Homework in year 10

[Ferniebrook]

What are people's experiences of amounts of homework in year 10? My son is doing around 5-7 hours a week and has three after school extra lessons for additional subjects. How does this compare?
Also, the homework is a battle every time. What have others tried? Sometimes feel tempted to just leave it, but want he to feel he did his best..grateful for comparisons

Some schools only allow 8. Our very academic state school has 9 as the norm, with triple scientists doing 10 and anyone who struggles with maths and English doing 8. I think this is typical round our way.

I think the homework sounds normal to lowish but the 3 extra lessons a week (and 12 GCSEs!) are unusual. All seem sound choices individually, but if all 3 together are too much then he has options. My eldest found ten GCSEs were more than enough come exam time.

9 hours a week for 9 GCSEs but they can do them on the weekend if they prefer.

Yeah they all do RE a year early so that is just this half term an extra lesson as they rotate clases.

All top set do 3 sciences and have an extra class for that. He was chosen for further maths so that is another. He loves maths and science so is happy to do them. The 12th was Astrology but he said no which I think was the right call. It would have been at the observatory in Greenwich which would have been amazing but he was right that too much work.

Astronomy not Astrology - ha ha

I would imagine the school are encouraging them to make sure they've written up notes and fully understood the topics as they go along. Then revision doesn't come as a complete shock and it saves work when they get closer to exams.

This does take more time which feels unnecessary at the point of doing it but is a very good habit to get into ( and it even more important at A Levels) but an alien way of working for many students (once of mine did and one didn't).

About 2 hours total a week is set, but loads of it are quick online quiz type things, or 'complete x from today's lesson', so DD doesn't have an awful lot.

School gets very good results and DD is in top sets for most things, so I'm not stressing. It's a lot less than what I remember having (but I was at boarding school where they tend to like to keep you occupied in the evenings lest you find mischief.)

Yes 2 hours a night is too much imo.

They have to realise some pupils will have sports training or other responsibilities such as caring.

She could well be. My dd never did a piece of homework at home ( did it in class or on tge bus) or revision and got top grades .

only 10 subjects? My son is doing 11 and was doing 12 until he opted out of the 12th at his comprehensive...
yes, unless they’re doing further maths gcse then it’s 11. I think 10 is more than enough. Depends how much your DC needs stretching - some really don’t.
@itsgettingweird I agree that 10 hrs a week is too much. They spend 8hrs a day at her school, which should be plenty of time to cover everything. If they had a week to do it then it wouldn’t be so bad but it can often be due in the next day. Time management is quite tricky.

My year 10 child seems to spend about 5 hours each week on homework. She is doing 10 subjects and it seems very manageable. She's doing well and is happy, much happier than last year now she's been able to drop subjects she's not interested in. No extra after school lessons but there will be in year 11.

DS did an hour's prep at school, after hours, Mon - Thursday and then another hour each Friday, Sat & Sun. So 7hrs a week.

She always seems to be doing homework! 3 or 4 hours most school nights and one whole day at a weekend. I hate it. She is very good about doing it but I’m not sure it’s good for her.

State schools usually have 9 GCSEs English lang, English lit, maths, combined science so all 3 sciences studied but 2 grades awarded then 4 option subjects. Ds1 has 9 GCSEs, Ds2 has 10 GCSEs because they did individual sciences because the cohort could cope with the faster pace. However they finished at 3.10pm so home by 3.35pm ish and then snack and get changed, then homework. Still left time to chill before dinner at 7pm.

It depends when the homework is set and whether they can get it all done. Plus how easy it comes to them and whether they are spending too long on it. School balanced this really well for mine in terms of setting homework. It also depends on a child's evening and weekend commitments for sports, hobbies or jobs.

Ds2 has hardly any, a few hours a week!

OP I think it's awful that your school is making them do classes outside of the school day for standard subjects. Why can't they fit them in during normal timetabled hours?

Dd has about an hour a night homework and some at the weekend. Some nights she has nothing - usually if the homework is finishing off class work as dd is a fast worker so has normally finished.

She's doing 11 GCSEs on timetable (including FM which they do on top of Maths in the same timetabled time as the other sets do Maths).

Her 12th GCSE is done off timetable but she started that last year and will take it at the end of this year. It's an optional subject by invite.

I'm not sure why actually. But my son seems to enjoy those sessions and gies happily, presumably because he likes the subjects and teachers, so not worried about it tbh.

This fascinates me! The huge difference in the amount of homework that kids get set. What is it driven by, and how much impact does it have on results?

My DS is in Y10 and although he's getting a bit more this year than previously it still only adds up to something like a couple of hours a week (so far). Whereas we know other kids eg at grammar schools who are doing hours and hours every evening and weekend.

My assumption is that these other kids will probably do better in their GCSEs, but I'd be interested to hear experiences from others whose kids also didn't get set that much and still did really well?

My DD is the same. At grammar y10. She does have a bit more homework but it hardly takes her any time at all it seems! Don’t and dusted in 20/30 mins most nights.
I do think though that they are given time in school some periods to revise / study and she cracks on then? Not sure really but she seems to be doing well

My DS also has negligible amounts of homework in Y10. He’s doing well (on track for 7-9s in everything).

I’m not convinced loads of homework is a good idea - and extra day of ‘work’ as homework seems horrendous. I don’t want to finish work and have to do an extra 2 hours at night, and I’m not convinced it does children any good to be expected to either.

My dd went to a high performing state school-lots of Oxbridge yadda yadda- and they were not allowed to do more than 9 GCSEs unless there was a very special reason. They had very little homework in year 10. They were expected to do volunteering, some sort of sport and an "enrichment" activity though.