How many hours of study outside school hours?

[amoment]

DS will be taking A Levels in 2024 in maths, further maths, chemistry and physics and is predicted A star AAA. The results from his mocks last week are not fantastic ABBC. Lots of careless mistakes. He has offers from Warwick, Bristol and UCL all asking for the predicted grades. His first choice is Imperial.

Just through interest, how much time do the youth spend on average studying during a week day, outside school hours to reach A star grades, in the run up to exams? DS seems to be spending about an hour during week days revising/past papers and about 4-8 hours in total during weekends.

He doesn't want a private tutor.

How can I help him and how can he help himself in the next 4 months to get the A star AAA that he so wants?

ABBC is a fantastic set of results. Why is AAAA the only acceptable set of grades? The world has gone mad!

The conditional offers from Warwick, Bristol and UCL ask for Astar AAA. So ABBC in his mocks have to be improved by the time the real A Levels come about in 4 months, if he were to get into any of the universities for which he currently has an offer.

I'd suggest an hour per hour of lesson time. So ideally for each A level, 5 hours taught, 5 hours self study, year round then a bit extra in the run up to exams (ALevel teacher).

@Funderthighs because the unis he has applied to probably want the entry grades of A star AA so his ABBC won't get him in nor likely his insurance either. He is up against those with 4 A stars, 3 A stars and 2 A stars and an A. Yes ABBC is a great set of grades for some students but not for those predicted A star AAA.

@amoment It isn't really about the time spent but whether it is productive. So Ds is also doing maths and further maths and two other subjects. For him he has asked for the tests they took in the first half of year 12 as blank papers so he can revisit them and see if he can get as close to full marks as possible this time round because he knows more now. So going back and redoing papers they have already done to improve the grade is one of his revision things. This tests whether he has retained that knowledge.

For Ds he knows that exam stress makes him make stupid mistakes, it isn't an ability thing. He will be sitting those papers under timed conditions.

My DD has three A stars (History, Psychology and Art), plus an A star EPQ.
History she found the hardest, and therefore took a lot of time. She had a few study periods at school, most of those were spent doing history and she'd often stay an hour and a half after to do notes - so say two hours plus a weekday on History alone (her school hours were 8.20-4.30, and she'd often stay til 6). Psychology she found relatively easy, so maybe less than an hour on that every day unless a paper due. Art is time consuming but again mostly done at school - she'd try and work through her lunch break in the art room.
On weekends it could be all day if an essay due. At this time of the year definitely 8 hours or more over the weekend.
As exams got closer a few all nighters too. I think before she turned her history coursework in there were two or three all nighters. Definitely when her sketchbooks and art pieces due - hard to judge how long a piece will take to complete. And of course ramped up the Psychology study too.
Frankly she was very determined and dedicated. She felt on the back foot in History (predicted a B), so felt she needed to put the hours in. It paid off - she got 196/200.
But it's also down to the individual- some kids 'get' things quicker than others and just don't need to put in as much work. And some kids could work every waking hour and still not get higher than say a C in a subject. And that would be a fantastic achievement for them! If my dd had taken Math that probably would be her result no matter how many all nighters she pulled!
I had no influence on this. She did it. My son is not academic and no matter what I did - all the extra textbooks, all the encouragement and working out a revision schedule, even bribery did not get him to study properly. It just wasn't his priority (this is GCSE - he didn't do A levels unsurprisingly).
Support and encourage and no other activities (do not go away over Easter for example). A little latitude. But he's got to want it enough to do the work required- that comes from within him, not from you.

Because depending on the course even grades of ABBC won't get you in. It's so hard now

The best thing he can do is get detailed feedback from his teachers on where he missed marks in the mocks and why, and what they suggest he focuses on his revision.

I don't know what the average is but we were told around 6 hours of independent study per subject per week - that's excluding homework.

Agree one hour revision for each hour taught. So 1 hour a day per subject or thereabouts - totalling 4 hours a day during the week. Or 2 hours a weekday and 5 hours each weekend day.

