Is it just us struggling or is homework/family time balance gone to pot?

[StormySunshine]

My DS is 14 and since last year things have slowly but surely got really hard to balance anything to do together as a family or even just for him to have some free time. He leaves home around 7am and gets home after 5pm or twice a week 6pm due to extra-curricular activities. Then he has at least 2 homeworks that take 45mins to an hour Each plus often another one/two smaller ones. So apart from having a family meal together, not much time left for anything else. Then weekends - more and longer homeworks, coursework, etc, etc to a point where we can't often visit family and friends because taking almost a whole day off is a no-no! AIBU or is this just crazy for someone who's still a kid to do more working hours than me?!

even dds selective sixth form advises one full day off a week with no school work, no paid work, just simply time off. They expect them to work hard during the week and do a few hours on one day at the weekend.

Secondary and Badbadbunny with schools like yours I can almost see why you don't mind having no full days on weekends. But it isn't like that in the majority of secondary schools. There has to be work/life balance - for children as much as for adults.

My DDs do as much of their homework at school during lunch and break as they can, and if we plan well then we can and do get away for a whole day on a weekend where that is planned - an archery shoot for instance does mean a whole day away. DD1 is in her GCSE year and works her socks off, but she recognises the need to not study as well so she went with us last Sunday. Mind you, we were discussing themes from Macbeth and some Physics stuff whilst walking through the forest so maybe there is no getting away from it.

Advocating no time out during weekends during school term time makes me feel so sad. A decent education surely includes non-academic stuff like visiting family, engaging with grandparents, volunteering in the local community, training and playing sports, music making in a band...I could go on

At a recent school debate panelled by senior leaders of businesses, one of the biggest challenges they found when interviewing young people was their inability to answer 1) what are your hobbies? 2) how do you spend your spare time? Apparently left many dumb-struck.

I am not convinced it's the schools driving this alone, but the parents' belief that this is the right thing to do to achieve great grades. Of course work load ramps up, especially from Y10, but not enabling children to better organise themselves, and know when a piece of work is 'good enough' and doesn't need another hour spent on it, is absolutely critical to arm them for the work place and improve their social & knowledge skills formed by all kinds of non-school interactions within their world. Good grades alone will not do this.

Apologies OP, I didn't address your question - you are not being unreasonable. I hope this gets better for your son as he learns to cope with the increased workload more efficiently, whether that's covering some at school, or working quicker - it is crazy though.

DS(13) is out the door at 7am and back at 5.45pm and yes, it's an hour's commute via the school bus to a selective independent. Lights out by 9.30 pm on school nights cos he needs to get up by 6.30am so there isn't a huge amount of time in the evenings to phaff about once you take into account 1.5 hrs of homework/dinner/occasional music practice.

He has a music lesson on Fri evenings and a sporting activity on Sun afternoons so that we can avoid too much clash re: homework/extra curriculars outside of school. The GPs live 2hrs+ away and we visit probably once every 4/6 weeks. We always prioritise visiting the GPs over the Sunday activity. It's just as well that DS is not sporty enough to have made it onto the school teams otherwise the weekends will be shot with practice and matches!

When he knows that we are going away for the weekend, he's basically got to do it his homework first thing on Sat morning and maybe take it with us.

Homework on the bus - DS does this rarely but has been known to revise vocab on the bus the morning before a test (when he remembers!) Personally, I used to do homework on the bus loads! He has also been known to do homework in the school library on Fri lunchtime in order to have less to do at home. To put it into context, DS isn't allowed to play computer games during the week but can do so at the weekends as long as he keeps on top of his schoolwork.

I am biased though since I did a similar commute for secondary plus I did make it on the school team for sports so I had extra after school practices and Sat am matches on top.

Commuting to school is horrible.

We're lucky that we live 5 mins on foot away from our local secondary. We're also lucky that it's a good school.

I think ealingwestmum's point about needing downtime to raise rounded individuals is a really valid one. My DDs absolutely have hobbies - archery being the main one, then DD1 writes poetry and song lyrics and DD2 draws (she has deliberately not chosen GCSE art as she wants to keep it for pleasure). These all require a different kind of focus and concentration from school work but definitely add value to their lives.

DC need downtime to do their own thing. That's not the same as a family day out.

Homework deserves full attention. It's not something to be tackled on a bus or phone. Or in between meals on a day out. Have some respect for schools/teachers/taxpayers' money, if not for yourself...

But surely this is subjective. If a child can do it, then why not? If one can snatch 20 mins in the library at break with their ear plugs in playing music, but turn out a decent homework, is this so wrong? Absolutely not saying all children can do this, but children with lots on the go, can develop this pretty well.

DC need downtime to do their own thing. That's not the same as a family day out

True. But another poster suggested sitting quietly at grans in between chats as part of the visit. What's wrong with this? Lots of GPs don't just live round the corner, rather they see their GCs more frequently if the child can adapt?

btw not meaning to isolate just you Bobo but the not having respect comment is pretty strong!

My DD participates in a sport that takes lots of hours. Competitive meets can span whole weekends, from early morning to late night. Absolutely not ideal, but the children know this is part of the life. The team has children from a real mix of London schools, up to age 21. One thing they all have in common, is that they know, in between events, breaks and lunch, to sit and get their books out. Not all the time, but they do it, because they know they have no choice and adapt.

These are high performing kids - at all levels. I have the utmost respect for them.

