To be shocked at how much homework my DD 15 has in year 10

[doggylover2]

So DD15 spent around 4 and a half hours tonight on homework. And she didn't even do that many subjects homework. She did her maths homework afterschool in the library which took her a hour and then she came home and completed 2 more subjects homework. This all added up to four and a half hours spent on homework she didn't finish until after 9:30. She is absolutely exhausted all the time as this is not a one off occurrence. By the way just so you know she isn't procrastinating she seems to be writing nonstop for long periods of time and so it's not procrastination. I feel sorry for her at weekends homework is even more intense she has no time for anything fun anymore. The teachers tell her that it's what she needs to complete to do well in school. In reality I think it's too much I did well with all A's and A*'s with less than half the amount of work she did. Something that annoys me it's subjects she doesn't even care about/need that are some of the big time wasters. a RS GCSE is mandatory in her school (and yet a language isn't what's more important in the modern world) and RS takes her more time to complete than her maths, Spanish and ICT homework put together. 3 very important GCSE's.

Is there anything i can do about this she's been in tears about this homework before because she says she can't complete it all (she's finding herself having to sacrifice friendships to complete homework I'm not joking). I'm disgusted by it and I want to do something

By the way she does no afterschool clubs or anything anymore because of her homework. Literally it's all she has time for during school term. Even over Halloween she had a large amount of homework

Four and a half hours for two subjects is excessive and I’d be looking at her study skills and her ability to summarise and generalise.

Sorry to hear she is struggling. The leap to GCSE is big and the new courses are much harder than the old GCSEs. It can be hard to fit all the content in to 5 terms. Is there any chance she is doing the tasks almost too thoroughly? I am a secondary school teacher and find some hardworking kids do way too much eg writing loads for an exam question that would take 10 mins in the final exam. Maybe speak to form tutor to check this amount is normal?

P.S. RS can be a very useful and interesting subject! Aside from the critical evaluation skills she will be gaining etc it also encourages pupils to reflect on a range of beliefs and ideas and allows them to understand different world views. Useful in a modern, multicultural society I would say! I get it isn't everyone's cup of tea but please don't assume it is just the old school 'good Samaritan' stuff because it's so much more than that now!

That seems rather a lot. DD had that amount for A levels, not GCSEs.

I have two teens at the same school although you would hardly believe it judging by the amount of time they spend on homework. DS rarely seemed to do anything in year 10, DD can easily spend 2 to 3 hours in an evening.

DS passed all his GCSEs with very good grades. DD is also getting good grades but putting in a lot more time on it.

I would speak to her teacher and find out how much time they are expecting her to spend on homework before drawing any conclusions. It might be that they are only expecting her to be spending half an hour on each piece of homework so maybe you need to help her manage her time. She will need to be able to do this in the exams as none of the questions need longer than about half an hour.

DD does RE and it does seem to take up a lot of her time but I think this is because she really enjoys it and so spends a lot of time on internet research.

@eatthepineapple I don't know about all RS but in her school her teacher basically teaches all other religions are fake and Catholic is the one and only religion. She makes the Catholic religion seem like a cult. I've seen her information booklets it's all about the Catholic religion not any mention of another religion. They basically learn why Jesus is great and that's it

That seems excessive.
My ds also year 10 doesn't seem to be getting enough imo! But they are expected to independent study. We've had no guidelines on how much they should be doing.

But I would have thought an extra 1-2 hours a day (4 days a week) on top of homework was acceptable? It's important they have a life and gain other useful life skills alongside their GCSEs.

How does her friends workloads compare? That might give an idea if they're being given a lot or if you're daughter is just doing a lot iyswim.
You could ask school for a guidelines of how much per subject she's meant to have and then look at which ones take longer than that and just tackle it with those subjects?
How many subjects does she do and how how many hours a week homework?

And of course she had homework over Halloween, it isn't a holiday, it's one day / night

Why on earth would she not have had homework over Halloween?

There is a lot of work though. DS1 is in Year 9 and had circa 2.5 hours last night which is the norm for him (but they do GCSEs over 3 years not two - having covered all of the the pre GCSE stuff by the end of year 8).