Homework year 8

[threekidshelp]

My daughter is in Year 8 in a good school. It has a homework timetable but the teachers don't stick to it. I am a bit concerned that she's not getting into a habit of doing homework.

If you have kids in Year 8, or had last year, how much homework do they get?

I am considering ask my dd to do the appropriate amount of time according to the timetable either looking over what she's learnt or reading around the subject. It will go down like a lead balloon but if she understands that she is unusual in getting so little then it might go better!!!

Homework isn’t particularly valuable at this stage. I’d encourage her to read for an hour or so in the evenings.

DD had at least one lessons worth every day which would take her and hour or so to do. Some days she had 3 lessons worth (so 3 hours!)

Maths was every day. Anything that she got wrong in class was DIRT (Directed Independant Reflection Time - or Do It Right Time as the kids called it) plus a weekly booklet that went over what they had done that week.

That's very helpful. What I was planning to ask her to do was to read something about the subject she should have homework for. Something about any kind of history on a history night. Learn some vocabulary on a French night. Read a science related book. Get her into the habit of reading/studying rather than do homework exercises. And 20 mins or so for a subject.

Almost no homework in year 8. Maybe 2 hours a week. Maths was weekly, English was a termly booklet to pick a task from every couple of weeks. Geography/history on alternate weeks. It was a welcome relief after the amount of homework in year 7

Around 1 hour each day. Inclusive reading for english and vocab for french and spanish.

3 or 4 subjects x 30 mins per night here.No homework sounds very unlikely!!
Are you sure she is not actually being set learning or reading homework and not bothering? Or is she doing it in other classes or on the bus?

I give my KS3 classes 30-40mins of homework a week.
If there's not a logical task to supplement learning that week then I'll miss a week out mainly because I don't see the point in wasting my time or their time on a pointless task (like make a poster about a book character).

I also expect my classes to be reading their reading book.

GCSE Maths, English and Science courses started in year 8 so there were between 10-15 pieces of homework per week of 20mins each.
Revision expected to be done reinforcing knowledge and concepts giving the grounding for year 10.

Lonecatwithkitten
That is utterly depressing. There's not 4 years of content in a GCSE! Poor children.
It's bad enough hearing places move to 3 year GCSE.
Whatever happened to love of learning, broad and balanced curriculum?

My DS1 has just started secondary school but his school uses a website called Show My Homework which shows what he has been set. So far I think he's had a couple of hours homework through that, and Year 8 from what I can tell looks similar - his pieces of homework are estimated to take 20-30 minutes and Year 8 30-60 minutes - though I suspect DS1 would take longer to do the two or three draw a poster initial bits of work he has been set, and that he can probably read a set chapter of the school book faster. He's expected to read a book, his choice for now, possibly books recommended through accelerated reader once his class has a fortnightly library lesson (this week then), and read for about half an hour a day and keep a reading diary.

I would guess year 8 would be a bit faster getting back into proper lessons as DS1 had quite a lot of time spent on introduction to secondary school, and still has some to do.

I definitely agree with not setting pointless tasks-have seen that style of homework setting from a friend's son and it's crazy. I wish there was a sense of "if I haven't set a task, that means you do xxxx for homework".

Dd does read-and she's enjoying the English class reader and so is reading ahead. I may be flapping unnecessarily because she does what homework there is well and on time-last week she wrote an essay in the journey of a red blood cell and I (with a degree in medical sciences) couldn't fault it!

I just know I found it hard to learn to actually study and kind of want it to be a habit for her rather than something she has to learn in a hurry.

My DD had little homework last year in y8. I am in 2 minds about it. She hasn't yet learned the regularity of homework (views it as an imposition when it is set rather than a bonus when she doesn't have any). On the other hand, she finds school hard and stressful and I wouldn't have wanted her to have much more.

This year going into y9 I resolved to be more firm, saying some has to be done if she doesn't have an after school club, and that we will keep up with maths stuff together too. Unfortunately already gone wrong as she has had a bad cold and feels miserable.

State grammar school. Each subject is supposed to last 30 minutes and she gets 3 or 4 subjects a night. She doesn't finish school til 4 and then gets home at about 4.45.She does afterschool activities on 3 evenings per week and Saturday mornings and seems to cope fine

DS had little homework in Y8 as well, and annoyingly it tended to be a loft of the "Finish what we did in class" (fine but he tended to rush and finish it in class) or the "we don't have anything useful to give for homework so we've just made up something random" type.

It's actually worked well for him. He couldn't see the point of homework in Y8 (I agree with him) but now he's in Y10, the volume of homework has ramped up, BUT he can see that it's all designed with getting him through GCSE in mind so he's motivated to do it and do it well, rather than just rushing through it "because he has to".

At his previous school ds had at least an hour a day in Year 8. It made life hell especially as his slow processing speed meant it took far, far longer. He had meltdowns every night.

He changed schools and in year 9 got hardly any apart from a maths workbook sheet to complete each week and the odd othr piece of homework. He now loves school and apart from one subject where he hs specific defficulties is doing really well exceeding his previous preditions in maths and science.

Dd also got very little in Year 8. She attended a vocational school that didn;t finish til pm. She'd maybe get a couple of pieces of homework a week.

Fast forward and she has just passed 9 GCSE's including 2 Grade 9's and 5 Grade 8's.

Are you sure she's not doing it "on the quiet?"

I was convinced DD didn't do any last year but then she got one of those "well done" cards from the school saying how well she'd revised for the end of year exams. So I conclude she just prefers me to think she's skulking in her room on her phone rather than let me know she's doing work.