Is this two much home work for a 7 year old ?

[mummyloveslucy]

I was talking to my friend the other day who has two daughters of 7 and 8.5. She mentioned that they got two subjects of homework the other night. Maths and science. I just wondered if this is now the norm in schools? I don't remember having any homework at primary school, appart from a bit of reading maybe.
My daughter is in the nursery of the school my friends daughters go to.
Do you think this is too much ?

Did the homeworks both have to be done that night?

DD gets a reading comprehension on a Friday, to be in by Thursday, I think. And maths comes home for a few days as well. (I'm a bit vague, as she tends to do both over the weekend at some point). It doesn't take her very long either.

This presumably would be Year 3 and 4- so junior school rather than infants. The norm around here is for 3 pieces of homework/week: one maths, one science, one spellings. Not a problem at all IMO.

Oh, well that wouldn't be too bad then.
I thought she ment every night they get two subjects.
She was saying how tirering it is after a long day at work, to be faced with the homework.

They are in the same class which helps.

When ds was in Year 3 they had one day when all the homework had to be handed in- presumably because at that age it would be too confusing to have several days to remember. Didn't of course mean he couldn't spread the actual work over several nights.

Now in Year 4 they have different days for different subjects. But really, he is not overloaded.

DD is Yr 6 and her homework needs to be handed in Tuesday. Tends to be a page from the maths workbook, spellings and an english piece, the also get optional homework which is usually looking up information etc.

They have never been overloaded, usually about half an hour a week.

I like the idea of optional extra homework.

My dd is 7 and I think she gets too much.

30 mins of English a week, 30 mins maths. Spellings to learn and reading 3 times a week minimum.

I've given up on the spellings as we don't have enough time to do it all. The 30mins homework takes longer than that for dd, mainly because she spends most of the tiem crying and throwing her pencil across the room.

We are yr 5 and get one english, one maths, one science, one geography, one history and one french per week. We also get spellings.
Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes we zip through it - entirely depends on the task in hand and also energy levels at our end.
Some of it the kids find fun - making posters, writing songs, looking stuff up on the internet.

Aww bless her. I'd have a word with the teacher, it's not worth making her unhappy. Is her teacher quite understanding ?

Both my dds get spellings and one other homework task, could be maths or creative writing, set on Friday and to be handed in on Tuesday. They are in years 1 and 4.

Friends at private school tend to get more homework. They usually have 1 piece a night to be handed in the next day, which can make after school activities like dancing, swimming and brownies hard to fit in.

DD in yr 1 and she has to read an ORT book each night, do spellings in readiness for a test each Wednesday and she now has 10 mins of homework on Literacy (at the moment just writing some dictation which we are expected to read to her).

She is 5 1/2 and I certainly expect it to build up so to answer the OP I'd have thought that was the norm for children in yr 3 and 4.

I found the crying and taking ages over homework was more something mine did in Year 1. By the time they've got to Year 3 they were mature enough to know that everybody has to do work in the evenings (Mummy and Daddy cook supper, wash up, do laundry etc), and they know they get off lightly because I don't make them do regular chores. Half an hour of homework twice a week doesn't seem that much when I could quite reasonably expect junior school children to help with the washing up- I only make them do this infrequently at weekends.

Also, by Year 3 they knew that if they didn't do their homework at home it would have to be done at school in the lunch hour. Ds did try to kick up a fuss the first time he got lunchtime detention, but I told him calmly that this isn't about punishment or his teacher being nasty; this is just work he has to do for his own learning, so if he doesn't get it done before the handing day he has to do it then. If we haven't got the washing up done in the evening it will have to be done in the morning. He calmed down the moment he realised this wasn't about us being angry with him- but has got his homework done on time ever since.

I find there is a big difference in maturity between infants and junior school.

Am still waiting to see the difference in maturity here I'm afraid.

Sometimes I wonder if its due to her dyslexia, but then I don't like making excuses for her.

Homework is a PITA.

Often it is not that useful - learning spellings for a test is not the way to learn how to be a good speller, and grammar sentence practice is a waste of time too.

My DS is in Y3 and on a Monday gets Maths, French, Comprehension to be handed in by Friday (this is not including the reading he has to do too). He can normally get it done in one evening. I think its a good idea - and it gives me some insight into how he is progressing. They seem to get more with each year to prepare them for senior school where I know most kids get 2 hours a night!

we get spellings and 3 reading books per week, plus literacy 30 min and numeracy 30 min. DD is year 2. Problem is we get literacy and numeracy on Friday afternoon to be in by Monday so it's a bit of a rush.