How much homework does your Y7 grammar/independent child get?

[kitnkaboodle]

Our Y7 son was a high-flyer at a good state primary. He's started at local, good comp. He would have sailed through 11+, I'm sure, but the nearest grammar is an hour's journey away and we saw no problem with the state school. He's happy there and has good friendship circle. I'm keeping a discreet eye on his schoolwork/homework. Homework is pretty cursory at the moment. I didn't worry last term as he had enough on his plate with settling in/getting himself organised on his own. Some of the homework tasks are a bit and not as challenging as he was used to at primary.

I know homework is not the be-all and end-all, and he's only in his second term, but just wondered what kind of stuff kids at more selective schools are getting, and how long they spend on homework each day.

DS is at a grammar, and he does hardly any. Most nights none at all although he says he has done it at school.

Maybe 20 mins at home, once or twice a week.

My friend whose child is in the year above pre-warned me about this.

I'm not bothered, if they get the results then it's great.

Meant to say, btw, DS, high performing comp, gets between 0 and 3 pieces of homework a day. Most are short 20 minute jobs like the aforementioned 'read the next 4 chapters, looking particularly at' or 'learn the Russian for numbers up to 20', but others are longer. We don't get involed at all unless he asks us (either to help scheduling or to help structure a task, usually) but I get the impression that the longer tasks aren't necessarily intended to be longer, but they are those like Geography or History that he loves and will spend time on for fun.

His effort and achievement marks are very uniform across al subjects, so the extra / reduced time spent on homework seems to have no impact on his actual performance.

Local superselective gives lots of homework as far as I can see, but from discussion with the children attending it, much is of the 'makework' variety rather than actually moving learning on IYSWIM?

There is no point in a school setting mountains of homework that never gets marked properly. It is far better for teachers to do less marking, but make it high quality marking. (ie. detailed on how to improve, written conversations between teacher and child instead of a cursory tick)

Tiffins boys has drastically reduced its homework load.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1059621/Top-grammar-school-slashes-homework-burden-pupils-depressing.html

teacherwith2kids, in DD's case more homework = more learning. So those kids without it are missing out.

OP she is in an independent school and got an average of 2 x 20-30 mins per night in Y7.

So, pickled, she learns completely new things through her homework that (citically) cannot be taught during the schoiol day more efficiently and effectively?

DS knows more Russian vocab because he does his homework. That i am not disputing, But would he learn more History from an excellent History lesson in which he does a short piece of writing, followed by verbal feedback from his teacher, or from slogging through a 'I always set this for homework' essay?

teacher, her homework is classified as Prepare, Consolidate or Stretch and on the whole I have been pretty impressed with the tasks set.

Dd is supposed to get 2-3 pieces of 20 min homework per night. Usually it's less than that

Apparently the boarders have a 45 min prep slot at the boarding house. Dd usually does half an hour in the evening & then about 10-15 mins before school.

"teacherwith2kids, in DD's case more homework = more learning. So those kids without it are missing out."

Really? Something wrong with the teaching then. Particularly if we're talking about year7/8.

Do you mean that in Y7/8 homework is not necessary in order for the curriculum to be covered curlew? I can't make sense of what you're saying otherwise.

I would say a lot of what DD is doing is extension beyond NC year 7/8, along with the usual French vocab/conjugations committing to memory type work.

I mean that if homework is learning new things, rather than consolidating things they've done in class "do another 5 of those maths problems to make sure you really know how to do them" "learn these 10 Spanish words" then something is wrong with the teaching.

daughter is suppose to do two hours...she says in prep after school can do it in 30 to 45 mins top..She is grateful for the 1 hr 15 min quiet time...after prep is dinner . Then alot of playing till bedtime

At her old primary she would be up till 11pm to finish...

Why on earth did you let a primary aged child stay up to 11 doing homework? That is utterly, utterly outrageous!

Ds2 in year 7 at grammar.

It really varies. Some weeks loads, other weeks hardly any. Tends to get maths & English every week. Vocab learning for mfl & Latin. Revision for tests - and a lot of extended project work where they're given a longer piece which is always left to the last minute

It's enough - I wouldn't want him to have any more, but it's not every day. He tends to do the majority of it at the weekend.

Oh bizarrely he gets loads of art homework. I don't remember ever being set homework in art (didn't do it for I level) he's rubbish at art

Saintly, from bitter experience- don't let him choose Art for GCSE. It's a positive nightmare!

Oh don't worry curlew there's no chance of that. He has inherited mine & his father's drawing skills

He's already asked when he can give it up!

Phew. I want to get t shirts printed. We are still traumatized as a family 2 years later.

At least it taught dd very young what pulling an all nighter felt like.

curlew, nothing wrong with the teaching afaik. I can see clearly that DD is 'learning' as she applies herself to her homework. Sometimes a concept will become crystal clear to her or in a subject like philosophy religion and ethics (PRE) she might learn something new about herself. She learns many new facts when researching for history homework etc but in all of this she is learning how to learn. I feel that it is a good use of her time.

curlew I think that Kenlee is living in a different country with a very tough education system, and that her DD is now at school in the UK (sorry if I'm confusing you Kenlee!).

I'm relieved to see that hours spent on homework is not necessarily a sign of good education (although it might be).

Before DS went to this school, we were told the kids did 2 hours a night. He's never done 2 hours a night!

Its great but occasionally I feel nervous, like the OP I presume, when parents of kids from other schools talk about the massive amount of work their kids are doing.

duchesse you are correct....yes curlew it was getting beyond stupid..9 pieces of homework a night...some that wasn't taught very well I may add...Which made working out what the teacher wanted a virtual minefield...

On top of that you had the music lessons and swimming lessons....

She loves boarding in the UK...maths to her is P4 maths so she is always top of the class...Her English is what we call formula English so although she does not write in a very contemporary style. It at least is not grammatically incorrect.

She is able now to relax and enjoy school as it should be...Homework is no good if its just repetition. She finds prepping for the next days lesson more fun now as the teacher engages her when she asks questions.