I tend to help with the 'decorate the book and cover it in sticky backed plastic' h/w. I confess I actually did DS1's entirely, that being covering his geography exercise book. I would rather a Y9 put the time into researching the properties of alloys, his other bit of h/w actually. Oh, and I'm a lot better than they are at it 
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H/w happens downstairs here, DS1 on his laptop slumped on a sofa (we are remedying that), DS2 at the dining table in the room that opens directly to the kitchen and living room, so I am always just a 'muuuum!' away.
A good friend of mine speaks of her regret that her DS was allowed to take to his room too early (Y9), complete with XBox, to do 'homework' and 'revision', partly through space restrictions in the house. The barely scraped 'A' levels make her feel she should have been supervising far more.
Re the social aspects of secondary, my 'fear' is that my 'beige' DS2 a) will slip under the teachers' radar, and b), once the honeymoon is over, will be billy-no-mates as his louder, more outgoing, more mature and socially skilled 'mates' find new friends whereas he won't. He will be sitting alone at lunch, too, I imagine.