Homework expectations for your Year 7 child

[aperolspritzbasicbitch]

Just out of interest -
how much homework is your child set in Year 7?

My eldest is in her first term at Secondary school and we’ve just been emailed to say that they have changed their home learning expectations for years 7-9, and I think it’s really very minimal.

I’m pretty sure that when I attended (the same) school we had homework for all subjects from the off, but now it’s an hour (or until complete) of science and maths, and 20-40 mins of reading for English, nothing else.

is this now the norm?

That’s more than enough. I’m glad that your DD’s school have seen sense and are allowing kids to be kids! They don’t need hours of extra work after an entire day of school. I’m genuinely not sure why you’d want a child of this age to have more?

DD had so much (v academic, pushy grammar) that it wasn’t unusual for her to be working until 10pm with little to no leisure time. It was a ridiculous amount for 12yos.

Her homework schedule per week was:
3 x Maths
2 x English
2 x French
1 x Latin
1 x Geography
1 x History
2 x RS
1 x Technology
1 x Art project (typically extended over 2 weeks)
1 x Music homework (theory and a recorder piece to learn!)
1 x Food tech
1 x Drama

It’s not that I want her to have more, I’m just surprised that they don’t set anything for any other subjects.

This is my first experience with secondary school education other than my own, and as I said it’s all so different now. I was curious as to if this was the norm nation wide.

Our school set pretty light homework in Y7 and 8, ramping up a bit in Y9 and more for GCSE years. Although they did set for the non core subjects sometimes, it wasn't every week like for Maths, English and Science.

In educational research there’s little evidence that homework has much impact on outcomes. (Reading time excluded).

I’m always happy to hear about schools following the research. It sounds like your child’s school has hit a nice medium. If you feel she has too much free time maybe look at something like the junior DofE awards so she could gain some skills or do some volunteering?

Yr 7 + 8 DD had 2 x subjects of 30 min each per night x 5 nights.
Yr 9 she gets 3 x 30 min per night x 5 nights plus longer projects

Independent school

one of mine has just started secondary and they do have homework in other subjects but it's pretty light. I didn't go down the grammar route as I didn't want what the pp outlined.

We’re going down the after school clubs route - she really lacks confidence so we’re trying to build that up. She currently does one, will suggest another from next term now I know the homework schedule

Mine is in Y8 now, but it’s the same. About 45 minutes each of science and maths a week. About 30-45 minutes of reading. Learning some French and/or German (about 20 minutes a week). Then random history or geography or drama project that might take an hour once a term.

It’s plenty. Have you tried doing it? Week after week after week? It’s a bloody nightmare, especially if you have a child who is busy with sports and other things throughout the week. Sucks the life out of all of us and there is detention if ever anything is missed, so it’s non-negotiable.

Have I tried doing it? Well, yeah…when I was at school and I was doing homework.

like I’ve said, I’m not complaining. Just surprised at the change and curious as to other schools expectations.

My son is in year 9. When he was in year 7 and 8 he had hardly any homework. Maths every week, but apart from that, for each of his other subjects, including English, he had one small piece of homework per half term. Not enough in my opinion, as it is not helping them to review what they learned during the day. Now he is in year 9 and he is getting much more.
It might be worth asking the teachers if the amount he gets is going to increase. I think it is very important that they get into the habit of studying, or else they will be very shocked when they come to do their GCSEs.

From the email received it didn’t change until year 10. Expectations are the same for years 7-9.