How much work in year 10

[Crazycrofters]

If your children have got through their GCSEs successfully, how much work did they do in year 10?

I'm struggling to work out what's reasonable. My dd is motivated but also very distractible (phone and social media mainly plus applying make up!). She also has a lot of other things to fit in during the week - singing and flute lessons, after school dance, youth groups, church, paper round, Duke of Edinburgh commitments.

She doesn't usually get home from school until 5, 6 on the day she has dance and 7 after singing (but that's once a fortnight). She doesn't like to do homework on Friday nights as that's youth group night.

But she's already feeling stressed. Last night she was still doing homework at 11, but this was partly because nothing got done at the weekend. I'm wondering whether she needs to give something up, but I'm reluctant as I feel she already wastes enough time on group chats! But I know teenagers need downtime too...

Is it realistic to have Friday night and Sunday daytime off completely and just do a bit on Saturday night if need be? Will she be able to manage the GCSE workload? I want her to have balance in her life. B

So, does your DD ever get home by 4?

Definitely keep doing DofE - it helps children become far more mature and responsible.

I would say they should be working steadily in y10. My DD got exceptionally good GCSEs. She did quite a lot of prep work in y10, line making revision cards. According to her, It saved her lots of time in y11. Be warned, if your school is anything like ours, there will be revision Sessions every day after school in y11.

She's home at about 4.10 on a Friday actually, as that's her early finish day - so she should probably use the time to catch up with her homework. Or maybe she should just relax!

I'm trying to encourage the steady work in year 10, but I wasn't sure how many hours would be needed. I want her to do the D of E - and the flute is part of that package. She also needs to try to fit in the physical/sports bit - she's thinking of swimming in the evenings, but that's just another thing to fit in. She wants to do the singing, dance and youth groups and the paper round is because she has expensive taste and needs the money!

So I guess she can't really give anything up, she just needs to get organised. And put the phone down until she's done her homework!

greencatbluecat how many hours did your daughter work in years 10 and 11? Did she work over the weekends?

I can't remember the hours in y10..... it was 2 years ago. In y11, she did a revision class nearly every day for an extra hour. She also did homework in the evenings and on Sunday (but never on Friday evening or Saturday). She also went to revision classes for about half of the Easter holidays and the May half term.

I would say she did 1 to 1.5 hours of homework Monday to Thursday in y11 and probably 5 - 7 hours on Sunday.

My DD has just started year 10. Ordinarily, her day would run 7.15 am until 5pm out of the house. However, she's now in senior choir, the school play and is doing ICT GCSE after school, so isn't home until 6pm 4 nights a week. She also has singing lessons, so needs to allow some time in the evening for practising.

She's already wailing that she'll never have time for homework, but her version of not having time is not having time after she's done all the things an wants to do, eg be on Snapchat, watch YouTube videos etc. The other issue is that she has ADHD, so we are having to spend time each day making sure her books are up to date, work finished, homework written down etc.
I'm already trying to encourage her to make cue cards for things like chemistry, and to make sure she absolutely understands anything learnt in lessons, by further reading at home, using revision guides, Bitesize etc but she's not really doing those things yet.

greenbluecat, that's really helpful, thanks! That sounds like the kind of schedule I'd think reasonable - having at least a day off at the weekend as well as Friday night and doing some homework every other night.

Floottoot, I share your pain! The amount of time wasted on snapchat...

If the school's any good, surely they'll set a guide? It sounds like she's pretty motivated, so if that's right, she'll hate to fall behind and make decisions herself. I've told my DS that I trust him to sort his own schedule, but also that his friends/ social life are important too. After all it's not just GCSE's, it's then A-levels too. Are you really going to manage all of that for her? I'm guessing if she starts falling behind, the school will tell her/ you.

Yes, you're right, she needs to sort herself out. I've told her it's up to her to put the work in but we'll support. I wanted to be aware of what was reasonable just in case (and it seems unlikely at the moment!) she starts to push herself too hard. I want her to have free time too but I wasn't sure whether it was all manageable with the amount of other stuff she has going on. I guess we can re-assess in year 11!

On the basis that DS school doesn't finish until 4.0t he was never home by 4. He had rugby and football training on 2 evenings and 2 hours homework a night. He would do some at the weekend but had sport both weekend mornings.

With hindsight he said he would have revised more for end of topic tests rather than just wing it because he had just done it so thought he knew it. He thinks this would have helped when it came to revision

Year 10 for students who do really well is often the slow and steady year. It's not about cramming for hours but it does step up from year 9.

My main source of irritation with some y10 students is they want to take on a billion extra curricular activities but then hand in sloppy homework or late homework or tell me they could do the work because they were too busy etc.
That annoys me because part of the reason things like music/sport/duke of Edinburgh are so valued is because it requires a lot of dedication, resilience and organisation.
If a student wasn't doing as well as they could academically because they're doing loads of enrichment then my personal advice would be they are more selective with their enrichment options.

It's also worth considering the impact to y11 if a child wants to do lots of enrichment to a reasonably high level but also wants good exam results. They tend to be the students who end up stressed, piling pressure on themselves and need to be told to take a step back, chill out and start trying to get some sense of balance and perspective.

DD1 had a steady workload in Yr 10 and then it really ramped up in Yr 11 - she got a total of 12 GCSEs and her lowest mark was a B - and only one of those. So very successful. I'm not convinced that was the best method though, Yr 11 was so incredibly hard on her.

By contrast DD2 who has just started Yr 11 had a very, very heavy Yr 10. She has a full set of top notch revision notes for many subjects prepped already, all the books on the English Lit syllabus are already covered and she has worked through chunks of revision guides already. She didn't have many minimal homework days on weekends at all. I do think it'll pay off for this year now - since so much of the syllabus has been covered, there's no race to the end and they can focus on improving weak spots and learning to polish exam technique. DD2 is likely to be attending revision classes for one or two subjects because she's ambitious, but I think investing a lot of time in Yr 10 will really help. And you may have to ease off on the extracurricular stuff if that is what you both decide to do. Your DD has to be on board with it though.

Balance is the key word. Perhaps reduce the extra-curricular by one. Grades in year 11 influence the predicted grades given to other schools when you want to apply to their sixth forms and secure an offer, so steady progress would be best.
Phones - my DC had some phone time when they got home and then gave them to me when they started on their homework. The homework got finished a lot quicker that way.

Thanks, I think we need to sort out the phone use. She was stressed and in tears again last night at 11 as she still had homework to do (although to be fair, I don't think it was due in today so not sure why she was stressing!). But I know she got started on her homework too late.

She's very strong willed and difficult sometimes! We talk and she agrees she gets distracted, needs to hand the phone to us for her own good etc. but then when it comes down to it she'll resist/delay and it ends up with lots of nagging, which we all hate! We'll try again tonight to set some guidelines...