a minimum of effort and then get a huge shock at AS level, where their less naturally bright peers who are used to putting the work in often get better marks than them. I was exactly the same, I remember I got my exam dates wrong for one subject so went into it barely having revised for it at all, still got an A* because to me it was all just common sense. I would recommend he focusses on the subjects he struggles in, and on doing any coursework at this stage if that makes up a good percentage of his grade. Bear in mind that come march/april they will be doing revision in school as well, and at some point he'll be on study leave - that will be the point you need to get strict, if anything!

Sorry I frankly don’t believe the “I never revised and got all As” trope. Can’t see that working now. The bright kids I know that inexplicably decided not to work that hard got 5s and 6s tops. Terribly frustrating for the parents when they were perfectly capable of 8s and 9s.

Remember seeing my friends Dd drsssed up to the nines wandering into town the night before gcse physics. Our view is youve got all summer to cock about and do what you want but these few months you work!

@Dorisbonson

Imo every school should have those expectations. The DC’s school makes no apologies for expecting them to work hard from year 7- that way it is not a massive shock when they get to year 11.

Year 7- 1.5 hours a night, 5 hours at weekend
Year 8- 1.5 hours a night, 6 hours at weekend
Year 9- 2 hours a night, 6 hours at weekend
Year 10- 2.5 hours a night, 8 hours at weekend
Year 11- 3 hours a night , 10 hours at weekend (with the expectation that this will increase during mock and exam periods)

The school encourages ‘screen-free weeknights’ so that DC have time to focus on their studies and extra-curricular activities. Most of the DCs’ friends are only allowed screen time at weekends.

There is ample time for DC to study hard, do activities and rest. There isn’t time for them to spend mindless hours on Xboxes every night.

@PalmTrees7 I haven't looked back to see what type of school, but that would not have worked for either of my DC, they just wouldn't have managed it. Also very hard to have hobbies / sports etc with those hours. A school with children of Tiger Mums maybe, but not for your 'run of the mill' child, and certainly not for a number of children with SEN. Surely you can see that your view is at the far end of reasonable and unachievable for many?

@PalmTrees7
Agreed. Schools should help parents understand how much homework kids need to do. Its also good preparation for understanding work is unlikely to be 9-5.

It's easy enough to do an hour of sport a day and that amount of homework and have productive hobbies.

Don't forget travel too and from the sport, and changing etc. And eating. And sleeping. Maybe some music practice too. And decompressing.

@TeenDivided

It is perfectly possible to have hobbies as long as DC are organised. What isn’t (or shouldn’t be) possible is countless hours spent watching Netflix, scrolling TikTok or playing FIFA.

However, in my view, studies should always take priority. There will therefore be times when DC have to make sacrifices and spend the vast majority of their time on productive study. There will be points like that in year 11.

At the DCs’ school, students know from year 7 that for the few weeks in the run up to exam periods, revision needs to take priority. If that means they have to miss a trip to the shops or sports game, so be it. There is a healthy environment of competition at the school and DC are motivated by their friends working hard.

I’d disagree and say neither was healthy. Allowing a fifteen year old to fail at something that may affect their whole future feels very unkind and poor parenting. Wrapping in cotton wool is about lowering expectations and not putting any pressure at all on them for fear they might fail and be unhappy.

I’d argue learning to fail is a good thing, but public exams are not the place to try it out. Laissez-faire (or just lazy), conflict avoiding parenting isn’t allowing them to take responsibility. It’s failing them. Children need boundaries, rules, structure. Look at the higher achieving schools and public schools; plenty of opportunities for hobbies, social contact and responsibilities but less scope for failing because the norm is hard work. That can be structured activities (not all exam subjects though) from 8am until 10pm at sixth form. Those I know were very happy with that and we’re decidedly pleased when they opened their envelopes.

why would you consciously let a child fail through indolence and immaturity?

If he is at school 8.30-3, plus 5 hours of homework club then he is doing enough IMO. My Ds did GCSE's last year and struggled to do more than that. It's a very stressful time, and kids (yes they are kids) need to relax and rest at home or they burn out.

An hour of homework a night plus nothing else doesn't sound much for y11.
OTOH some of the hours given by some posters seem very high and not achievable by children who haven't been channeled into it from a younger age.

Why wouldn't you, if you've done the 'parenting' and they're still making the wrong choice? These are 15/16 year olds, not 5/6 year olds. You can take a horse to water, but there is absolutely no way to force a 16 year old to study, parenting or no parenting.

Maybe, those of them who (like mine) think they can just coast through with zero effort, need to find out the very hard way, that it just isn't true. College exists, they can retake: often alongside the course they want to do. Failing a GCSE first time round really doesn't ruin anybody's life.

10 hours every weekend sounds like a lot in my opinion. Some kids aren't that academic so it's ridiculous to be forcing them to put on over a days work per weekend. I get parents wanting children to achieve their potential but I certainly didn't need to study that much as a child and still got good results. A lot of these teenagers will be desperate to rebel as soon as they can.

It always came easy to one of mine, he did really well in gcse and I never had to nag him about studying

Then covid hit during A levels, he found it much harder doing it all from home, made himself stressed and anxious about it all. In the end I had to sit him down and have a talk about him putting such high expectations on himself. I'd rather a mentally healthy child than a ball of anxiety any day of the week!

He didn't quite get the result in one subject that he needed for his first choice uni but his mh was much better, he deffered for a year, got a job with the civil service and went off to his 2nd choice uni this year

I'm not sure what his mh would have been like if I'd started applying pressure on him as well as him putting it on himself .