Does every child in uk have to do the same ammount of homework?

Question

my 9 yr old daughter has had homework every day since starting school, 1st couple of yrs were reading mostly but the past couple of years have been more demanding.the school has set a time of 1 hour per night. some weekends take more than 3 hours to complete. my son who is 8 goes to a differant school does get some homework but nothing in comparison.

Answer 1

There is no way a democratic government would create a law stating how much homework children have to do. The current trend, however, is to give kids homework from day one. 1 hour of homework for a child your age is pretty typical where I live. The stronger students will end up with less because they'll get more done in school.

It's one reason I'm happy that I homeschool--I don't have to put up with an imposition like that from the schools who already have the kids there for about 7 hours a day.

Answer 2

I have 9 yr old daughter and she would expire if she was expected to do as much as an hour a night. Schools set their own policy but this seems quite excessive to me. They need a much more rounded development at this age, with plenty of time for extracurricular activity.

Answer 3

Every school has different policies. These are decided upon by the senior management, but government guidelines for primary schoolchildren are about one hour a week. Many schools will increase this in the final years to about thirty minutes a day (two and a half hours a week) so that the progression into Secondary school does not come as too much of a shock.

The actual DFES guidelines are here:

Answer 4

No, my son is the same age, and he only gets homework on a Friday to do over the weekend, and they get told to spend no more than an hour doing it.

There was a phase not long after he started his new class in September where he was bringing it home just about every night, but it was only for about 2 weeks.

Answer 5

no its up to the teacher!

Answer 6

No, because the home educated ones don't have to do any at all :-)

Answer 7

As a teacher I think this is ridiculous. A 9 year old should have better things to do than spend an hour each night on homework. Schools should take into account things like cubs, brownies, going to play at someone else's house, sports clubs, and just playing with toys and relaxing after school! I believe that all children should read every night, whether a school book or one from home, but this should be pleasurable not an hour of worksheets or something similar. A lot of schools set the policies that the teachers have to adhere to. I have to give my class of 5 and 6 year olds homework every week but it's only one piece of (usually) either maths or English that I try to choose carefully to reinforce what we have been doing in class but if children have been away for the weekend or something I am not bothered one bit if they haven't done the work, particularly the children that are making good progress anyway. If your child is meeting all the targets that are set for her at her age then I think all the homework is unnecessary. If however she has been struggling at school then perhaps the teachers are trying to help her to catch up. If this is not the case then if I were you I would go and see the teacher and politely say you're a bit concerned about the amount of homework as your child also does x y and z during the week. If the teacher tells you that it is school policy then the next step would be to speak to the headteacher. Don't be afraid of asking about it. It is a teacher's job to try and do the best for the children so if the head realises the amount of homework is too demanding they should do something about it. It might be helpful to speak to some other parents about it so that you could say who else would prefer that the children got less homework.