How much work does your year 12 child do?

[Bagamoyo1]

DS has just started year 12, doing 3 A levels. He has no idea what he wants to do for a career, but he certainly sees himself going to university.

I'm astounded at how few lessons he has - something like 14 per week - the rest of the time he has free periods.

He's very rarely doing any work out of school. When I ask him, he says he gets his homework done in his free periods.

Is this normal? I went to a private school where we had lessons all day solid, and the school day finished at 6.45pm, and we had homework on top. So what DS is doing seems like almost nothing in comparison.

He wants to go to university but I can't help thinking that he'll need to work a bit more than this, if he's going to get good enough grades.

Or am I completely out of touch?

Thanks

I'd be interested in the replies here. My dd is similar. The thing that worries me is that the way she worked during lockdown (minimally imo 🙄)means she's not gone into year 12 with the right attitude. It's really hard!

I also think that although the past 18 months were awful for them, the actual GCSE mini-exams ended up being quite easy. So I don't the current year 12s and 13s really know how tough public exams actually are.

My Y12 DS has 20 lessons a week for 3 A levels. He does a lot of homework in his study periods but there's still plenty to do at home and they're being tested already.

My DD is in year 12,she's resitting year 12 due to health issues last year and is very aware how hard it's going to get
She has between 2-4 free single lessons a day
She has work done in class,homework and study book work.sometimes work not completed during lesson is added.on top she's expected to do revision notes and practise as is assessed every term(18th Oct is round 1)
The coursebook work for English includes essays and extensive amounts questions relating to comprehension.she also does history and sociology(don't know if it's the subject choice that makes a difference?)

@WhatHaveIFound

My Y12 DS has 20 lessons a week for 3 A levels. He does a lot of homework in his study periods but there's still plenty to do at home and they're being tested already.

Is this a private or grammar school, or a basic comp?

DD does most of her work in free periods, but probably 4 or 5 hours a week of revision at home now she is in Yesr 13. The Yesr 12s I teach (A level Chemistry and BTEC Applied Sciences) are getting homework but not enough to require too much work outside of their frees right now, unless they spend all of their frees in town like some are doing

You'd normally have 5 period per A Level, so 15 per week with the rest being private study. For every hour he has in school, he should be doing an hour after it either as revision or further reading. Homework should be on top of that.

The jump from GCSE to ALevel is crazy and kids often underestimate it

@EvilWhich

You'd normally have 5 period per A Level, so 15 per week with the rest being private study. For every hour he has in school, he should be doing an hour after it either as revision or further reading. Homework should be on top of that.

The jump from GCSE to ALevel is crazy and kids often underestimate it

He’s is school 6 hours a day, but couldn’t possibly do 6 hours after school. Do you mean 15 hours a week after school? I’m confused.

My daughter is at private school. She has 7x 55 minute lessons per week for each of her 3 A levels, plus 2 x 45 minute instrument lessons per week because she's doing music A level.

She has 9 free lessons a week which she uses to expand her notes (she has ADHD and uses text books to add more detail to her notes, ready for revision). She also prepares for assessments, and does as much homework as she can.

As a result, she does about another hour of homework most nights, plus about 3 -4 hours at the weekend.

Her cohort has also been told that they should be doing an hour of homework/independent study for every hour of lessons.

There is no way this is manageable for her as she has activities at school until 5.15pm every day, does additional sport twice a week and practices both her instruments several times a week (not as much as she should though!).

You need to pop over to the Further Education board OP.

My y12 DD isn't doing A levels, but my understanding is it is something like:
5hrs taught per subject per week
plus at least a further 5 hrs study (homework, going over notes, wider reading) per subject per week too. That can either be in 'free periods' or at home.

Bagamoyo1 He's at a non selective private school.

Some of DS’s free periods are used for mentoring younger students in some of his A-level subjects.

Some days he doesn’t seem to have much homework other days he does.

He also has to fit in weekend job and DofE activities.

I need to check with him whether he has any tests coming up. He is doing 4 A-levels so has fewer free periods

I have taught A Levels for many years in a sixth form college. Students get 4 hours of lessons per subject per week which is pretty standard in FE. We recommend that on top of their lessons students should be doing between 4-8 hours of study per subject per week. This could be preparation for the next class (we do lots of flipped learning which basically means preparing for the upcoming lesson by reading round the subject), homework, going over notes, wider reading, revision, exam practice etc. At this stage it is probably about 4 hours extra per subject as they are getting used to things but by the end of year 13 it should be more like 8 hours per subject if they are going to get top grades.

I also have a DS in year 12 who is currently not doing 8 hours per week per subject but is probably approaching 3- 4 hours per subject at this stage. I think as students understand the demands of the course more, they do generally do more. Of course, he thinks he’s doing loads but he really has no idea. But it is early days. Most students also take on a part-time job too so learning to juggle that and study enough is quite a skill. The move to independent learning is quite tough and many students do take a while to adapt and often underestimate how much work is involved. We teach students how to learn independently by providing reading lists and setting lots of research/wider reading/ flipped learning. That would definitely be worth exploring if the amount of work set doesn’t increase soon.

DD is in Year 12. She gets 5 hours per subject per week plus a few additional periods when she is expected to attend (pshe, study skills, will start doing EPQ etc). She does work in her free periods but she also does quite a lot of work at home. I would say she is doing more than 5 hours per subject per week of private study. Some of this is set homework, some is writing up notes/finishing stuff off, some is revision prior to assessments etc.

She is at what the OP might describe as a "basic comp".

Ds1 is year 12 at a selective independent.

He is doing three ALevels, EPQ and core maths

He has six double periods per ALevel subject per week, two hours of core maths and two hours of EPQ. On top of that they have an afternoon of timetabled sport plus a double period of PHSE.