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!)

Aren’t the exams in May and June?
That’s plenty, at this time of year.

you being “livid” will probably be completely counter-productive.

@AbreathofFrenchair

No SEN- just a bright and hard working DC who wants to get the best grades they are capable of.

The expectation from the school is that all DC in year 11 complete 3 hours of work on school nights and 3 hours a day at weekends- we have agreed with DS that he does slightly more than this at weekends.

The school (and I) make no apologies for expecting DC to work hard in a key exam year and achieve the best grades they are capable of. I know that many of DS’s friends are expected to work much harder.

To be clear, I have no expectation that DS will get straight 9s- all I expect is that he tried his absolute best.

YABU that sounds okay to me, I expect as the exams get closer he'll do a bit more. My dd sat her exams last year, she did a similar amount of homework with similar predictions and passed everything 🤷‍♀️

Putting pressure on him is likely to have the opposite effect to the one you're hoping for ime

What I did do was encourage dd to join revision clubs at school and she had a maths tutor as maths was 50/50 to whether she'd pass (she did in the end.)

Sounds fine for this point in year 11 tbh.

Are you working with him or expecting him to be doing this alone? I'd say 5 hours during the week, an hour after school is sufficient, maybe a couple of hours on the weekend would be good too.

I suggest getting involved, during my GCSE years my dad was very strict on me studying, but never did anything with me and I pushed back and did the bare minimum, because I was naturally academic, I achieved well. Dad asked me when it was time for my younger brother (who wasn't particularly academic) what he could do because my brother had absolutely no interest in studying and was pushing back harder than I did.

I told him absolutely push the studying, but do it together, take an interest in what is being studied, not just take the "you need to study" stance. My brother did amazing, went on to get superb A Levels and attended a top tier uni. I honestly put that down to my parents being more active in his education, not just being instructive.

Good that’s fine. If he’s on top of his work, working to the best of his ability then the exams aren’t for another 6 months! Ease off!!

So it's a money issue
You threw money at the problem and you aren't likely to get much back

Long time ago now but in certainly didn't do that much and managed mostly A's. Nor were my parents so militant.

“Context is also that we have made big sacrafices for his education (spend our family savings on 4 years private ed at smaller school”
So you’re looking for a return on your investment?
Your “sacrifices” weren’t his choice. You shouldn’t be using this as a reason to push him.
However much you’re trying to appear calm, if you are in fact “livid” he will be feeling that. Anger and nagging won’t help. He will just become resentful. If he really isn’t doing enough, what probably will work is poor results in his mocks, which would show him how much more he needs to do.

How do you know he is capable of “much higher”? And why is “tried his best” linked to hours invested? He may not doing his best already after all he is getting a private education which is a huge advantage.

And you shouldn’t be putting guilt on him about having paid for private school, that was your choice and you cannot seriously believe that money buys high grades? Every child is different and not every child is academically gifted. You should be seeing what his strengths are and encouraging those.

It really is no surprise that so many schools in the U.K. are so poor and so many DC do not do as well as they are capable of from reading this thread.

DD1 in year 7 has more than 4 hours of homework a week- the idea that this would be acceptable for a year 11 is nonsense.

Frankly if he's bright, does an hour each day after school and is getting 4s and 5s, I'd be wondering about the quality of the teaching you're paying for. I don't mean that in a nasty way, but a bright kid shouldn't need to put in that much effort to get at least 6s if they're being taught properly.

I have one at either end of the scale in terms of grades, my 16 year old will get mostly 7s and 8s without doing any more than you describe, while the younger one it'll be a miracle if she gets a gcse at all, bless her heart. We had to move her to a small private school for similar reasons, and given the very limited options available where we live, we accepted that the teaching quality might not be optimal (but she has a whole host of other issues coming into play that are stopping her learning) . In your situation I would be having a discreet chat with some other parents to see if you can find out what they think of the quality of teaching.

