11 Plus Exams Forum

I am interested to know how many hours of evening, weekend and holiday homework and study schools expect GCSE course students in years 10 and 11 to do to get optimum results?

Hw many hours have your DD's and DC's spent on average in each year and how have their results correlated?

Eccentric wrote: Hw many hours have your DD's and DC's spent on average in each year and how have their results correlated?

Hi Eccentric

I can't remember how much homework my kids did, which probably says something in itself! One thing for sure though is that their results bore no correlation to homework, not least because DD2 did art and that took ages! Their school was selective and so the assumption, rightly so IMO, is that the kids were bright enough to do well whilst also enjoying a full land active extra curricular/social life. At GCSE level excessive work should not be necessary, they have they rest of their lives for that

Ds1 just did GCSEs and got the highest results possible. School set a maximum of one hour a night Mon-Fri but that was def a max. Some nights he had none but occasionally there would be an essay etc so a max of about 4 hours per week. I don't remember any holiday work and I certainly wouldn't send them to study school - I don't know what that is!

He worked hard in the lead up to GCSEs, starting revision at Easter himself (although school obviously was doing revision in lessons). He probably did an hour a night in Summer term and a couple of hours at the weekend.

Ds2 is less conscientious- he mainly finishes homework in school before he gets home (in lessons/break/lunch). He is y10. They rarely have an hour a night and he never does work at weekend as he has so much sport. I will encourage him to ramp it up as the time gets nearer - I have confidence the school plans to finish the curriculum with time to do some revision lessons.

A levels are a completely different ball game with ds1 easily doing 2 hours a night including weekends.

Eccentric wrote:I am interested to know how many hours of evening, weekend and holiday homework and study schools expect GCSE course students in years 10 and 11 to do to get optimum results?

Hw many hours have your DD's and DC's spent on average in each year and how have their results correlated?

DS1: What he was given, can't remember it being a huge burden. School did a lot of revision classes. 7A* 3A B C

DD: Year 10 not always as much as was set (which again didn't seem to be particularly onerous), warned unlikely to be able to get previously predicted grades in some subjects. Year 11, realised year 10 had been a bit of a mistake, got her a into g and ended up with 4A* 6A (including their numerical equivalents).

Overall, I would say both of them did about the same as KCG's DS1. They also both carried on with normal out of school activities, although DD did drop most of her YL sessions with Cubs during her actual GCSEs. This was her decision, not something imposed on her by us, nor yet suggested by their schools.

So much depends on the subjects being taken and the characteristics of the pupil.
I know of fellow pupils at my DCs highly selective GS who did hardly any work and gained top grades but I don't know if that's still possible with the new system.
My DC's all had subjects that caused them difficulties so I would say it was more like 2 hours a day in year 11, ramping up from Easter.
GCSEs are important but just the start of what will most likely be a marathon so best not to burn out too soon.

Fair point about subjects chosen - both DS1 and DD took Drama GCSE, which involved after-hours work at school, group planning meetings, rehearsals and the sessions recorded for assessment. DD seemed to do much more of this than DS1, for some reason.

Dd is currently in year 10. Two nights a week she can't do any work but she probably does 2 hours a night on the other days plus around 3 hours at weekends.