Wow - it's a big jump from year 6 to year 7, isn't it!

[seeker]

My year 7 dd is currently in her bedroom and in floods of tears over her year 7 homework. She has gone from "Print off something from the Internet about Leonard Da Vinci" to "Write a two page essay on why William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings" in 5 months!

Sounds more like she got off lightly in Year 6! Our primary school strongly discouraged the old printing off/cut and pasting type of homework.

To be honest, with my older two we found that the step up from Year 6 to Year 7 wasn't so much the work but the being more organised, more independent and getting used to new school routines.

Hope your daughter gets used to the homework soon - do get her to ask her teachers for tips on essay-writing etc if it looks like being an issue for her. Usually by the time they've had a few pieces of homework marked they start to get the idea of what's needed. At our school, pieces of homework are often accompanied by marking schemes showing what sort of info/analysis/comment would be needed for say a level 4, and what would lift that to a level 5 or 6 etc. That's quite handy in terms of showing the children exactly what the teacher is looking for.

Ds didn't get much homework in Year 6, but they did get a project to do, which has helped him to tackle year 7 homework.
It is the quantity of the homework that is the shock rather than what they have to do.
DS homework is marked with A1 B1 B2 down to E5 and they are told how they could have improved their work and set targets.

DD had a project to do as well, but she did a power point presentation! I think the thing she's finding hard is the idea of an essay. She writes stories, and has written articles and reviews and purely factual accounts of events, but an essay where she has to find out the facts then interpret them is a bit scary. Particularly when primary school history seems to consist mostly of making models of sarcofaguses (sarcofagi) and interviewing bemused second world war veterans!

My DD has had similar essays to do, reading facts on events and then putting in her own words. She did one recently, 'the diary of a Roman Soldier' it was brilliant.

Blimey... are all your children at private schools, or in the top sets
DD gets nothing like this...

Did she sort out William the C - I am a secondary TA & have done that in class with Yr 7s ! We supplied the pupils with all the key points on a worksheet & they had to then compile the info into paragraphs, ending up with the essay.