Ramping up the nearer the exams get.

He needs to do quite abit more!

3 hours a night minimum during the week, more at the weekend and full time working hours ie 40 hours a week during holidays/ study leave.

Some do more...

I asked DD who did these subjects and got A stars.

She said 3 hours on weekdays, plus 6-10 hours on weekends inc homework.

I have a Y13 DC doing similar, but not identical, A levels, so I asked them, and they estimated just under 5 hours of self-study per subject per week - so that broadly concurs with @tweetypi and @titchy.

As others say, 'time at desk' is not the only factor; ideally OP's DS needs to self-analyse performance and structure study to address any underlying issues - an essential skill for uni and beyond.

thank you everyone. I'll mention to him that putting in more time might help. He has been rejected by his insurance university and the rest ask for AstarAA. If he gets a AAA, clearing it would be probably for a course he doesn't really want to do.

Hmmm - I have DS doing same subjects at Advanced Higher, A predictions (and achieved in mocks). He does about 2 hrs per weekday (including eg free period at school) and maybe 4 at weekend? So I think a bit less than others above.

He does do stuff like watch physics YouTube for fun though, maybe that counts on top.

So 15 hours a week for 3 a levels?

@Countrylife2002 that is the rule of thumb yes but for Ds1 he completed all his homework either in the lesson ie finish what you don't complete as homework or in his free periods but he had like-minded friends and they formed a study group in their frees. He studied 4 A levels and still had 5 hours of free periods in school.

Ds2 gets a whole day at home for "independent study" (he doesn't really do lie ins) plus 1 hour in college specifically for homework. He also finishes at 2.30 one day. Look it depends what grades they came in on from GCSE and whether they are efficient at studying, it was one of the things that school taught them, how to research, how to put your homework together, how to structure it.

Think about how much time they have when they are out of college, Ds's latest class is 4pm finish, so home by 4.30 in bed at 11.30. That is a lot of free time to do work every night. It is their choice what they do with that time.

I should have added that Ds2 also does 4 A levels so if he did 3 he would have an extra 4 1/2 hours free from lessons in the week. Using free periods plus the teachers who are usually available daily at the end of the day benefits the student. Ds's college opens at 7.30am and closes at 5pm. State sixth form.

I think now is the time to take a really careful look at his weekly timetable and usage of time:

How is he actually spending his time?
Are there lesson periods in school that are spent on less-important things that he could be excused from in order to work?
Is he actually working during his free periods or just sitting with his friends and thinking he is working?

I think the crux of the issue is being mostly overlooked and missed.

He was predicted A*AAA. Logically speaking, if he hadn't been working hard enough - or wasn't bright/savvy enough to justify those grades even if he hadn't been working hard enough - the teachers wouldn't have predicted them. Not unless they were being carelessly over-optimistic. Which is possible, but teachers should have learnt from the last few years not to do that and there is oversight.

So. He was clearly doing something right to get those predictions a few months ago. Was he working really hard and then suddenly didn't? You don't mention this.

What you do mention is that there were a lot of careless mistakes. 'Careless' implies it wasn't a case of him not knowing. This in turn implies that the solution to this problem is probably not just him studying more. Because he may know the answers already. What he may need to focus on is ways to handle his stress under pressure, exam conditions specifically, and exam technique.

This is why I suggested above that he get detailed feedback from his teachers if he hasn't already.

Also his mocks are only one grade below predicted bar the fall from an A to a C in one subject. It's not a hopeless situation but you are right to try and get it addressed. Maybe offer to time him sitting pass papers in exam-like conditions ?!

We have to work with the real World as it is, not a theoretical World that we'd like it to be. Uni places are competitive, so Unis are going to select on various criteria, the main one being grades. If they can fill their courses by insisting on A grades, why wouldn't they? Anyway, compared to a couple of decades ago, more and more students achieve A grades, so grade inflation also has a lot to answer for. An A today probably equates to a B or C twenty years ago!