Year 7 homework

[elliejjtiny]

Is it supposed to be this hard? Ds has autism but he is in mainstream secondary school. He gets homework (english, maths, science) set on Wednesday and due in the following Wednesday. Last night we spent 30 minutes on it. Tonight we have spent 90 minutes on it. I will probably sit with him for another 90 minutes tomorrow. More time over the weekend, Monday and Tuesday. Then he will be set another load on Wednesday. Today he kept screaming that he didn't want to do it today, he wanted to do it tomorrow. But he needs to do some on both days or he will never get it done in time. I am really struggling with this. School do a homework club after school but i don't think it's fair on the school staff or the other students to send him there when he screams and flings himself off the chair.

Is it taking that long because he is struggling with the content, or because he is taking that amount of time to settle to it?

How long is it supposed to take? 4-6 hours (so 1.5-2ish hours per subject) is too long regardless. Take a look at the homework policy, or ask the teachers how long it should take, and spend that amount of time doing it (maybe 10 mins more) and communicate with teachers about what he’s not managing to complete.

What is the homework? What is he being asked to do in each subject?

It's sparx reader, sparx maths and sparx science. He has to answer some questions (mostly one word answers) on the topics they have been doing in class. He understands the content but spends ages getting settled, complaining, switching the computer off "by accident" etc.

Couple of points:

he may settle down and just do it at homework club if others are doing it

there will be a time expectation. Find out what it is and stop there.

some students with autism do less homework as a reasonable adjustment.

Also, at homework club then can help if stuck. The last 2 sections on sparx maths are usually quick practice, so focus on 1-4.

Sparx reader is boring, and it's irritating as they would comprehend better with a actual book.

At least you don't have bedrock. That is so, so boring.

Ask the school how long he is meant to be spending on it. They're probably thinking a half hour per subject. If he doesn't finish in that time, then a note saying 'he spent 30 minutes on this' to the teacher.

But turn the timer off every time he starts fannying around.

Posting as a SEN parent, I’d get this moved to the SEN board as some suggestions you’ll get here will not be appropriate for an autistic child.

My son is AuDHD and a Year 7 starter this Autumn. Homework has been challenging to say the least. I think he’s so done after holding it together at school all day, he can’t do more work at home.

Id suggest speaking to the SENCo, log his struggles in writing and say you want reasonable adjustments to be made. From what you’ve described I’d be pushing for no homework for this term or even year, or just one subject if there is a particular one you want him to concentrate on. Some autistic kids only want to do schoolwork in school and have massive barriers to bringing work home.

Personally, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope of AuDHD symptoms, unmasking after school, along with general high school transition/tiredness, oh and puberty too!

Ive stepped back a little this half term. I will remind him he has homework due, but then it’s up to him if he does it or not. He had 6 pieces of homework last weekend, that all came in at once! My approach was to see how he got on, but it wasn’t worth a meltdown about it. He actually got it done, but I would have prioritised his work and left a couple that were less timeline dependent (eg test prep) to be dropped or done late.

Please think of your own mental health, and also others in your household. I don’t think homework should be causing massive family issues at home, so a plan has to be put in place.

Year 7 is mental for homework! DD2 is in year 7 and gets so much -

It does settle down in year 8 and that and 9 we found ok
year 10 has ramped up again but its all relevant to gcses rather then just setting for no real benefit

Sparx reader is awful. I did it for mine to get gold reader so that they can read their own books 🤣 (it didn't like how fast I read)

We were told homework for an hour a day, but ds hardly seems to be doing homework. When questioned he says he gets some of it done during school. Is there a way you can encourage your ds to try and get some done. For example a question at the end of class, a question during lunch, during break and so on? Not quite sure my ds's method, but he goes to a very academic school, where they would alert you if hw was not getting done, so he somehow does it. Doing a big chunk over the weekend might help you?

We have these three, too. DS1 is Y8 and AuDHD so generally not on his meds when homework is on the table 🤪

We do Sparx Maths every Sunday around 10am. I make him a hot chocolate and do it with him (him doing the workings out, me typing in the answer). It’s just a routine we’re in and takes about 30-40 mins depending on the topics.

He comes into school early with me each day, so I give him a laptop and he chips away at science/reader on his own. Maybe your DS could stay behind in the library after school and crack on with some of his homework?

Regulation is key.

It can be hugely difficult for an autistic child to switch back into school mode once they have arrived home. At school they are likely working very hard to cope with the demands, and once they get home they may need to decompress. Bottle of fizzy pop analogy. Homework can be a demand to switch back into school mode, when they are in their safe, non-school space.

Things that helped us:

Getting some of the homework done in the lesson it is set. If the dc had finished the classwork, they would start on the homework.

Staying on at school for Homework Club. This needed careful navigating, as the dc needed to understand how it worked and how to ask for help from the supervising adult. Also a plan for which topic they would work on each day.

Doing homework the moment they walked in. Their snack would be ready set out for them on the kitchen table, they would walk in, brief “Hello”, straight to the table, books/laptop out, work. No distraction. Books closed after X set time, no mention of work unless they wanted to discuss it. Decompression time.

Alternatively, decompression time straight away. The trampoline was brilliant for this, also swings. Snack at some point during decompression. Then homework, again in a communal part of the house.

All these strategies needed to be discussed and agreed with the dc. Clear timings. Some worked better for one child than for another. Some worked better for one subject than for another. We needed that weird balance of flexibility and consistency that is part of living with autism.

It’s so hard if your kid is already struggling a lot. Fellow mum of AuDHD child who didn’t cope at all with Sparx reader or senica science, but maths she could whizz through. We tried hard to do it together including playing movement games on Wii machine in between questions online. I’d read out question they answered verbally & I’d type it in. After a few weeks i got most homework removed, modified timetable too - she was removed from a couple of lessons to the quiet send base for a sensory break & went into early morning breakfast send club ie in school 20mins quiet time before others. We still had massive meltdowns. And school refusal.
We ended up from year 8 home educating, ironically have no “homework” outside a
regular day, we do none at weekends and she’s doing iGCSEs spread out. Honestly school set so much homework because they spend so much time on behaviour management at school there’s so little time to actually teach any content. It’s why 1000s ASD kids are now being home educated as it removes all the physically sensory overwhelming environmental factors of huge secondaries so they can actually learn.