How long are your primary kids spending on school work each day?

[Juk3]

As of yet we have heard nothing from dd2 primary, I checked with one if friends mum to make sure I wasn't missing something and she confirmed she has heard nothing either. I'm hoping there is something going on behind the scenes that we are unaware of and will get something soon but if last lockdown is anything to go by it will be TTRS and reading. So how much are your primary children doing each day? Dd is year 4, I purchased scholastic workbooks for last week but not sure how long is realistic for her to work on each one.

My year 6 is starting at about 9.15 and claims to have finished by lunchtime. So about three hours, including a bit of skipping and a snack break. Is He has a maths worksheet, some writing, and some topic work to do every day (at the moment this seems to be watching a video about a country and answering some questions). He is also supposed to learn spellings and do time tables and read, but has to be pushed, and refused to consider doing anything educational once he has “done” the work set by school!

About four hours, although we have breaks so we’re doing roughly 9-3.

Same as FenEel for my Yr4 and Yr1 - actually probably less. Yr4 gets two live lessons, a register lesson and an end of day check in. Yr1 the same but with phonics. Then have work following and some topics, plus spelling. It’s only been 1 week though so think another live lesson will be added and assembly.

Don’t forget they don’t do intense learning when in school. And also we can’t replicate the learning or school experience at home ( drives me mad that we have the pretence that online learning is going to in any way replace in school learning for these weeks. For many children it really won’t )

Around 2h a day plus his electronic reading book some evenings. DS1 is in reception though and keen - often there's links to yoga or songs in French as well as the phonics/maths lessons and he likes to dance about/do yoga.

About 4 hours in total, took longer the first day (tuesday) as they thought it was funny to mess their new teacher around 🙄

Y1- teaching from 9 until 3.15. 1 te break for lunch.

1h break for lunch.

Yr6 did 6.5 hrs plus a lunch break on Friday. This was all zoom lessons where the teacher starts them off and they all complete their task before going back on 10mins before the end of the lesson.

When he was Yr5 it was 2 or 3hrs zoom plus Google classroom geog/hist/french/music/PE. So 4 or 5 hours at a total stretch.

It seems to vary so much with some schools/parents aiming for a full school day, others doing 3 hours in the morning and then the group inbetween those.

As I said we have had nothing from school, I have rang and emailed but had no answer from both. Would you say 45 minutes maths workbook and 15 times tables, 1/2 hour English book, spellings, 1/2 reading aloud, 1/2 hour science each day is enoungh?

It depends if you're doing the full range of subjects (PDMU, art, PE, special festivals, RE etc) or just the core subjects? And if you're providing face to face teaching yourself (or bitesize/Oak Academy) and including that in the time?

If you're just having your child pour over a text book, (which is a pity for those parents having to do this) I would space it through the day and have three hours as an upper limit for a diligent, focused child, with reading and perhaps phonics/spelling/maths games on top of that and half an hour reading. I'd also have a lighter day with a different, less academic focus.

Although that's only 2 1/2 hours plus spellings so maybe I should add a topic in as well. I just don't know what to do for the best.

Y5 - Work is set on Classrooms each morning by 9am. DD hands usually hands it in by about 1.30. So with breaks that's probably about 3 - 3.5hrs of actual work.

There's quite a variety of tasks though which helps make it a bit more interesting. I'm not so sure DD would spend that long on workbooks.

OP - I’m sure that is more than fine. Particularly if the school still hasn’t replied.

It’s much harder for some children to work at home ( and I don’t even mean physical barriers!) som just really struggle with ‘school’ coming into the home. So I think getting something that’s doable and can be sustained whilst everyone stays ( relatively!) positive is probably the most important

What you're doing sounds enough but have you thought of using online games or an app that will tailor itself to your child's progress to use alongside paper based resources? Maths factor, Doodle Maths, Nessy etc?

About 2 1/2 hours. But from next week there will be 3 x 1/2 hour Zoom lessons a day, followed by questions online about each lessons. So that should cover 3 hours a day.
TA is also ringing me once a week for my DD to read down the phone to her.

Twinkl has really interesting comprehension exercises about conservation which would work well at this level.

Year 6 - hour of maths, break, hour/90 minutes of English & reading comprehension, lunch, reading his book, music practice, ttrockstars (hour for all three), some kind of topic work in the afternoon for 45 mins-hour.

Year 2 - 45 minutes each on maths, English and topic. Spellings & reading.

No @956806416ak I haven't that is a good idea thank you. She has a reading egg subscription and that has a maths section with lessons and games on it actually. She particularly like the maths driving test game where if you get all 10 questions right you unlock a level on an uneducational arcade type game.

I think it's pretty poor of the school not to have contacted parents at all though. Even a text or email to say, "We'll be putting the work online from Monday" would be better than nothing.

