Is this Normal Secondary Homework Behaviour - Or Should I be Worried?

[GirlInASwirl]

The information from school is that my son (Y7) should be doing around an hour of homework a night. The tasks certainly seem consistent with this.

Since he started high school (3 weeks ago) we have had homework every night from 3.45 to sometimes 7.30-8 pm. This makes tea late and I am worried that my son is not getting enough relaxation/leisure time mid-week. I am very frustrated and know that the homework support/routine has to change (for everyone's sanity).

My son did very well in his primary SATS with some level 5s. But that was due to intensive,systematic work every night at home - where he has done everything with guidance. My son is bright - but he also processes information slowly, finds following instructions difficult and has sudden drops in concentration/daydreams. He responds slowly and often with answers that seem unrelated to the question. School have also noticed this quirkiness - but there were differing responses to whether he had extra support/SEN needs. He did however get extra support for his coordination and writing skills (reluctance for the latter).

I am trying to gradually withdraw so that my son takes more onus for his work. His concentration wonders/he struggles with low motivation and does need some monitoring to keep him on task - or else nothing would be completed.

I am unsure how much of his behaviour is conscious non-cooperation and how much is down to any difficulties. This makes dealing with the situation subtle and I admit that sometimes I feel at a loss.

Example Problems during homework:

Only superficial understanding of the task to be done/the purpose of it
Often does not know when work is due in
Daydreaming/low work output when left on own
Fiddling with things/random off-task behaviour if left alone
Doing tasks he wants rather than what has been set
Responding to every distraction - cats, traffic outside etc

At this stage; I am unsure whether this is 'normal' behaviour, symptomatic of extra support needs or just a transition thing that will pass.

Would welcome opinions and ideas on how to motivate children to do homework. If it was your child; would you contact the school and let them know?

I am not sure where this idea comes from that I demoralise/de-motivate him comes from or that we don't have fun/cuddles. Negative assumptions......

No, it is what you said (he wrote two pages, you deemed it not good enough and he had to start again.). To some (including me) that would be seen as demotivating.

I have a y7 who needs a bit of whipping into action at times, but I would never tell him his work was not good enough if he put time and effort in and produced 2 pages of written work.

If the style of writing (a diary instead of a story) is a problem, the teacher will tell him. And he more likely would accept this critique from him/her than from you.

I would really think about using a timer, and remove all distractions from the room (including the cat ), it must be demoralising for him to have these seemingly never ending tasks that are then deemed not good enough.

We use a timer for our Y7 and Y6 boys, and also they are only allowed screen time after homework is done. This seems to work. For now. Thing is, it is not always easy, I do know that!

Terribly de motivating to be told the fruits of your labour are not up to snuff. They might well be below par but that is not your decision to make, even less to make him do it again. What's the point of a child going to school with perfect homework? How is the teacher supposed to properly assess ability / highlight weaknesses if you have effectively done it for him? And it's the re-doing that adds to the time taken which was your initial concern!

To be honest, the first thing I thought on reading your post was that he sounds remarkably like my DC who is dyslexic and has processing/memory/concentration issues that define the dyslexia, rather than any issues with reading/writing as such.

I think as others have said there are several separate issues, not least that either the amount of homework set seems excessive for Yr7 (in fact my sixth-form child doesn't work for this long in the evenin!) or the length of time he is taking to do each piece is far longer than the teacher expects? Either way this really needs raising with the Head of Year.

Also, not understanding the task is a major problem, which needn't persist - this makes me wonder about some processing issues in that the teacher is probably explaining and your DS is writing down at the same time, but not fully getting all the info....lots of children have issues with this, and it's something that again needs mentioning to the school. My dyslexic DC struggles with this - the teachers are meant to check the planner to make sure the task is written down properly, preferably after they've written it on the board. This is where asking friends helps as well - my DC are always reading out homework tasks/asking for clarification from their friends.

If nothing improves with all the advice you've been given on this thread I would consider speaking to the SENCO at school just to check there are no underlying learning issues. Often these don't really show up till secondary school when the intellectual demands are so much greater.

Closing thread - thank you for your opinions and ideas. Situation has been resolved.

Great news, how?

You are way too involved.The point of homework is for the Dc to manage it themselves.If he hasn't understood it then the teacher needs to know this.

Will you tell us how it's been resolved?