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!)

@Lentilweaver

Interestingly

Interestingly a lot of the parents at DS’s school are from immigrant backgrounds. I was telling some of them about the view that 4 hours a week was sufficient work for year 11 and they were in disbelief.

Their view is that they have made enormous sacrifices in many cases to give their DC a better life and lack of effort won’t be accepted.

Many of their year 5 and 6 DC were doing more work than some on this thread have advised for year 11. Doesn’t seem to do them any harm!

Their view is that they have made enormous sacrifices in many cases to give their DC a better life and lack of effort won’t be accepted.

That may be acceptable thinking in someone from their background, but I would call it emotional blackmail.

@Hotdaisies22 I think if your DS isn't open to doing more work later on then you do have a genuine problem and I suspect the path towards resolving it is to start working out what he's interested in and what he wants to do next. Which is difficult if he's feeling a bit rudderless. Good luck.

Oh, behold, the pious and honourable trope of the hard working immigrant parent come to chastise the lazy common garden native parent 🙄

Don't you feel a little embarrassed to wave an arm over the word immigrant as if they are all the same - with the same style of parenting?

Because my DH is an immigrant, and fyi he didn't make many sacrifices to come here, and he's quite happy to let our high achieving son build his own homework and revision schedule. You know, almost like he sees a responsibility raise a whole human and not just a crop of grades.

No, I don't actually. I also don't recall saying that mine is the only way to parent or that we are all the same or made the same sacrifices. If you read my posts, we were pretty relaxed with older DC. Didn't work out so well and she now has to rethink all her career choices. Regrets not focusing actually. Younger DC decided to learn from that.

Anyway, you do you.

“Their view is that they have made enormous sacrifices in many cases to give their DC a better life and lack of effort won’t be accepted.

That may be acceptable thinking in someone from their background, but I would call it emotional blackmail.”

I used to think like that when my DC were little. However, I have now seen these types of DC grow up and thrive on all levels. I remembering think a Chinese mum in my DC1’s Year 1 class was crazy for making her 5 year old do 1 hour of work every evening after after school club finishing at 6pm. She used to say that is just how it is done, they need to learn to sit early and just get into good habits. He wasn’t the brightest kid but got into a top grammar school and now doing incredibly well, zero mental health issues, he wasn’t allowed online much either.
Another time I witnessed an Indian mum in KS1 confront the teacher in front of me on why her DC was not in the top extension group in state primary. I would have been mortified to do similar. Again, said DC doing incredibly well. Sometimes high expectations followed by a supportive background do work. Both these mums worked full time by the way in gruelling jobs. They model the work ethic themselves and tolerate no lesser I guess. They still find time to sit with their DC in the evenings and on weekends to support homework/revision. Frankly, I do not know how they do it.

The reality is that there are plenty of DC in the UK today who are willing and able to put in hours and hours and I think many of them will be filling the top jobs.

To get away from the notion of pushy driven immigrant parent, another category of parenting that I have observed over the years, is teachers’ DC. Again, good habits, strong structure in most cases, lots of very early input and has wielded immense academic and all round success. By all round success I mean happy, friends, hobbies plus strong direction on where DC going next and the right grades to support that.

My DS is Yr11 too and I had similar concerns. He's at a very strictly academic grammar school and their focus is on grades, little else.

He was doing similar to your son, about an hour per day (plus lunchtimes sometimes and the odd extra push for a deadline). I was getting really stressed thinking he must be WAY behind in his revision compared to his peers.

Last week we had parents evening and I braced myself for the usual 'needs to do hours per night / he's not keeping up'. It turned out they think he's well placed to do well at GCSEs and have no real concerns about his progress (believe me with this school they would let us know if they did!)

Couldn't believe it. It turned out my DS actually knew what he was doing. Might be the last time(!) but I'd suggest a chat with your DS's teachers to check on progress. You might be pleasantly surprised or you might come back with some concrete guidance to face him with. Good luck!

Perhaps if he’s doing 4-5 hours now he will naturally up the hours a little closer to the time once he sees his peers doing the same (and I assume the school will also put more pressure on them)

Three hours a night.checked on by teachers? This school is a living nightmare! You should work to live- what's the point of making a fortune if you've no time to spend it?

I'm finding with DD that teaching has changed a lot since I was at at school. When I was doing exams, there was very little revision support in school so virtually all my revision had to be after school in my own time, from drawing up revision timetables to learning the course material. DD's school has been incorporating revision into lessons and homework all through the course, so the revision that she does at home is extra, not the basics. She mostly uses it to catch up on things she missed or didn't grasp fully when it was being taught.