I work in a primary school and there's been a big push to contact as many parents in person (by phone) as possible, as well as more general texts and emails. It's not just about setting work. We want to make sure the families are okay and to help out where we can.

Homeschooling starts in earnest tomorrow.
Last lockdown we were left to our own devises and I got into the habit of homeschooling between 1.30 and 4.30.
I have two DC and neither will do anything if I don't stand over them so I did one at a time and each DC did and one and a half hours. Normally in two chunks with a break while the other was working.
It doesn't sound like much but DS(8) was illiterate before lockdown and reads for pleasure now.
DD(5) started out from the absolute beginning and now knows her letters and can blend CVC words.
So I feel like we made a lot of progress with just little bursts. Don't forget that one on one attention is more intensive than sitting in a class of 25.

Oh we have just discovered that actually! I can't speak highly enough of Doodle Maths and Nessy too. We turn the volume down on Doodle Maths. Smartick is expensive but really really good. Nessy has turned one of my children from a non reader into a very advanced reader-it's quite fun to watch.

I would be lost without these resources. The sheer volume of answers you can give and content covered is much greater than having to write down the answer each time. The rewards provide structure and encouragement, too. We strictly ration screen time in other ways. We also use Mrs Wordsmith as the resources are colourful and involve lots of stickers and flipping pages about!

My children are very engaged in their own learning and ahead of their peers in school. We do use workbooks but more to consolidate what they've practised online and in games with me. As a starting point, a worksheet is a lonely place for a lone student although there are often PPPTs on Twinkl that can help with that.

I would stop counting minutes (although I do try to keep a rough tally), get an array of resources if funds allow and look at it more as dipping into everything regularly.

Bit weird they've not contacted you really.

But anyway.

I teach year 4. A day in class might look like this for the main lessons:

Half an hour spellings - 10 min input, 15 - 20 min independent work
An hour maths - up to 20 min 'teaching', up to 30 min independent work, then a 'round up/answers/trouble shoot' chat
An hour of writing - up to 20 min 'teaching', up to 30 min independent or group work, some edit, some marking, some whole class feedback
Half an hour of reading - sometimes just listening to the whole class reader for half an hour, sometimes a 15 min input, 15 min independent work
An hour of another subject in the afternoon - as above, around 15 min input then independent activities/tasks

So that's about 2 hours actual independent work. If they are 'learning' from reading a text book, then doing exercises, 2 hours is plenty.

The rest of the school day right now would be breaks, lunches, listening to stories, sharing work, singing, assemblies, hand washing, PE, circle time, sessions for editing or responding to marking etc.

I genuinely feel that the DfE hasn't got a fucking clue what goes on in primary schools really. The chat around Newsround, or around a poem, or around a random comment made by a child might take up half an hour and provide more learning than anything else that day. These conversations might lead to a whole load of unstructured learning during the week as children do their own research, come in and tell us something else, the teacher might pick up on a specific interest and run with it a bit. This is the stuff that builds teacher/child relationships and is a huge part of primary school life.

If I were you I'd investigate Oak National Academy properly - if I had a year 4 child now, working broadly within age related expectations, with no input from school I'd do these units:

classroom.thenational.academy/units/journalistic-writing-based-on-traditional-tales-0887

Writing, grammar and spelling are all in there, do one or two of them a day.

To support this, I'd sign up for the free stuff at First News: subscribe.firstnews.co.uk/free-downloadable-issue/

Start at Spring Week 1 at this link for maths:
whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/year-4/

Then I'd download this stage 4 reading pack and do one a day.
www.literacyshedplus.com/en-gb/resource/stage-4-reading-packs

I'd watch Operation Ouch on CBBC at 11.35 every morning, then do this science unit:
classroom.thenational.academy/units/human-anatomy-f968

Loads of that can be done independently. She'll need a lined notebook and ideally a squared notebook.

For those parents struggling with motivation, we have sand timers with a range of time durations. One to one work for half an hour is quite intense and can be followed with five minutes of Joe Wicks/jumping off the furniture, then fifteen minutes of memory work, same amount of outside time etc.

We have a star chart with two star a day system-two stars for really motivated working, one star for scraping by, and a small prize of their choice every 20 stars. Alluding to the fact that I want to give two stars but there is a possibility I won't be able to justify it has really focused the little ones.

My yr 2 daughter has a ridiculous about of work to do, probably enough to last from 9 - 3 everyday, but there is no chance I can do that with her and remain sane.
I've decided we will spread the work over 7 days and do 3 hours max a day.

Don't forget BBC start educational tv lessons from Monday, as well as online stuff and there's Oak academy.
My dds get English, maths and one other subject each day. Between them they have had history, pe, science, french, geography and computing.