N1cky

Just spent yet another weekend, with my daughter mainly completing homework. By this time of year it's all tantrums and tears, as I think everyone is just exhausted with it all.

I know kids get a lot more homework now, than when I was a kid, but it seems an awful lot for a 12 year old.

This week she has had:
Journalism - 2 pieces of work, one a response to a newspaper article, 1 a story
Math - 3 worksheets, 1 online quiz, 2 quiz corrections from the previous week
Social Studies - a Greece Packet around 40 pages long which has been classwork for around 4 weeks, but things to finish up at home. A Greek review guide, and a test
Language Arts - a poetry project, 2 hours of reading, a reading review sheet, and a simple worksheet
Science - A group volcano project that has been going on for around 4 weeks, this week though the group had to present their powerpoint presentation, and memorize their slides for presentation. A separate 28 page science word dictionary with definitions, facts and pictures, and 3 worksheets.

All this is at least 10 hours work, often 12-14 depending on how much research she needs to do. Same as most kids, she has after school sports, so twice a week she doesn't walk in the house until after 7pm and still needs dinner and to shower, and surely kids need some down time too.

I feel bad as I'm constantly on her back about her homework, she really doesn't care enough, and I have to track what needs doing and when, otherwise virtually every assignment would be late. But in all honesty I think 10 hours of homework is too much. I really dread to think what it will be like once she's in high school.

So, is this normal, how much work does your kid get, and how do you manage it?

JAJ

How many hours does she spend in school per week? It may be interesting to compare the two numbers (10 hours compared to x).

Bottom line is that if it's causing family stress and/or causing her to grow to hate learning, then by definition it's too much. Not saying that any of these pieces of work aren't important, but why can't time be made during the school day to work on them?

Do you know if other parents at the same school have similar concerns?

HartleyHare

TBH, I have no idea how much homework our daughter gets I do ask each day whether she's been set any homework and the reply will either be "yes" or "no". I check once a week on the school system to see if she's missing any assignments - she has a tendency to complete the homework and either leave it at home or in her locker.

Occasionally she may moan that she's been given too much homework on one particular day, which is all due for completion at the same time. I definitely don't think that she's getting too much as I would never hear the end of it! At a guess I would say that she spends no more than 1hr per weekday evening on homework. Now you've piqued my interest, I'll monitor what she gets this week.
I will be very surprised if it's as much as you daughter is getting. I also think she's in the same grade as your daughter too - grade 7?

Sally Redux

They do/did get a lot, and it often all comes at the same time.

Can't really offer any solutions, they just have to grin and bear it, especially if they go for honours/AP classes later on. Maybe try to include some electives which are a bit more fun at that stage.

AmerLisa

My 12 year old (13 in August) usually has homework every evening. Usually it's math, but sometimes she has English or Social Studies. I can honestly say with exception to the beginning of the year when she thought she couldn't handle what they gave her (she's now in junior high, gifted program and was over analyzing the work) she does quite well with the amount sent home. It rarely takes her more than hour for the hardest stuff.

However, she has found (and we have as well) that studying isn't something she's used to doing. So there have been a couple of tests that haven't come back with the best grades and even though we tell her it won't always be this easy, she's going to have to learn it the hard way. I'm wondering if next year will be a bit harder.

N1cky

She's in school for 7 hours a day. She is quite the chatterbox, and although she's bright she struggles to focus, so I think she sometimes has work to complete that she should have finished in class. Some of her friends parents think they get too much, others don't seem to know (or care).

It does seem to ramp up at this time of the year, with all the classes giving projects out. She's in 6th grade

transatlantic_chap

Here in the UK my daughter (10 yrs) gets basically no homework at all. On the one hand I am glad of this fact, as it means she isn't stressed and we don't have to badger her about stuff, but on the other hand I do worry that she's in for a shock if we ever do decide to move back to the US.

notonuksoil

My 12 yr old, 7th grader, has a study hall every day last period. She gets home and I ask the question "do you have any homework?" and 4 days out of 5 she says no! Occasionally she will have stuff to type up at home as she couldn't get on a computer in her study hall, but will hand write the work to type up when she gets home.

If I look at her school journal she has HW most days for science, math, English and Social studies, she can get it all done in her 40 minute study hall.

My 16 yr old 11th grader has between 3 and 4 hours HW a night, and has on occasion been up till past midnight to get work completed. She does honors and one AP class this year.

scrubbedexpat091

I asked my sister as she had kids, and her eldest who is 14, gets 1.5 to 3 hours of homework per day.

Her youngest who is 8 gets about an hour of homework per day.


When I was in High School, we got about 3-4 hours per day in total, 5-6 classes and each gave out homework. (this was back in the 90's however.)

I always found homework a waste of time in school, I just did it as quick as I could to get if over with, didn't really spend the time to learn what I was actually doing, and well most of the time I didn't even do it as the teachers only collected it once in a blue moon.

ChocolateBabz

My son is 15 and in 9th grade but has an interesting schedule. Mon & Wed he goes to classes ABCD, Tue & Thu he goes to classes EFGH and Fri he goes to all classes but Fri is really a recap/study/homework day. Because his classes are 90 mins he tends to get his 'homework' done in class time.

I would say he averages 5 hours of homework on top of that, but he maybe spends 2 hours on a paper one day and then has nothing the next day. He was really good at the beginning of the year at getting his homework done the day he got it so there was no last minute rush, but has gotten a bit more casual in his approach as the year end gets closer...

N1cky

That's an interesting schedule. I know my daughter sometimes gets chance to do homework in classtime, but it's fairly rare.

It's much easier for her if her teachers are organized, but her math teacher in particular sets homework for different days, last minute, and posts things on the website and then changes his mind...

I see some kids on here are getting 2-3 hours of work per day, seems like it's a choice factor, if they do outside school pursuits, they have to work most of the weekend, otherwise they can get things done on a school night. I can't wait for the next 3 weeks to be over.

Oh, and to make things worse, I went upstairs after dropping her at school this morning, and saw her poetry project on the unit in the hall

SanDiegogirl

Maybe they are getting more homework because the actual days spent in school are less than they used to be.

In our school district the schools have early dismissal at 1.30 every Thursday. So that knocks down the days spent in school to 4.5 each week.

Then its 10 weeks vacation in the summer, and I worked out that between going back to school in September and the following June there are another 33 days out of school for vacations, teacher training, public holidays etc etc.

So with 16+ weeks out of school completely, and only 4.5 days per week in school on average in the year, maybe homework is the only way to get through the curriculum.

scrubbedexpat091

Thats how it was when I was in school in California in the 80's and 90's. Thursday was early day.

Sounds pretty much the same now as it did back then..

Michael

California bases it minimum annual requirement on hours as well as days.

Days:

180/175 days
Through 2014-15 charter schools and districts are allowed to shorten instructional year by 5 days without fiscal penalty.

Hours

Kindergarten ~ 600 hours
Grades 1-3 ~ 840 hours
Grades 4-8 ~ 900 hours
Grades 9-12 ~ 1080 hours

Minimum Hours for day to be counted as a day:

Kindergarten ~ 3 hours
Grades 1-3 ~ 3.83 hours
Grades 4-12 ~ 4 hours

California schools get state and federal funding based on the number of days/hours with the poorest districts getting the most aid and the richer districts getting very little aid and schools typically don't get additional aid if they exceed the minimum requirements. Therefore poorer school districts typically are open for the minimum required days and hours.

AmerLisa

My older kids were in school in the 80s and 90s, their district had no shorten days per week. It doesn't always apply to every school district. California is quite big.