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Original poster

School hours and homework.

32 replies

Year11Question · 09/10/2024 17:25

My youngest is in year 11. She generally likes school and is doing well but they're really piling on the homework so wanted to know if this amount is normal. When my oldest was in year 11, there wasn't anywhere near as much but that was pre covid and school are saying it's still catching up due to lockdowns.

School is 8.30am til 4pm. She gets home just before 5pm. Then the homework, which school have said should take between 2 and 2.5 hours per day. Sometimes it's only 1.5 hours but sometimes 3 hours.

She's doing it, she's predicted good results, she's a good kid but she's tired and feels like she doesn't have much downtime. On top of this, they're also obviously expected to do separate revision for upcoming mocks which are obviously important so has to be done.

Is this the norm now? It seems such a lot for GCSEs.

OP posts:
Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 17:41

Just in case it matters, it's a state school, it does better than national average apparently but not massively.

OP posts:
Octavia64 · 09/10/2024 17:47

Ex teacher

Homework amounts vary massively between schools and also between classes.

I taught maths, and a top set who are mostly heading for grade 9s don't need a massive amount of homework.

A middle set who are in danger of getting 3s and not getting into their college course are going to get much more.

We usually integrated revision into our homework through - students were asked to buy a revision workbook at the start of year 11 and one homework each week was doing a page from it, with a schedule so that over the year they revised the whole course.

If she's exhausted there's not much point doing extra on top. She needs sleep and down time.

noblegiraffe · 09/10/2024 17:56

When are the mocks? Generally the homework will become revision for the mocks rather than be on top of it.

Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 17:56

Octavia64 · 09/10/2024 17:47

Ex teacher

Homework amounts vary massively between schools and also between classes.

I taught maths, and a top set who are mostly heading for grade 9s don't need a massive amount of homework.

A middle set who are in danger of getting 3s and not getting into their college course are going to get much more.

We usually integrated revision into our homework through - students were asked to buy a revision workbook at the start of year 11 and one homework each week was doing a page from it, with a schedule so that over the year they revised the whole course.

If she's exhausted there's not much point doing extra on top. She needs sleep and down time.

Thank you.

She's in top set for all subjects and predicted minimum 8s in everything. She achieved 8s and 9s in every subject in year 10 mocks so she's very capable.

Maths homework is on Sparks maths and takes anything from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on topics. Then they set revision tasks on top as mocks are next month.

She's so tired and fed up and we're only a month into the school year.

OP posts:
Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 17:59

noblegiraffe · 09/10/2024 17:56

When are the mocks? Generally the homework will become revision for the mocks rather than be on top of it.

Next month.

When my son was in year 11 homework was a lot of revision but now they're still issuing homework and telling them to revise/setting revision tasks on top.

OP posts:
Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 18:00

Sorry, that sentence needed commas.

OP posts:
TickingAlongNicely · 09/10/2024 18:03

Can she do revision on the way home, or is she walking? Also any breaks at school? (And how many lessons do they have, its more than an hour longer than the standard day at DDs school)

roses2 · 09/10/2024 18:20

My DS is Year 7 at a good performing non selective state school and has 1.5 hours per day. For GCSE years the school sets 3 hours per day.

Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 18:25

TickingAlongNicely · 09/10/2024 18:03

Can she do revision on the way home, or is she walking? Also any breaks at school? (And how many lessons do they have, its more than an hour longer than the standard day at DDs school)

She walks so not really.

One morning break of 20 minutes and lunch is only 30 minutes so not much time. 5 periods altogether, period 5 is slightly shorter than the other 4.

Years 7-9 finish at 3pm, years 10 and 11 finish at 4pm. It was changed to 4pm after covid and they've continued.

OP posts:
SamPoodle123 · 09/10/2024 18:25

roses2 · 09/10/2024 18:20

My DS is Year 7 at a good performing non selective state school and has 1.5 hours per day. For GCSE years the school sets 3 hours per day.

Geez, this sounds scary and like a lot! 3 hours a day for homework!?! I sure hope this is not what is to come. My dd is year 8 at an academic private school and the thought of her having 2-3 hours of homework a night sounds like way too much.

craigth162 · 09/10/2024 18:27

That sounds a huge amount to me. What about kids with extra curricular activities or maybe caring responsibilities? Not enough hours in the day for a balance.