He has no idea what he wants to do next btw. Probably not A levels.

We went to a college open evening last night - and DN is going to one start of next week for college in her part of the UK - DS will be A-levels DN is not sure what she wants to do but is thinking now for next September.

So it's probably the time to look at local options - even if in many areas you can apply even past the start of term.

@palm they said minimum 3 hours after school & minimum 10 hours over the weekend? Ridiculous. No wonder (many) young people are struggling with these kinds of ridiculous expectations. Head teacher focus is clearly on the school not on the well-being of the kids.

@Blueink

It is in the best interest of the DC’s wellbeing to work hard and get the grades they are capable of.

Wellbeing is not just about lounging around on tiktok.

@PalmTrees7 you still seem to believe that there is only one right way for DC to work towards GCSEs and it's yours. That's a delusion.

DT’s did their homework at school in a mandatory homework class. One hour each day (Mon - Thurs) - the school (high achievers who went onto top Uni’s around the world) believed in good quality revision but with time for sport (mandatory throughout all school years) and other interests. DT’s got all A’s at GCSE and A level.

Curious: are any of your DC in unis or interested in unis where all As are not enough? One of mine is and one isn't. How did they cope?

Research local technical college apprenticeship courses if he's not going to do a levels. He can apprentice in many fields. Construction, engineering, hospitality, etc. Take him on a tour. He maybe will be an outstanding electrician, plumber, chef, garage technician. Find his bliss

This is incredibly depressing.
Not the aiming high, I fully support that, but a school thinking the only way to do this is this number of hours revision.
Does the school have a Sixth Form? If so, what are the expectations for hours of study then?

Sounds like a decent amount of homework to be doing.

Perhaps you need to prepare yourself for him.not doing as well as you would like, and can then think about alternatives.

If he's doing all his school work and five hours of homework a week and being predicted 4s then perhaps he isn't going to get the top grades.

There is a world of difference between (eg minimum 10 hours weekend ) studying and watching TikTok all day. We speak about work life balance for adults but something has gone very wrong if we can’t offer at least the same for our DC or recognise other activities may be valuable - encouraging time outside, activities and hobbies, being with family and friends, especially after all the lock downs. Life is a marathon not a sprint. There is a risk of burn out and it’s creating and storing up unhealthy habits many of us have spent years trying to undo.

If such excessive revision is required for the higher grades, everyone needs to accept that the DC’s won’t be getting the 8 and 9’s or they are on the wrong course. It’s similar to those needing excessive tutoring to get into certain schools.

OP - I sat my GCSEs in 2015 so although the grading system has changed from letters to numbers, not much else will have changed (significantly).
GCSEs aren't as difficult as A-Levels, Uni etc and a large amount of it is a memory test rather than applying knowledge - albeit depending on the subject taken.
I was in sets 1/2 for my classes but I had friends in lower sets and we all did around the same amount of revision - we would attend any after-school revision classes, do our homework as usual, maybe an additional hour or two here or there on the week nights and then a last minute cram the night before and morning of the exam.
It sounds really bad but the last minute cramming is what worked best for me and it's what I still find works best now - some people do better when they have a tight deadline to adhere to, but also some people really don't.
It might be a case of sitting down with your son and asking what methods work for him, although I do think that 4-5 hours weekly at homework club in addition to his school hours is sufficient to get his predicted grades.

@OopsAnotherOne My DD1 did GCSEs in 2015, and DD2 should have done them in 2021 under the new system.

You wrote although the grading system has changed from letters to numbers, not much else will have changed (significantly). I'm afraid you are mistaken.

In 2015 my DD had 40% controlled assessment for her English language GCSE, and 60% for her MFLs, also quite a lot for Eng Lit, 25%? for Sciences.
In the new system there is more content for sciences, no CAs for English, 3 exams for maths, not 2 etc.

The exam schedule is far busier, and that combined with more content and no CAs means that last minute cramming would be a seriously bad idea.

I agree with @TeenDivided - the new style GCSEs are substantially harder and more content heavy. DD1 only did Maths and English new style and that was fine, but the sciences, History and Geography changes are pretty huge. Cramming does still have its place for some students if it works for them though - DD2 crammed specific bits she knew she was weak on the night before each exam and felt it was helpful. One of them (flame tests) came up in Chemistry and she nailed it, and sometimes you need a bit of luck. But sustained work was what did it (never 22 hours a week on top of school!)