Look at where the U.K. sits in the international league tables. I really don't think that the work ethic among U.K. schoolchildren is that great.

We were ranked 15th worldwide for Maths Science and English ONLY, in a league table with massively flawed methodology. I think that's pretty good actually, especially against a background of government intervention after government intervention after government intervention.

If the UK's education system is so poor why are your French students falling over themselves to study at our universities bobo?

Don't conflate school with HE.

Our HE system is designed to follow our high school system. Our participation rates are amongst the highest in the world. And we produce school leavers with a much broader knowledge than those from SE Asia who place little value in humanities, creativity, innovation.

UK school leavers are over specialized (narrow) versus all education systems. It's the great weakness of the U.K. education system (though there are others, sadly). EU students perform better at U.K. universities than U.K. students and than international students.

Not sure I understand Bobo's tangent onto all UK school children have poor work ethic, so I'll stick to addressing the Op's points (if OP ever returns!)

The increase of workload is hard, but work with your DS to strike a balance between that and your personal downtime needs.

If he enjoys his extra curricular activities, try and encourage him to maintain them, albeit know when to bail on a session if things get too heavy. Doing 'other stuff' helps with the academic side for lots of children, and can improve their multi task skills too to complete work more effectively

Do plan things for some weekends. But, again, if things get too heavy, be flexible. For example, a child that has worked 6 hours on study on Saturday, surely has some flex on a Sunday to enjoy/go out with the family? If this cannot be the case in any weekend out of 4, then there is an issue and the school should be challenged with volume of work, or his ability to manage. And there will be peaks and troughs throughout the school year - no one should have to just look forward to the end of terms when exams are done and teachers are on happy time.

Work with the school on support strategies, until routine and ability to manage gets easier. If he's driven, he'll want this too.

Weekdays - sounds about right, many families won't see their children from return to bed apart from feeding them, especially if they have added things to their school day.

Finally, if you have more than one child, think of the impact on them, to adjust your family lifestyle so much around DC1 at weekends, that subsequent DC suffer. And, you will need to forfeit weekends for them as well when time comes? This then becomes the norm for them that school is all about study, no room to step out the bedroom desk?

This is not what education should be about - that 7 years are sacrificed for head down during school terms to come out with circa 10 good GCSEs. But compromises do need to be made at peak times of pressure. This is not a schools issue alone, but a misinterpretation by some parents that number of hours worked = happy, balanced child who has good HE and subsequent job prospects. Never mind he/she's a ticking time bomb of unhappiness due to such an unfulfilling school life.

I am not disputing that the UK system has its challenges like many other countries, but don't think the OP's question was about whether the french system is more superior. I also don't think it's helpful to state 'commuting is rubbish'. Course it is (and for some, truly horrific and perhaps needs to be changed), but for most of our children, they get on with that aspect of life too. And learn to use it to their benefit where wifi allows!

At my kids' secondary school (selective grammar), no homework is set over any of the school holidays for the first three years.

I believe they'll get homework over holidays from year 10, when GCSEs fully kick in.

The school is very keen for kids to have down time and participate in extra curricular activities. The school reminds parents to not set their own extra homework for their own children (sigh).

OP, as the commute can't really be improved upon, is there any chance that your son could cut down on some of his extra curricular activities to free up some time during the week? Not ideal, but then neither is a long commute...

Bobo why are you always so negative about UK education?

You live in France, yes? If we take today's PISA results France is one above U.K. In reading, one below in maths and several places below in science. In fact, the U.K. came 17th overall whereas France came 27th.

In fact, only three European countries (Estonia, Finland and Slovenia) came above the U.K. on average.

Also, you asked a poster not to conflate HE with secondary education... then went on to state that EU students do better than UK ones. This isn't even a HE or a European education discussion.

"Look at where the U.K. sits in the international league tables. I really don't think that the work ethic among U.K. schoolchildren is that great."

Interestingly Bobochic OH works in many of the countries that offer a "better" education than we do, and his main issue is that these people might be highly qualified and able to pass exams, but they can't think for themselves and have no initiative. They all want him to hold their hands and tell them what to do. And as a result he makes a lot of money out of freelance advisory work.

Although our kids have to go through a rigorous system that I don't necessarily agree with they are encouraged to be individuals and work things out for themselves.

He does sound incredibly conscientious - I have a 15 year old DS and he does nowhere near that amount of homework, he is 'average' at school - certainly not a high flyer - actually I wish he would do a bit more homework.

ds1 is a year older. He walks to school and is out of the house from 7:45- 5;30pm (activities)
He gets a similar amount of work and has to rearrange his work schedule on weekends because he visits his dad every other work. In reality it's only 24 hours so he crams it into one session on Sun afternoon/evening. On the weekends that he is with me, he sees his mates who also live locally. For him, listening to music/gaming on his own or hanging out with mates playing basketball is his idea of optimum downtime.

My kids sometimes use form time to get started on homework which reduces homework time later.

Bobochic Tue 06-Dec-16 18:15:42 EU students perform better at U.K. universities than U.K. students and than international students.

Sorry off topic, but wondered if you could give me a link to this data?

Do you have any data that shows how UK Students perform at universities abroad?

MumTryingHerBest - it's UCAS data. You can look it up. "Abroad" is not a country that collects data ;)

fourcorner - I'm not defending French education versus the UK (though French 17 year olds are impressively good at maths by TIMMS comparison).

UCAS don't collect data on HE outcomes.