Original poster
Year11Question · 09/10/2024 18:33

craigth162 · 09/10/2024 18:27

That sounds a huge amount to me. What about kids with extra curricular activities or maybe caring responsibilities? Not enough hours in the day for a balance.

I know some kids have had to give up some extra curricular activities. It's such a shame. And then the school are telling them the importance of extra curricular activities for their CVs, college and Uni applications.

We're just going to have to plough on for now and hope it eases off as I don't think this is sustainable. Parents evening soon so I shall be bringing it up and seeing what the plan is.

It must be hard for the teachers too, the vast majority of them are really lovely and supportive so I'll see what they say.

OP posts:
clary · 09/10/2024 20:05

That sounds like a lot OP - I wonder if they are piling it on to emphasise that it's the start of a big year?

A few thoughts:

  • Revision when walking home is a good idea - how about recording MFL vocab or bullet points on topics so she can listen and remember? Does she walk with someone - can they test each other? A lot can go in that way, sometimes it's better than sitting down with your books.
  • A lot of HW (increasingly so as she goes through yr 11) will be revision
  • How many GCSEs is she doing? her school day is long
  • This is a key year as you know - so maybe remind her that from now she only has seven months of this - just over half a year – and then she will be into exams. It's not long and there will be great downtime in the summer.
  • Extra curricular is not needed for uni or college no really for CVs IMHO. I do agree it's important for MH tho – all of mine continued activities. What does she do now? Can you focus on a couple of sports or other activities which can be done in a meaningful way at the weekend or on one evening a week?
coffeechocolatebooks · 09/10/2024 20:09

That seems a huge amount, my year 11 usually has a maximum of 1 hour a night, that includes revision, sometimes it will be more, not often, sometimes less, she doesn’t have to do homework every night. She goes to a comprehensive school, but it’s one of the best performing in our county so expectations are high

LottieMary · 09/10/2024 20:10

homework in y11 should be revision too, so should be aimed at mocks etc. if it isn’t then being that up with teacher or head of year.
part of the issue is also practicing eg English, an essay question is 45- 55 minutes; I’d rather some of those were done at home instead of with me watching them doing very little so it does add to the time at home but makes my time with them differently productive

Schoolchoicesucks · 09/10/2024 20:26

That's a lot. With an hour to get changed and eat dinner she won't be finishing until 9pm.
And rules out any sports or music extra curricular.

Can some of it be shifted to the weekend?
So if she has (say) 12.5 hours a week homework then she does 6 hours in the week (1.5 hours a night 4 nights a week - so one night off for extra curricular or just to rest) and fits the rest in on a Sat and Sun morning (or afternoon depending weekend activities)?

Is she spending too long on each piece? Can she spend the allocated time only doing most bang for buck?

Definitely do raise at Parents Evening - if she burns out before GCSEs then she won't get the grades she's capable of and the extra work will have been counterproductive.

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 09/10/2024 22:29

DD (Y11) has about 3 hours homework a week. Most of it seems to be revision.

Muchtoomuchtodo · 09/10/2024 22:36

DS is in year 12 and his state school day is 8.30-3.10

He got 12A*s at GCSE and had nowhere near that amount of homework. He carried on with 2 sports, 1 instrument and Scouting throughout year 11which I felt was really important.

On top of an extra hour of teaching each day compared to a lot of schools, I’d be wondering why they are setting so much homework.

Schoolchoicesucks · 09/10/2024 23:01

Thinking about this more - the school day (excluding lunch break) is already 6-6.5 hours, plus 2-2.5 hours homework is 8-9 hour day. So a 40-45 hour week, which is more than many full-time jobs and getting close to the 48 hour cap.
That's too much to keep up for 6-7 more months until GCSE'S.

StressedQueen · 09/10/2024 23:25

Oh that is quite a lot. One of my twins is at a grammar and gets less than that though, really. She has time for extra curriculars but most of her time is taken up by revision for topic tests, not really homework. She still ends up doing quite a lot of work every day after school though. My other one goes to a state school and it is much more relaxed there but they have also increased the standards. She's less academic so less likely to do work compared to her sister but even so, she is not doing that much at all

Mumofteenandtween · 09/10/2024 23:36

My dd is a Y10 and competes at the top end of national for her sport. Homework has suddenly ramped up massively and fitting in training has gone from being “a bit of a juggle” to basically impossible. She has had to miss a training session this week because she had revising for tests to do.

