9 or more hours in front of laptop

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In some ways my Year 10 dd is fortunate in that her school has continued with pretty much the normal timetable via mostly live lessons and some set work. But she is also getting homework every night and so ends up spending 9 or more hours sitting in front of her laptop every day. I really feel for her and i don’t think it’s good for her mental or physical health. Not at the age of 14 at any rate.

Is this normal?

Doesn’t matter if other children are doing this

It is too much.

What do other your DD’s friends parents think?

Either way, I’d drop the school a note to express a little concern. Not attacking, not Inflammatory, just concern and would like their thoughts

My Y 12 is similar. She even spends lunch zoom calling her friends.

I'm thinking that perhaps schools should look at trying to get the kids to do something active for the last five minutes of each lesson. They shouldn't really sit at their computer for two hours non-stop. Obviously there's no way they can enforce it, but if they were to at least finish the lesson five minutes early and tell them to do 10 star jumps or run up and down the stairs, some might respond.

DD said she didn't think they should give them homework that needed to be done on the computer as it would be too much screen time. So what does she spend her leisure time doing...

Email the school and tell them it's too much. They might think that this is what parents want.

Some schools are cutting lessons to 45 minutes so that the kids can get up and walk around between them instead and rearranging lessons so that they have a much longer lunchtime where they can go out for a walk in daylight. You could suggest both of these.

Our school have reduced lesson times to 50 mins and put a 10mins break between each one with encouragement to go away from laptop, have a walk, snack etc.

It's unreasonable, you need to tell them. And if your dd is taking longer over work (either because she finds it difficult or because she is worried about getting it wrong or is putting in too much detail) then help her address this. Ideally by the end of year 10 she needs to be able to do school, homework, and start working on revision materials.

Same. It's awful.

I think the other parents have mixed views - some think there should be no homework, while others would like more!! It’s quite an academic school so they feel they need to push the girls.

DD is not slow at her work - it’s just a whole day of live lessons followed by more online homework.

My secondary school has stopped giving homework it’s too much otherwise, they are running a full timetable with a mixture of live, pre-recorded and meets plus the actual assignments.

My sons' (year 8 and year 10) school has reduced lessons to 45 mins so that students can have breaks between lessons and they are not giving homework.
The school I work in are not setting homework either. I think it would be too much to have homework on top of the other work.

DD has 8 lessons of 35 mins every day. Doing A levels, most of these are doubles which I think makes it harder. Teachers are obviously teaching throughout the school which makes alterations difficult.

Is this all day everyday?

Because whilst they usually have English, maths and science everyday (2 of each daily) there is also other subjects such as humanities, technologies, arts and sports.

I would expect the core subjects taught as per usual timetable. Humanities the same. But with arts such as music, drama and art and cooking and PE I would expect some sort of arrangement where they are set an activity to do off screen or perhaps an odd free period.

So max 3 - 4 hours teams or love teaching with 1 lesson minimum a day off screen.

Then 2 hours max homework in the evening as per usual (10 hours a week). Students could choose to this this during week or even use some weekend time.

I've emailed the school today to ask for a long enough break for ds to eat lunch between lessons, he doesn't have time always as it's only ten minutes.

What, he doesn’t even get a lunch break? Are they not even following the usual timetable?

We are not setting homework at the moment other than a bit of reading if possible or encouraging students to maybe do an hour at the weekend if they've missed completing a few bits of work in the week.

It's untenable to spend that long at the computer. I'm doing around a 10-12 hour day staring at a screen (teacher) and did in lockdown one and it's utterly miserable and is definitely affecting my eyesight and general health (no daylight/exercise/fresh air at all). The students should be protected from this even if the staff have to put up with it.

One of our schools has been great in acknowledging this and they have cut each lesson down to 50 minutes rather than an hour to give the kids 10 minutes in each hour where they can stretch their legs, rest their eyes, have a drink or a toilet break etc. There are also certain lessons which are not registered so attendance isn't mandatory. PE for example they are encouraged to use that time for exercise/leisure activities.

Can you imagine before all this, telling the schools that our kids were having 9 hours of screen time a day?

Goodness I thought our secondary were doing to much by following there full online timetable. At least they have stopped most homework.

You poor kid that is a lot. Sorry no advice apart from obviously email school if you haven't. I emailed ours but apparently a lot of parents are telling the school how wonderful the full days of online lessons are.

My year 10 son has always loved school and is hard working but this online schooling is definitely not for him.

I can see on here and in real life others are starting to question the time kids are expected to be in front of a screen. So hopefully if this all goes on too long changes will be made.

Thanks for all the comments. Because it’s year 10, all the lessons are really full on and PE (once a week) is the only time they get a small break away from the screen.

It’s interesting that some schools are choosing to have no homework or less homework. I guess there is no perfect answer to this.

I feel it's far too much.

I have two year 10s. One already spent eight school weeks working all day on a laptop between Sept and Dec due to 6 isolations. The other 4 weeks, so on the back of all that there could be months more.

I’d definitely double check it’s all school work and not FaceTiming friends in breaks (like my DD3 was doing). Then ask school. DDs school have longer lunch breaks of 1.5 hours and are no longer staggered so the 3 of them can have lunch together & even do something... mostly squabble, but still.

OP, I fear your dd may be at the same school as mine? All day on Loom, Zoom, and a bewildering host of websites. Even PE has its own website. 30 minute lunch break. 20 min breaktime. I drag her out for a quick game of balloon volleyball when I can but it's a heavy day and with web-based homework too much screen time.

Ds is in year 10, outstanding state academy with great results.

They have reduced down duration of a lesson and even registration to allow for a "screen break" so basically 10 mins after registration, 10 minutes after each lesson. 50 minute lessons instead of the usual 1hr.

Break time is 30 minutes long, lunch time is 50 minutes long. No homework, just the stuff set in classes.

PE Ds spends it doing Beat Sabre on VR!

DS is Y10. From next week, lessons are reduced to 55 minutes so that there is a 10 minute break between lessons and lunch has been extended to 55 minutes so that there is time to eat and get some fresh air/do some exercise.

Years 7 & 8 won't be getting homework other than reading/vocabulary learning, but the other years will still be getting the usual homework. TBH DS doesn't mind homework at the moment as there isn't much else to do in the evenings!