GCSE's -how many lessons per week?

[GCSEissues]

Getting very concerned about ds's education and need some advice please.
How many hours of lessons per week would be expected for GCSE subjects?

Ds has three 45 minute lessons per week in core subjects such as Maths, Science and English. He is at a specialist school but a teacher has apparently said that there's not enough lesson time to reach the required GCSE level so lots of homework will be necessary . As he requires learning support I am rather worried about this.

Ds1 gets 3 hours a week of most subjects. He gets 5 hours of science and engineering (triple science and double engineering). Plus an afternoon of STEM project work of varying types. His school have longer and the students study fewer GCSEs to accommodate this.

He gets no homework though. The school have a no homework policy (it's supposed to all be taken care of during the day, which is sometimes 8.30-5.30). They will obviously still need to revise for exams at home though.

I would agree that that is not enough time to get through everything and that is a bit worrying. Could you go in and speak to them further about this maybe?

Amazed at the no h/w polict CW. Our lot are expected to do about 2 hours a night at this level and that is on top of a very long day.

Policy, sorry.

Does seem very little - we have 4 x 1 hour lessons a week for current year 11 and 5 x 1 hour lessons a week for year 10 as all the groups move to lang and lit options for the new school measures ready for all exam assessment in 2017. How many GCSE's is he taking and what kind of specialist school is it?

Well, DS1's school have gone with a no homework policy. He is delighted, obviously. His is an engineering specialist school, so they've said they want it to be like coming to work.

His old school often finished at 2.30 and had homework. I'm guessing the new school use the additional 3 hours in the day to do what would have been set as homework.

It's an ASD school. 7 subjects for GCSE/IGCSE and some other qualifications. There is just an English GCSE - no lit or lang options. There were no plans to supply any homework until we queried this.

CW I have come across this before. We have a new boy in the Sixth Form who has come from a school with a similar no homework policy and he is shocked at the amount he is expected to do now!

for option subjects the students at my school get 3 x 50 min lessons a week. They do get more for maths, english and science though (and they wonder why option subjects struggle to gain high grades )

If they are doing triple science though you can't lump all the hours for that into one and say they get more time for science, they are three different subjects and it results in 3 seperately marked and awarded GCSEs

The official amount of time for a GCSE is supposed to be 90-140 hours of guided learning, so a something between 90 minutes and 2 hours per week for two years. How realistic this is might be another question.

dd is in Y10. She has a 2 week timetable but each option subject has 5 hours lesson time per fortnight. So Double Science is 5 hours per week or 10 hours a fortnight (as 2 GCSEs) and Triple Science is 15 hours per fortnight (as 3 GCSEs). So IMO 5 hours a week not enough for Triple Science and Engineering and 3 x 45 mins may be enough for Core Science but not Double!
Core subjects such as English and Maths are 3 hours a week.
Also 4 hours per fortnight non-exam PE.

Ds is on a 2 week timetable, state school, traditional approach where everything depends on less than a dozen exams in the final month of yr11, after 2 yrs of study.

5 lessons in a fortnight for each single subject (options like geography or statistics), or 9-10 lessons/fortnight for the double subjects (like English & science). Think of it as 2.5 hours/week, about what OP said.

"a teacher has apparently said that there's not enough lesson time to reach the required GCSE level "

I can't believe that blanket rule applies to all, but if they have said it about your specific son, could you provide some of the support at home, too? Not fair on you, I know, but not too difficult if he is willing?

How many subjects does he do? DD did 14 subjects, with something like 5 hours a fortnight for all excepts except science, maths and English - which had more hours.

DD has 5 hours for triple science, 4 hours for english and maths, 3 hours for 2 of her option subjects and 2 hours for the other 2. They option subjects swop round in Y11 so you average 2.5 hours per week in both.

DD1 gets much the same as fluffling's DD (but with different options) - homework is either serious revision for tests, or essay work. She gets less homework than DD2 but is expected to perform in greater depth - and because she is taking it all so very seriously, it works. She is expected to manage her studies herself, including doing library time and using the longer breaks on self study as well as extracurricular sport.

She knows that she will need to revise longer hours as the actual exams get closer, but I'm actually glad that she's out of the 'worksheets' culture - she's so much more engaged now.

At my school options get 5 hours a fortnight, English and maths get 6 or 7 and double science gets 9 hours a fortnight. That's a bog standard comprehensive.