This weekend we are going to have to sit down and work out how on earth we can make this work. Luckily it is the “off season” at the moment so we have time to get it right before next year’s competing kicks off.

Is there any way that your DD’s commute can be shortened! Could she cycle?

Original poster
Year11Question · 10/10/2024 00:28

clary · 09/10/2024 20:05

That sounds like a lot OP - I wonder if they are piling it on to emphasise that it's the start of a big year?

A few thoughts:

  • Revision when walking home is a good idea - how about recording MFL vocab or bullet points on topics so she can listen and remember? Does she walk with someone - can they test each other? A lot can go in that way, sometimes it's better than sitting down with your books.
  • A lot of HW (increasingly so as she goes through yr 11) will be revision
  • How many GCSEs is she doing? her school day is long
  • This is a key year as you know - so maybe remind her that from now she only has seven months of this - just over half a year – and then she will be into exams. It's not long and there will be great downtime in the summer.
  • Extra curricular is not needed for uni or college no really for CVs IMHO. I do agree it's important for MH tho – all of mine continued activities. What does she do now? Can you focus on a couple of sports or other activities which can be done in a meaningful way at the weekend or on one evening a week?

Thanks for these points.

I did say exactly that, that maybe they're starting off with very high expectations to try to get some students more on board with it being an important year. I really hope we're both right. 🙏🏻

She's doing 10 GCSEs.

Yes, I've been saying that she'll have a great summer break with 3 months off after exams, that it's just another few months to get through and that it'll go really fast. She agrees and she's very focused on just getting through but she finds the long days very tiring.

She does an activity with friends on Saturdays which I'm encouraging her to keep up as I agree with the MH benefits and the importance of having stuff other than school work to focus on.

OP posts:
Original poster
Year11Question · 10/10/2024 00:49

Schoolchoicesucks · 09/10/2024 20:26

That's a lot. With an hour to get changed and eat dinner she won't be finishing until 9pm.
And rules out any sports or music extra curricular.

Can some of it be shifted to the weekend?
So if she has (say) 12.5 hours a week homework then she does 6 hours in the week (1.5 hours a night 4 nights a week - so one night off for extra curricular or just to rest) and fits the rest in on a Sat and Sun morning (or afternoon depending weekend activities)?

Is she spending too long on each piece? Can she spend the allocated time only doing most bang for buck?

Definitely do raise at Parents Evening - if she burns out before GCSEs then she won't get the grades she's capable of and the extra work will have been counterproductive.

She leaves some for the weekend. Some subjects set homework on Monday for later in the week though so obviously then it's not possible. Two teachers have been putting homework online on Saturday with a due date of Monday which seems very unfair. She doesn't like to leave too much til the weekend in case any of this late notice homework is put on that she has to do as well.

She is thorough but I don't think she's taking too long over it. If homework isn't up to standard, detentions are given and she wouldn't like that at all. Also, because a lot of the homework is online, you have to answer everything well. For some, the app makes you redo anything if you get it wrong until you get it right.

OP posts:
Original poster
Year11Question · 10/10/2024 00:59

Mumofteenandtween · 09/10/2024 23:36

My dd is a Y10 and competes at the top end of national for her sport. Homework has suddenly ramped up massively and fitting in training has gone from being “a bit of a juggle” to basically impossible. She has had to miss a training session this week because she had revising for tests to do.

This weekend we are going to have to sit down and work out how on earth we can make this work. Luckily it is the “off season” at the moment so we have time to get it right before next year’s competing kicks off.

Is there any way that your DD’s commute can be shortened! Could she cycle?

I hope you can work something out. She shouldn't have to miss out on her sport.

One of us can pick her up which I think may help. I was keen for her to walk home to actually get time to chat with friends. As they only have a couple of short breaks in the day, they don't get much time to actually just be with friends and have a laugh. Even form period is used for extra work, when it's not assembly day. 😓

OP posts:
OneRealRosePlayer · 10/10/2024 01:19

My school always gave a crazy amount of homework the first half term. Then it calmed down. Always thought the teachers were reminded at the start of the school year and then forgot