11 Plus Exams Forum

Can any parents of current pupils (HSFG and Ribston in particular) give an idea of how much homework the children get?

If DD gets in to a grammar, she would have a reasonably long day as will be travelling from north of the county. I do wonder how much of an impact homework will have on her home life?

Thanks

Sorry - Not contributing, have similar questions though

1. What "external resources" should we look out for - I'm so used to using CGP and Bond books (11+/SATs) that I feel lost without them now ;(. Are there any books /website recommended for year 7 and beyond

2. Do "all" schools have end of year tests.

thanks.

Pish- yes I think I’m going through CGP withdrawal!!!

I would be interested in feedback regarding homework as well - HSFG and Ribston are our first choices too.

Homework will be a factor whatever school they go to....other things to consider with long journeys to and from school are perhaps inability to participate with after school clubs and activities.
Possible homework or other detentions...though that might be more of an issues with boys...well that was my experience
School trips that leave and return at odd hours of the day or night. Sports fixtures, Parents evenings, open days and evening performances. Trips to dentist, orthodontist etc.

I have a daughter at Ribston. She seemed to have a lot of homework to start with in year 7, but this settled after the first term or so. This could be that she just got used to handling the demands and expectations as she went through year 7. She also found that she could do some during break and lunchtimes to ease the burden.

As for after school clubs, she is not sporty, so is not involved in any clubs or fixtures, but a sporty friend is and does not always leave school at the same time as others. So far there have been no trips that leave outside normal school hours. The only difficulty that we have encountered is getting suitable time slots on parents evening and battling through bad Gloucester traffic to get to school for a 6.30pm meeting.

SHS and Marling - both surprisingly little homework.
Bith my kids quickly decided that the best use of lunchtime and train travel was to do homework so that there was very little left to do at home.
They also quickly decided that they did not need any help with homework as that was between them and school.
It has been slightly unnerving trusting them with that, but they both seem to be doing well. (now year 11 and 9)

By contrast my friend's dd at Pates had 7-8 pieces per night for large chunks of year 7. Very overloaded.

Surely homework timetables exist to prevent that sort of overload? I would be complaining if my child had to do 7-8 pieces per night.

KS10 wrote:Surely homework timetables exist to prevent that sort of overload? I would be complaining if my child had to do 7-8 pieces per night.

Marling and SHS both get two subjects per night in y7. This should be about 1hour total.
Not a clue with Pates, but I would ask, how do you actually get 7 pieces? Surely there aren’t that many lessons in a day?!

stroudydad wrote:

KS10 wrote:Surely homework timetables exist to prevent that sort of overload? I would be complaining if my child had to do 7-8 pieces per night.

Marling and SHS both get two subjects per night in y7. This should be about 1hour total.
Not a clue with Pates, but I would ask, how do you actually get 7 pieces? Surely there aren’t that many lessons in a day?!

I was wondering that

Pates don’t get 7-8 pieces per night. They get 20! Seriously though last year my DD was year 7 and I was baffled as rarely had homework and when they did it didn’t take long. Now in yr 8 and 2 pieces of homework so far one of which was 10 maths questions that took 10 mins and an art home work. DD has done some other homework’s at lunchtime apparently. If I thought my other DD could get into Pates one of the pluses to choose it is the lack of homework which means they can do other things outside of school. At Open Day the head made it clear that if a homework is just a ‘filler’ it won’t be set as no benefit.