11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi all
Just wondering, for those whose DCs have just started Y7, how much homework do they get and how do they find it? DD gets 3 subjects a night, 4 at the weekend, 30 mins each piece. Is this the norm at a selective school, I'm guessing it is? she's finding it hard, esp after the summer break and being tired from everything that a new school brings. I doubt we're alone here, any views??

Where I work it's half an hour per subject and 2-3 subjects per night in Year 7.
DS has had about 6 or 7 homeworks so far, most being of the 'Design a front cover' variety.

Charl, St Michael's are particularly bad wrt the amount of homework they set. You realise quite quickly how it is that they have a much wider ability range than other selective schools and yet get comparable results -- simples, they work the girls really, really hard. Kids at Latymer get far less from what I've heard. I would imagine QE get similar amounts, but being boys they probably don't get so intense and anxious about it.

Y7 is especially hard, as the girls also get competitive about winning merit stickers, so will devote hours to the ruddy topic front pages they make them do for science, or the vocab illustrations they do in French. Art is another time-eating subject. Keep reminding your dd about the need to work efficiently, ie not spend more time than is absolutely necessary on a topic. The girls need a lot of support in Y7, also in terms of managing which pieces of work to do on which day, so they don't suddenly find themselves with four pieces of homework all due in the next morning.

But yes, it is tough, they just have to get through it. Y8 is much easier, as they've learnt to manage the work more effectively, and the whole competition to get more stickers/postcards than everyone else eases off.

Any update, Charl?

Hope things are improving for her.

Hi Froggy

I'm glad to say she's settling in to the new routine now and is less tired so finding it a bit easier to be organised. We are both less stressed and slowly getting there!

My DD came home with 5 pieces of homework yesterday Every single lesson she had set homework, and 2 had to be in the next day I have found Thursday evenings to be the worst day for her. She is shattered from the week, loads of homework and the weekend still seems a long way off. Fridays are better coz she has her two favourite lessons, but it's still difficult for her to get out off bed.

I found when my son was in year 7 that teachers gave out quite a lot more homework in the first half term than they did the rest of the year. I think this was to quickly get them used with the pressures of secondary school life. A lot of the earlier work involved quite simple tasks, like display posters to be shown during the school open evening. This developed into larger chunks of work later in the school year.

Many teachers also said that they were more lenient with deadlines this first half term as they knew that it was a big adjustment for the children.

Have now found he is getting a lot more homework the first few weeks of year 8 .... I wonder if it will lessen as the term goes by.

Alison

I agree Alison. The homework seemed relentless in the first half term of year 7. It got better, a combination of DC getting better at managing the workload and slight easing off of the amount being given.

I've also noticed homework rising again since the start of this academic year. Probably to get them all back into the swing of things.

I think it's because everything is done by the book at the start of a new academic year, but by half-term the teachers are knackered too!

Very little so far at HBS - which is pretty much as advertised.