To think that 1-2 hours of revision A DAY is too much for year 7s?

[AsIfIWish]

I've just got a letter from our secondary school, stating that students should be revising "1-2 hours every day, in short 20 min bursts, using the techniques mentioned above." (Honestly, that last bit makes it harder!)

IABU to think that this is too much for year 7s? (Not to mention SEN kids. Mine are undiagnosed, but still.) I'm just not sure when they are supposed to find the time!

(Our circumstances won't be the same as everyone else's, but they are:
They get back from school at 4pm. They are encouraged to do lots of extracurricular activities which they do a fair number of and these take up time on three days after school. They also get a fair chunk of homework that they are expected to do during the week (at a guess, 3-4 hours a week on average, but it takes my kids longer). So there are only two days where they get a full 2 hours between school and tea time, and they can't go straight into school work once they get home, and after that they are often trying to do homework. So, I'm not sure when in the day they are supposed to revise, when they also require a family mealtime, and wind-down time before bed (they still go up at 7:30 but read for 20 mins before going to sleep).)

I'm not ever going to prioritise revision over good sleep or taking time out to de-stress or whatever after school... so I'd be interested to know what other people do at this stage of school.

Revision in Y7? What for, exactly?

That's just madness.

DD is Y7 and Autistic. She can't cope with homework full stop at the minute. We are in the process of trying to sort of reasonable adjustments for homework.

DD is exhausted after masking all day. She only does an activity on a Friday as she's too fatigued / unable to engage in after school activities daily. As you say, you have to prioritise rest, food, time out, etc.

Interesting that that is what your school recommend. Ours hasn't- as yet- said that, just published the exam week timetable and what I have seen on the homework portal is a message that yes, exams coming up, here is revision, but remember this is just a summation of everything you've already learnt this year' so seems a gentler approach? But is an academically selective school so maybe I'm reading it wrong!! And we have same issue as you - only one day after school (which finishes at 4pm) and only one free weekend day too. So, we'll just take the 'chip away each day even if that is 20 mins if that is all that is free' approach. It's y7 after all and they have done well thus far so we won't put any pressure on attainment. Just effort within the time available.

YANBU, the way I interpreted a similar letter is that revision time includes time doing homework. Usually homework is revising what was taught in class. So subtract all the time doing homework and it seems much more reasonable.

1-2 hours a day every day is a lot for Y7 in my opinion. I am not a great believer in a large amount of homework, doing some consolidation work for what they have done in school that day is fine but 2 he's a day is ridiculous.

I think I must be missing something. What exams are there in Y7? We had SATS last year. I'm not aware of any exams coming up though

Is this in addition to homework? DC1 gets about 1-2 hours of homework each day in Year 7. It's quite normal. DC1 also has extra curricular on two nights a week, including being out all afternoon and evening for one day. I think three days of clubs is also very normal.

Your child needs to learn to be quicker at the homework. Mine is terrible and a 20min homework often takes 45-60min. She catches up in the weekend.

I'm assuming this is for end of year exams? 1-2 hours per day seems too much but some students get to year 10 and find revision a massive shock because they've never done it before and have no clue how to start. I'd start embedding different revision strategies now (mind maps, writing quizzes, using BBC Bitesize - see what works well for them) and support them with it so they're well prepared for the future. Don't go mad with it but a bit of revision will help consolidate their learning and help them in the future when revision is essential. You don't have to do all or nothing.

Are they doing the thing where you ask for double what you actually want in order to get people to meet you halfway? Because 0.5 - 1 hr sounds more realistic.

That was normal for me when I was at school. We had 2 hrs of homework a night and by the time it got to end of year exams homework stopped and we just did revision instead.

DS is at a selective independent school. They have 4 days of exams just before half term, but they don’t really mean anything. It gets them used to proper exams and teaches them revision techniques. DS isn’t getting homework really this half term so they have that time to revise.

Gosh that sounds like way too much.

I'm a teacher and I wouldn't recommend that kind of revision regime till year 9 at the earliest.

At the ages of year 7-9 I'd recommend most revision should be gamified where possible anyway. Invite dc's best friend round and get them to quiz each other. Use revision quiz apps. Discuss the set text. Etc.

I wouldn't recommend long sessions copying out revision notes etc, not till GCSE (if ever)

(And 20min sessions is very long in any case! 5 min bursts is what most my ks3 students can realistically tolerate before losing all interest)

Fuck that. I didn't do that at gcse level. What does a y7 have to revise for?

There's so much more to life than grades, extracurriculars, socialising, family time, down time. School is long enough.

I have a child this age in grammar school in NI. This is totally normal- in fact we have had all kinds of detailed resources sent home in respect of it, alongside special assemblies and workshops in school. My child is fine with it as it has just been made clear this is what is expected. They don't go to bed at 7.30 though! More like 10 by the time they have everything done/ got back from evening extra curricular activities. Yes it seems a lot but there are hundreds of children doing the same and your child will be competing against them all for GCSEs. It is so much more pressured now than when we were at school.

Revision is for the ten days of examinations in May. They did the same in December, with scores given alongside year average to really up the pressure 😳

DD is autistic and a high achiever, but she benefits from pre and over learning activities in low stress environment IE home as school has so many other things going on and is harder to work there so it's built into our daily lives.

Recap on the content in the previous lessons on her way to school for the lessons she has that day (15 mins).
Comes home recaps what she's done that day and teaches me (15 mins) whilst we have a drink and snack.
Makes flash cards for what she's learnt that day on a flash card app (15 mins).
Uses app on way to activities whilst being driven (15 mins+).
We might have a discussion, or watch a relevant documentary, she also likes Seneca or there are quick and easy quizzes on BBC bitesize. If you do it as you go it all adds up and the flash cards on the app then have the foundational knowledge ready for the GCSE years a least on Maths and Science etc

@AsIfIWish are your DC at an ordinary secondary or one of those 'super selective' schools that get very good results probably because they demand a lot??
Mine are at a very ordinary secondary and they get homework that can take between 0-2 hrs depending on what they have to do or if they have left the homework for a few days and it is stacking up, but as someone else has said, revision is usually part of that...either for knowledge organiser tests or end of term tests.

no it is normal, but i would expect this to include revision homework.

My year 7 got about 3 and a half hours homework a week. Same in year 8. An hour of maths, 30 minutes of language, English, geography, history and science.

Pretty sure my y11s aren’t doing that much

(and yes, I know they should be…)

I always did it but I absolutely hated homework. You go to school to learn, you should not have to bring work home to do, getting in the way of doing things with your family etc.

Revising wise, we got set times to do things and you did more if you wanted. It's up to you if you want to do well. Saying you need to do two hours a night though..

No no no.

In Ireland and was at a talk recently for 5th years (so that’s the year before our big exam year) and they mentioned that first and second years (so 13/14/15 yos would be doing 2 hours a night INCLUDING homework) until about a month before exams, whereas higher years should be 2 hours after homework. 2 hours after homework seems a lot for that age, as someone above said maybe they’re hoping they’ll even do half?

Normal for me when I was in school albeit in the dark ages! Home from school at 4pm. I would revise from 4.15 - 6.15, then had my tea then went out with my friends. Ony did revision for 6 weeks though before each major block of exams and at that time they reduced the amount of homework. It was a very competitive selective private school though where the exams results were read out to everyone. That kind of incentive helps you to revise!

I would say their bedtime is particularly early for y7s, many of my daughter's clubs didn't finish till 9 at that age which is losing you a chunk of their evening (not that I particularly agree with the revision timings, though as others have said this has been set as homework for most tests) my son tends to do his homework in that 7-8 slot after tea as he needs the time after school to decompress.