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.

I'd be intrigued to know if there was any research done which showed a direct link between amount of homework done and GCSE success.

Is is one and one equal's two, and therefore, the more homework completed over the years, the more successful you are because of the sheer amount of work covered and or, it gets the children better able to study loads leading up to GCSE.

Or, does it not make a blind bit of difference and I'm slogging my poor kid unnecessarily.

Just a thought.

I agree..as most are done by the parents...

Same as OldBeanbagz.

Selective Indy, should be 3x 30min per night. Often 1 or 2 pieces that take 45min in total. She had more in her last year of prep (which was the 'feeder' to her current senior school).

It could be a case of easing them in gently to allow transition through first term but if things don't pick up from a homework point of view after Christmas I will be Having Words.

DT 1 gets 3 subjects a night. The homework is fascinating, thought provoking and you cant cheat and look it up on the internet.
I am very happy with the standard and the amount. DC is at a non selective independent.

DT2 (twin) goes to a top 10 independent and gets 3 boring extensions of classwork homework per night. DT2 often asks to do DT1 homework instead of his own.

"It could be a case of easing them in gently to allow transition through first term but if things don't pick up from a homework point of view after Christmas I will be Having Words."

Why?? if she's at a private school, presumably she doesn't get home til 5ish- why would you want her to have another 90 minutes work? When will she have time to do anything??

Am I the only parent who is counting their blessings that their dc has minimal homework? DD is in yr 7 at a comp, currently seems to get roughly 2 pieces of homework one week, three the next, and they rarely take more than 1/2 hour.

On the whole they also seem sensible consolidation tasks (practice using this maths technique, draw item X using the skills you learnt in class, etc) where it is obvious why it makes sense not to use up class time.

Same here Takver.....my DD often does revision homework or consolidation occasionally (Maths) teacher stretches them (which I dont always agree with)... I much prefer my DD to do enrichment activities out of school rather than school work....

However, if a child is struggling with work they do not understand then I can understand more focus with additional work at home ...also (controversial) if you have had your child tutored to get into a school but they are not naturally able to cope with the level of work then they are going to need more home work to reinforce aspects of their education that dont come easy .....

Curlew, because DD benefits from homework. It reinforces what she has learned in class that day and 'cements' the concepts in her head and enables her to use them in a more independent study environment and get to grips with them further. Sometimes it is also used as prep for the next lesson, so valuable teaching time isn't "wasted" on tasks that children can do easily at home.

As for "getting home at 5pm", not sure where that comes from. Her school day finishes at 3:45 with 2 evenings of optional sporting after school clubs which run until 5. She does 1 club after school and therefore is home by 4:30 4 days a week.

Homework may not benefit all children, but it certainly has a positive effect on my youngest's learning.

Also, she gets home at 4:30 does her homework right away and so is done by 6. She goes to bed at 9. There's 3 hours for dinner & "other activities" (whether structured or just flopping about, watching You Tube).

LaQueen,

DD does a LOT of dancing, and several of her friends in the year above have started at GS this year. All of them do 10+ hours of dancing a week out of school, on top of significant travel time + homework.

Theyt are disciplined girls - they wouldn't have got as far as they have in a very stretching dance school if they hadn't.However, the strain is beginning to show on the girls who get 90 minutes + homework a night [from Grammar A] vs those who get a more limited amount [Grammar B]. Grammar A actually gets worse results.....

I don't, either. What matters most, day to day, is the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. Excellent teaching and learning in the classroom, with very little homework, is likely to be at least as valuable as mediocre teaching and learning in the classroom supplemented by huge amounts of homework - and measuring the quality of a school by how much homework it sets is therefore prone to error!

My DS (now in Yr12) used to get next to no homework. We questioned this at parents eve butmall seemed happy with his progress.

Thought he'd have more during the GCSE years...nope, next to none. My husband would regularly be apoplectic about the lack of it. Still, at parents eve they seemed to be happy with his progress.

We pushed him with revision etc, gave him past papers/marked them for him and he got all As and Bs in his GCSEs (bang on his targets).

Now at college for 6th form, nearly at the end of term 1...and still very little homework. The constant online monitoring system that exists between home/college seems to suggest he's doing ok...We can only conclude that homework is somewhat passe these days.

Gobbin- interestingly DS and DD1 went through the same schools 2 academic years apart. DS never seemed to have much homework, DD1 always a lot more. Same teachers, two years difference. I think it depends on the child tbh.

From memory, 30 min a night in y7, one hour in y8, 1.5 up to GCSE, after that, tough shit, you do what the teachers tell you to do.

At Uni ib his first year DS worked to 9pm most nights, had 9 am lectures every day including Saturday, but got sunday mornings off. Kids from schools where they worked less hard got a horrible shock when they all arrived.

laqueen the thing was at DSs school, the lessons went very fast and there was little repetition. Homework was necessary to make sure you started the next day fully understanding and remembering what you did the day before. A safety valve, if you like.

I don't think, in the whole seven years that DS was at senior school, that he missed one bit of homework... Nobody did.

LaQueen,

Exactly the same at DS's comp...

Given that, for pupils at all schools, the 'end result' is GCSEs / A-levels, I suppose I don't see why it is a 'better school' if lessons go at a pace that can only be kept up with through a heavy homework load.

If the school can reach the same place in terms of final qualifications for pupils of a similar ability (ie corrected for the selective nature of grammars) through carefully-planned lessons at a pace that DOESN'T require huge amounts of homework to consolidate, is one school particularly 'better' than the other?

So if DS gets an A* in maths, or French, or Russian from his comp, does it matter that his lessons have been at a pace that have not required an onerous homework load to keep up, compared to a grammar that might have set 4x as much homework through racing through lessons ... but achieved the same results for its pupils?

It matters more to me that homework is meaningful, well-marked, and genuinely moves learning forward (or consolidates something very carefully) than the actual amount IYSWIM?

My y7 boy is in a state academy, and checks clock is still working on his maths at five past ten. He got in at 4.30, and started on his homework pretty much straight away. He had a 20 min break on the phone to his mate (to talk through his maths homework) and another 20 min break for dinner. He's got no problem with the difficulty level, just the volume.

It's bloody ridiculous, IMO. He will stay up all night to finish, in terror at not being able to hand it it, but then be knackered for tomorrow. Not the best learning environment at all.