My Dd didn’t start really ramping up revision until Feb 1/2 term to Easter.

She was fine in GCSE

I think I did about 4 weeks revision in total for my GCSEs plus about 70% of the homework, I got 13a*/a grades

An hour a day seems reasonable, providing he's paying attention in lessons. 3hrs a day for gcses is insane and is going to result in burnout at a young age

The problem at GCSE year is children often don't know how to revise, they can do hours of work but not actually learn anything or find it beneficial. They can struggle when work actually gets hard because their technique for learning s so long winded

Ha ha ha, livid? Really? You can't force a child to study. Explain the consequences of not doing enough and then let him be. He'll either do well on the amount of work he's currently putting in or he'll fail and have to work it out from there.

He needs to learn for himself what he needs to do. Him doing extra study whilst feeling angry at you for making him, will not lead to effective study! I didn't think my son did enough work but he passed them all well. He could have done a bit better in a couple of them but couldn't we all! He wasn't bothered and the most important thing is him learning what he needs to do and to discover what his values are.

I really am shocked at the laizzes-faire attitude of some on this thread- sounds like a lazy teen’s dream.

My DC have always been expected to study hard. DS1 is in year 11 now and knows that his focus for this year is revising hard and getting good GCSEs- he is doing 3 hours of school work Monday-Thursday, Friday night off and then 5 hours a day Saturday and Sunday. This will increase closer to exams.

I'm a teacher as well as a parent of teens, and I think that's ridiculous and a recipe for stress and burnout. There is a happy medium between laissez-faire and draconian. I've seen students absolutely buckle and have breakdowns as a result of excessive parental pressure. Or go off the rails because they know they can't live up to their parents' (often vicarious imo) absurdly high standards.

Surely if he’s a bright boy that amount of revision is sufficient? How much do you expect him to do? Does he know what his plans are when he leaves school? Don’t forget he’ll be doing work while in school too.

He’s a young adult, if you’re getting push back maybe just leave him be for a bit or you’re risking putting him off studying at all. Treat him like an adult and respect his choices.

It really is no surprise that so many schools in the U.K. are so poor and so many DC do not do as well as they are capable of from reading this thread.

You see I'd say it's a sign of a poor school that after having a child in classes for 6 hours a day they need to do the amount of additional work that your DC are expected to do to achieve at GCSE..

A Levels are a different kettle of fish.

Does he know what to do?

Ds needs help working out how to revise - workbooks or on-line sties can help provide structure.

Often someone sitting there helps as well - DD1 says it helps her as well. As a university student I needed that and got it by going to University Library and studying with others on the course.

It does depend when the exams are - nearer exams would expect more hours - now perhaps not so much - though depends when mocks are.

I think that's too much for a year 7. No wonder so many teens are suffering from mental health issues.

It’s really up to him
If his mocks don’t go well then that might encourage him to up his game

People need to stop quoting & replying to the attention seeking poster. You're feeling their insanity.

@Hotdaisies22 another asking when his mocks are?

I personally think it's too far out from exams to be putting the pressure on.

is he actually doing homework/studying in the homework club or pissing about with mates.

when is your next parent/teacher event?

maybe discuss with him (again 🙄🙄) the importance of doing his best and working out whether he wants/needs to do much better in English or Maths as they tend to be the ones that limit entry into other courses going forward & suggesting he spends a short amount of time at the weekend focussing on them (maybe an hour each).

little & often...

then a lot more focus in Feb/Easter breaks.

I don't know how many hours mine did , I pretty much left them to it unless they wanted my help with something.

They have to learn what works best for them. You won't be able to dictate how many hours of study they do when they go off to uni. If that's what they even want to do!

I don’t think this is irrelevant actually. We changed dd to private for yr 9 but we’re very clear that she was expected to do her best and study hard. She’s year 10 so not the same as year 11. I will not be expecting a crazy schedule of studying. But will be ensuring she has the time to maximise her potential.