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!)

This!

I understand it can be very difficult to take a step back from what you hope your DS will achieve, but it was your choice to take the private route. Our DC is now Y12 having gone right through private school - on the very odd occasion when choice of school has come up through the years DH and I have stressed it was our choice, not our DC's. As long as they worked hard then we would be happy, whatever the outcome. They understood this. That said, in Y11 at our school all students were expected to revise/work at least 2 hours per night from September, ramping up to 3 plus as the exams approached. We all thought that was normal.

Fell really sorry for these kids who are a expected to do far more hours of school and studying than your average adult works in a week.

Almost 50 hours a week, with the expectation that this should increase?? come on!

Absolutely ridiculous

excelledyourself · Today 13:04
Fell really sorry for these kids who are a expected to do far more hours of school and studying than your average adult works in a week.

Almost 50 hours a week, with the expectation that this should increase?? come on!

Many of them crash and burn at sixth form/university.

I was about to say the same…and certainly not this far in advance of the actual exams 😂

Like 5 year olds and their reading diaries. A great way to produce independent students who are ready for the world of A levels and university. Not.

The key thing for me is if the teachers feel that there's enough work/ learning going on.

Teens won't learn from being micromanaged and all you do is kick the can further along and the stakes get higher. One of my best learning experiences was flunking my first GCSE coursework and it taught me far more about realistic time management than if DM had nagged me along the way. I learned that you can't pull off a whole coursework in a weekend and strategised the rest of them. The rest of the courses were linear, and revision makes more sense at the end of the course when the knowledge all links up into a package.

The friend I had who hunkered down and wouldn't do anything for months and months before exams didn't actually show any benefit for the efforts and would probably have performed better if she'd uncleanched and had a balance of work/ social life/ relaxation.

Work smart not just for the heck of it. Downtime allows the brain to process information.

My plans for DS (currently Y11) revolve around making sure he is well fed, has lots of healthy snacks and goes to bed at a reasonable time.

How he revises is up to him. For me to interfere would just create conflict and tension. I'm even considering taking him away May half term to give him a mental break. The hard work has been over the past few years in school.

I can't force his personality type, some kids plan like crazy weeks in advance, some cram 20 mins the night before. I'm just providing the framework and support for him. The rest is up to him.

Until he decides he wants/needs to send longer revising then it's pointless trying o.force him. The only productive revision is work that the student is fully invested in. At this stage you risk him digging his heels in as the way a teens brain is wired means his ego is more important to him than any long term gain. If he's already doing 5 hours a week he will probably do ok in his mocks but not amazingly (depending on how able he is) and the results of those will give him the push he needs. If he's generally a good kid, continue gently encouraging him but don't make too big an issue of it at this stage (I wrote as both a parent of a year 11 and an experienced teacher).

Of course schools are saying 8-12 hours per week. They want to look good on results day 😁

Is a life without time for hobbies what you want for your child/ren?
Sounds joyless.

We need to stop glorifying grinding so damn hard, and learnt to live a little.

Ask yourself if whatever is you're going to do to get him to study more will actually have an effect. Are you giving your family a whole load of trouble for no change at all.

Last year, DD refused to study at all at home throughout the year for her GCSEs. Her words were that she did enough work at school. I started withholding privileges, clamping down...it made absolutely no difference to the amount of study she did at home, aka none. What did happen was that there was a lot of family friction and it turned self study into a massive deal which it didn't need to have been, had I left her to it and take it at her place.

It seems schools no longer have study leave April onwards, like I did the 90s. The teachers keep on teaching. So she had full day revision sessions leading up to and all around all her exams. GCSE exam in the morning, another subjects revision session with the teacher in the afternoon.

It worked far better for her than I thought it would and she met or exceeded her targets in 90% of her subjects.

Let your child be... They have enough stress with the school pressing them on exams. If you think it'll achieve something, keep on at him. If it won't, it's really not worth it for his mental health or yours.

Absolute tosh.

Ds barely scraped an hour each week night and a couple of hours on a Sunday evening. Taking into account in class revision and lunch time clinics this was more than enough. He came out with 8 and 9’s across the board except for English which he hated. We were genuinely more proud of his 6 in that than of everything else.

If we’d have taken your approach he would have dug his heels in and done nothing. Not to mention feeling stressed and pressured rather than supported. Kids need sports and outings and fun with friends as well as work. They are young for such a short time and I would never make their school years miserable by forcing an unnecessarily harsh schedule on them. My ds knew what he needed to do and left to his own devices he succeeded.

Of course now that he’s doing A Levels he’s already putting in far more time. He really enjoys his chosen subjects and quite frankly he understands without us telling him that they require far more effort. I often wonder how these over-supervised kids get on at uni without a parent standing over them nagging them to work.

Context is also that we have made big sacrafices for his education (spend our family savings on 4 years private ed at smaller school as he was having problems at his large comp school during/after covid).

YOU made the decision to send him to his current school. It is unfair to use that as emotional blackmail. Even if you said that you'd pay his fees if he did 3 hours of study a night and he agreed, as a child he can't really make an agreement like that.

If you think he's not putting in the effort, find a state alternative for September 2023.

We should also distinguish between "working" and "working effectively".

There is more value in 1 hour of focused revision than 3 hours staring at books, doodling and taking nothing in. And the child that chooses to do revise as opposed to be told they have to/won't be allowed out/ will lose their phone is actually rather more likely be doing the former than the latter.

I'm not expecting him to be doing lots of revison now in November, I'm expecting him to acknowledge that he'll need to up his game in coming months. His refusal to acknowledge that and to think zero revison/study outside the few hours midweek at homework club is going to be enough right through to exams to get him good grades is what prompted me to post today.

So you want him to tell you what you want to hear ? Maybe he's an honest kid who doesn't want to lie ? Has he done any mocks? Sometimes kids need the shock of a mock grade to realise that maybe he needs to revise more.

Which is basically saying that more revision leads to higher grades, which is what the OP wants?

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.Yes, it is hard but to be frank it is no bad thing for DC to learn that many things in life require effort and hard work.

But its not productive. There's only so much your brain can process and retain in a day, and 6 hours of school plus 3 hours at home is too much - most of those 3 hours is unlikely to be effective.

Not to mention they will be boring, unhealthy people with nothing to say on a personal statement. Where's the time to be learning an instrument or ballet, playing in an orchestra or choir, perform in a dance show? Where's the time to exercise, be on a sports team or train for something at a decent level? Where's the time to have a part time job & learn a bit of responsibility? Where's the time to be a venture scout & maybe volunteer helping a younger troupe? Where's the time to see friends, relax? Where's the time to help with chores at home, visit family, do things in the community? The kids who are hothoused and forced to do hours of unproductive study are rarely the balanced individuals universities & employers seek.

Not to mention they probably aren't happy either.

You make it sound more aboutvyou and your sacrifices. He is nearly an adult and they have to make their own mistakes and build resilience.

Schools say 8-12 as a target knowing people will do half that at best.

If you ask for 6 hours, many kids think 3 will do. Bear in mind some kids will spend little time even on the homework.

This doesnt appear to be the norm though and some children are naturally brighter than others.

Our school has minimal homework, minimal expectations on revision but does hold revision sessions. No pressure on the pupils and spend a lot of time focusing on mental health.

They are consistently outstanding with Ofsted and their GCSE and A Level results are exceptionally high.

I cant imagine how stressed out your teen will be having to do 22 hours a week revision with the expectation to increase that as well as full school days.

My child is predicted 9s and 8s across the board and will most likely get them, his 8 could be a 9 if he revised but he doesn't like French so only does homework as he doesnt want detentions.