Out of school study for a Y3 pupil.

[cj030]

Hi. I was just wondering what other parents think is normal for the amount of additional studying done outside of school. Our seven-year-old is currently doing about 1.5 to 1.75 hours per day including one hour of music practice plus reading, spellings and school homework. I should point out that she doesn't do any of this at the weekend. Thanks.

Is this stuff you give her or set by the school?

It sounds like a huge amount- would I be right in guessing this is a private school?

The guidelines for state schools is around 1.5- 2 hours per week (including things like reading and practising spellings.)

15 minutes reading, spellings on a Sunday night. More likely Monday morning for DD2 who has a dictionary built in.

Other HW was very rare. I don't think DD1 took up the violin until Y4.

10 minutes on spellings, 15 minutes on reading approx. each night. Homework given on Thursdays to be handed in on Tuesdays - supposed to take them an hour to complete over the course of the weekend.

Exactly the same as signet but from next week DS will be learning the recorder so he needs to practice that too.

Homework monday to be in thurs, more given thursday for monday. 20 mins max each one. Plus 20 mins reading a night (3 times a week to adult). She also does piano practise but only just started so 5-10 mins.

In total from school it is 3 hours a week if she reads every night so about the same as your dd from school and presumably the music practise is something she and you have chosen to do. Interesting about the max 2hrs BrigitBigKnickers most of ours is reading though which she would probably do anyway.

So it's 1 hour of music practice plus 30-45 minutes of the other stuff?

In Y3 DS had to do 15 minutes reading daily plus practice tables and spellings (say 15 minutes in total), plus one longer piece of work weekly. So that sounds pretty much the same in terms of the academic homework? Because it was a few smaller things we found it easier to fit in than one big bit iyswim.

Where does the hour of music come from (DS was recommended to spend 15-20 minutes at this sort of age)? Or does she play several instruments? Can she do this (or say the reading) in the morning to make the evenings less onerous.

Hi. Thanks for all the replies. The one hour of music is split into two 30 minute sessions, one before school and one after. That's what her piano tutor has advised and she is making very good progress as a result.

A seven year old doing 1 hours music practise a day? Either she is exceptionally talented and motivated, or it is ridiculous.

My worry would be that she will become resistant to this much work so young. How much time does she have for fun?

My DH is very musical, he would quite possibly have played the piano for 1 hour a day at this age, but he and his parents wouldn't have considered it as practise. He would have been practising for about 20 minutes or so max. There is a huge difference.

At that age I read for 1 hour or more a day, but that was fun, not studying.