Homework hell - new year 7 tips?

[incywincyspideragain]

First week of secondary school and ds has done great in school - 1 wobble about getting lost but mostly enjoying going and has had some merits already, homework however is a major issue. We decided that habit should be to do some every night so it doesn't get over whelming, he started on Tuesday and has had 5 pieces of work, one was handed out on Thursday to be in on Friday. Its been a shock for him, he is incredibly physically tired (short bus route, walking and walking around all day) but I don't think I'm going to cope with the melt downs about doing anything at home... shouting, crying, being generally vile. He's been 'working' today on the 30 minute homework for geography for 2 hours, what he has written amounts to 15 minutes work (and is of dubious quality)
I'm convinced this is fear - he doesn't feel like he is competent to do it, kind of brain freeze so kicks off rather than being calm and working it through. Fair to say he has no resilience to the challenge - he found primary challenging so this isn't just a step up to being challenged for the first time, its a feeling of not being able to do it and then kicking off (fight not flight)
Any tips or strategies to help? anyone been through this and have a break through? I don't want him to fail but am not going to do it for him, neither can I dedicate hours every evening/weekend to his tantrums, its also not fair on my other 2 boys who have done nothing this afternoon

Ours - when they were in years 7-9 had 5 subjects a day, each set homework of 10 to 40 min. Each would have a topic task every month.

30 min a day would not have hacked it. The strategies mine used worked for them:

DD 16 had the habit of going to the library at lunchtime and doing half an hour there, then coming home, having a cuppa and doing an hour. Longer things - like art, music etc things she enjoyed got saved for the weekend where she spent half a day (9-1.30) on Sunday getting it out of the way.

DD15 came in from school and did the stuff that was absolutely necessary for the next day and spent a whole day every weekend on constant catch-up. With LONG sessions when she felt behind

Both are doing well.

Different kids will handle things differently, there is not a lot you can do other than help them find their own way.

I hear the 2 hour tantrum thing. We had this with DS the first few weeks of Y7. He's Y9 now.

What worked for him was:
Sitting at the kitchen table with me on hand to give advice
Large amounts of restrshments
Doing it as soon as he got in

Now, he is a lot more laid back and I hardly ever get involved. He does it in his room, or often at school.

DD started last week and she's very different to DS. She'll need the handholding and refreshments but will want to get it done whilst being patient.

I think it was DSs impatience at not being able to do it quickly straight away that stressed him out.

year 7 is such a massive change. The schools are aware of it, so please do contact the school and let them know that he is struggling. It won't change the homework, but they will keep and eye, and a bit of support at the right moment might just make the difference

mine needed food and drink when they got home too, very tired, grumpy and hungry.

In fact for ds, who melts down when hungry, I used to pack a sandwich for break. Early breakfast, sandwich at break and then cooked lunch, then hungry as soo as he got home! So much more physical than his primary had been

Sorry if its not in the spirit of the thread, but if he has no SEN then I'd be doing a massive foot down about the ranting and raging. You may be convinced its fear, but if its ruining life for your other children he needs to get a grip.

Argh I hate schools with no schedule for homework.
If classes only give one piece a week then fair enough but classes that give out an hour every day or every other day really need to 're think/have a Rota, as when all the classes do it it's not possible for the children to complete all in a night it's mad.

Here's another piece of advice. BEWARE OF BUBBLE writing! Loads of year 7 homeworks include things like posters and mindmaps. The number of children who spend an hour writing and colouring in the title is just crazy. Yes it looks pretty but has little academic benefit. Print lettering on the computer for them to stick on or trace! Saves so much time for the actual academic part of the work.

Monday we've nailed the poster thing - lots of print, cut and stick.

Completely agree that colouring in the title is a waste of time.

Another tip - if they have to "build" anything - do it in Minecraft. Saved a lot of angst with the castle homework last year.

my ds did the raging in year 5 and 6.

In the end I stopped interacting, so instead of 2 hours persuading him to get on with it, I said homework has to be done on saturday before any screens are allowed. Up to you when, if it isn't done by dinner (usually pizza in front of TV) then you eat pizza in kitchen.

Up to you how you do it and when, if you chose to stay in at lunch/get detention, your choice.
I am always here to help if you have a problem, otherwise, get on with it.

