Day prep homework: how much is too much?

[Propitious]

Child's capacity for homework varies with age/ability, but is day prep school homework amount now out of control?

Your experiences of how much is too much??

Why do you want to know?

What age are your DC and how much do they get?

My elder DS is as a very academically selective day prep and so far, he gets very little homework - 15 minutes a day tops. At this school, there is very little homework until the last 2 years when they start focusing on senior school transfer exams.

At my prep school prep is done at school, other than one 20min additional prep for year 8 3 times a week. The prep that is done is 40min 3 times a week, I.e. 2 subjects a night for 3 out of 5 days. Prep starts from yr 5

Reason I ask is because several teachers I know in a number of different day preps question the efficacy of homework. Several heads who I've worked for also wonder whether homework always achieves its objective - a few are not even sure what its objectives are any more. What they all say is that parents expect it. In quantity.

The results of some fairly recent edu research (though it was across all schools not just the independent sector) runs counter to parents' received wisdom on homework.

I'd like to able to say that each and every homework I set was interesting, challenging and fulfilled all sorts of worthy educational objectives but, hand on heart, maybe it was more like one in five?? Even though you strive hard to make each assignment tick all the right boxes it is nigh on impossible to make every one truly meaningful. If this is representative across most schools then the issue it raises is, 'If homework is of questionable value, the real loss is what it displaces.'

I sometimes feel that homework is a bizarre ritual we put children through in order to deprive them of a childhood (or at least what a childhood was when I grew up).

Heresy?

I'd say it depends on the homework. One of the task DS has to do nightly is. Mental maths paper - takes 2-3 minutes, and has been very useful. I have never been keen on spellings, but they take up 15 minutes tops over the week. His most taxing homework is his art journal, but I really value this homework because it has his brain think in a different manner. Again, homework is not an issue as it is usually bite sized.

The Pre-prep he was at has ratcheted up the homework they give to a level which I think is ridiculous. One weekend project was to make a model of the solar system...at reception level. One child came in with an edible version with each planet being a different cake-pop ! Spelling tests for 4 year olds (my younger son can't even right his name!), and ridiculous maths questions (7+9 for a 4 year old?!?). It was not this way when DS1 was there, but changed over the past 2 years due to parental pressure and 7+ entry result anxiety due to the skyrocketing competition in London. Crazy, and I believe counterproductive.

Well ds2 wouln't be able to write his name if his mum cannot even correctly spell write.

The prep-school I was at 30+ years ago had prep from Y2: It was 1 subject on 3 nights a week for 30 minutes in Y2/Y3, then 2 subjects on 3 nights for 30 minutes in Y4/Y5 and in the last 2 years in the run-up to CE it was 2 subjects every night.

Meant a long day as we didn't finish school till 6pm as it was. By the time we'd got home, had supper and done an hour of prep it was pretty much bed. However we had played a couple of hours of games or activities and had free-time during the afternoon so it wasn't as if we were noses to grind-stone the whole time.

We were expected to ramp things up before end of term exams, and there was also holiday work set. I'll never forget the year a massive list of French Verbs arrived in the post... on my birthday... worst parcel I ever opened!

There were also only 3 channels on the TV in those days so we weren't missing much ,

I have a feeling that much of it was set in order to give the boarders something to do in the evening... devil, work, idle hands etc

My DD is in Y4 in a French school, with bilingual English for 1/4 of the day. She has homework every night (four school days per week) and it is always useful: sums, spellings, revision of grammar, poems to learn, chapters of books to read and answer short comprehension questions on.

DD has one fairly involved piece a week/fortnight and weekly spellings. That's it. Just the right level IMO.

But that's a state primary, not prep.

Interesting question this one. Last academic year DD's prep school tried to decrease the level of homework to that which was necessary to support in class learning.

There was a considerable section of the parents who complained extremely loudly and the school returned to the previous 30minutes homework per night.

At one well known London day prep homework was a solid hour per night for 10/11yr olds and 1.5 per night for 12yr olds & (unofficially) the sky was the limit for the scholarship form. Interestingly, the homework load for the first two years was remarkably light which raised all sorts of queries from parents, though didn't hold the development of the boys back in any way at all.

(This was also the school with the famously long break times, which from the teachers point of view meant our charges were fresh and revived but again raised a few eyebrows amongst parents.)

I've also taught in boarding schools and homework ('prep') was unashamedly used just to occupy some of those long hours after classes finished. There'd be hell to pay if some hapless teacher forgot to set some after hours work!

DS2 started in September at a day prep (Y2) and has 2 pieces of homework per week. This usually takes him approximately 40mins to complete and covers maths/literacy/topic subjects they covered in class that week. He also has reading and spellings to do every night.

His teacher emphasised that the homework was not to become a stressful situation and if other family type stuff came up then it wasnt a problem.

Whilst in someways I like homework, it keeps me in touch with what dd is doing at school, I think that it can be counterproductive if there is too much pressure. Some kids love doing maths and writing, others don't, its when they 'have' to do it in their own time and parents are struggling with fitting it in, that it becomes too much.

DD (Y3), gets at least half an hour everynight. I say 'at least', as the teacher says it should only take 30 mins, but very often it is longer. They had homework in Pre-prep too, although it only really started being invasive in Y2.

Currently Mon - Weds she gets maths, either a revision work book with current learning i.e. multiplication/division/times etc., or the exercise to finish that she may not have in class - which is great as she tries to do as much as she can then and sometimes it may only be 3 or 4 sums out of 20! Last night we had about 20 mixed sums to do and one side of a work sheet with division with remainders! There is a x table test on Weds. (Currently 9's).

Thurs, we get literacy/spelling this could be finishing an exercise in her spelling book i.e. phonemes that sound the same, listing similar words different spellings etc. (these tie in with her weekly spellings which are tested on a Friday).

Over the weekend we have our spellings for the following week (15), which are tested as dictation which includes previous spellings, never done as a list and a new x table (these will be finished soon), a maths sheet and possibly comprehension of a story, answering questions, or writing a similar story using verbs, adverbs time connectives etc. They usually concentrate on a certain element of writing - last week was speech marks.

Everynight, they are expected to do 10 mins of reading - dd did hers in the car this morning, as we had a play with lego last night after tea (well something has to give sometimes!).

My Mum is horrified at the amount of work after school, but then she didn't make me do any homework at all and was fairly disinterested in my education, which as a result wasn't great, maybe that is why I don't mind it. However, life would be so much easier and pleasurable without it!! Oh and it always falls to me to be the 'homework police' as OH is never in early enough!