As to building homework, ds got a reputation in year 7 for building everything out of cake. Then class ate it. very popular he was!

As soon as I backed off and removed the attention from the raging and stropping, he just did it and handed it in.

I think the answer is to back off and let him sort it out himself. All he needs is somewhere to do it and the books, internet, pens in order to get on with it.
I'm surprised that so many parents appear to get so involved in their children's homework, to the extent that even in Y11 they ask how to help their children to revise.

Agree eddiemairswife. I just left mine to their own devices and if they didn't do the homework properly or didn't hand it in on time then the school stepped in. I've never tracked their homework, at all.

It's all about communication, start as you mean to go on. If for whatever reason the teachers aren't communicating with each other and every subject in one day is setting homework then that's rather unfair.

The whole point of early days in Y7 is to ease them into it, not bombard them with a ton of stuff so they switch off and shut down.

If they're struggling and getting stressed with it then drop the school a message and let them know, if it's all about a particular subject then try the teacher concerned if it's more widespread then drop the office a message and let them get it to whomever needs to see it (likely a dep, associate or assistant head responsible for homework overall)

My son has had one "proper" piece of homework which was to make a leaflet and that was geography and it didn't take long, other than that he's had nothing which is what i'd expect for the first few days.

Throwing a ton of homework at them now is just going to put them in the frame of mind of not bothering at all. I know it'd upset me putting myself in their shoes for 5 minutes.

I suspect the teachers are all just trying to get a baseline on each childs true abilities rather than the static KS2 results they'll have seen.

Good luck with it and I hope it all settles down

It's so hard, but almost taking a back step is the best thing. All kids will have been told it takes 30 mins, and I guess most will have found it takes a lot longer and maybe that it was hard to put something down in words. They're all different levels and it also helps the school to assess what they can do independently, where they need help.

My DD would tell us what homework she had to do (some of it sounded so hard), but we weren't allowed near it or to make comment. Sometimes she would show it to us before submission and quite often she'd tell us her teachers comments, but that was it.

The main thing he has something to submit. In time he will adjust.

Too many responses to comment on all but thank you for commenting

Yesterday I contacted his head of house - yes, he has SEN, "putting foot down" will not help, it needs a gentler supportive approach, he's been under CAHMS for anxiety and I think the advice about backing off is right, it feels like the right thing to do for him.
School have offered lunchtime support and turns out he went to development hub on Friday off his own back, we will continue to make space for him to do homework and be on hand, we are going to have to let him 'fail' if need be. Also to whom ever said let them pick their own time and place was onto something - poster making was done at 7pm tonight after several (calm) suggestions to do something earlier, off to calm myself and let the storm pass - thanks, writing it down and reading your replies helped

If there is SEN then there is often a lot that school can do. One of my DC has "core homework" for a while, which meant they only had to do Maths, English and Science. Which we actually used the reduced homework burden to build up to full homework.
We've also for one DC needed to have someone else write in their homework for them, as they couldn't always process what was needed to get clear instructions (although phoning a friend has also helped on occasions).
My easiest child for homework never seems to start until 8pm, but always gets their homework done with no nagging.

My daughter has just started secondary a GS super selective and we are getting a lot of homework but doing it every night helps and we are getting there. Told her she needs to get to 0 outstanding by the end of the weekend so we are starting with a clean slate next week. First three days she did none so we ended up with a build up. Some of the 20 minute tasks are more like 2 hours but we are nearly there.

I have a y6 DS with probable Aspergers though and I'm completely dreading him starting. He has massive issues with failing etc. This year I found backing off helps and praise plus keeping teachers informed and aware of special needs. So I feel for you but not too sure what else will help but I will be needing that help next year! At least he won't be going to grammar as boys is too far away and DS probably would have a better idea of where to spend the day plus he didn't want it and I lost the will to argue it.

DS has also just started yr 7 and has been getting hw from day 1 so am finding this thread interesting.
3 hws are set every night with various due dates.
We do at least an hour every day to keep on top of it.
The Maths and language hw is generally fine, it's when he has to write or analyse stuff that he gets stuck and I have to help.
He is definitely finding it challenging having to use more interesting language and just learning to analyse things a bit more. He has aspie traits so everything is very black and white in his world and he doesn't get shades of grey - this may just be a boy thing though 🙄🙄