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The beginner's guide to primary-school homework

What’s the point of homework?

For many families, homework is a nightly battle, but primary schools set it for a variety of reasons. ‘It helps to consolidate the skills that are being taught at school, and provides children with additional revision opportunities,’ explains head teacher Steph Matthews of St Paul’s CofE School, Gloucester .

‘It also gives children an opportunity to explore learning in an unstructured setting, encouraging them to be independent and follow their own lines of enquiry.’ In addition, homework creates a partnership between school and family, giving parents an insight into what their child is learning.

How much homework should my child get in primary school?

In the past, the Department for Education advised that Key Stage 1 children should do an hour of homework each week, rising to half an hour per night in Key Stage 2. This advice was scrapped in 2012, giving schools more freedom, but many still follow the old guidelines.

In Reception , formal homework is rarely set. However, children are likely to bring home books to share with the family, first reading books, and/or keywords to learn.

In Years 1 and 2 , children are likely to have one or two tasks per week. This could be literacy or numeracy worksheets (for example an exercise where children have to compare the weights of different household items), a short piece of writing (such as a recount of a school trip) or work relating to the class topic (find out five facts about the Great Fire of London ).

In Years 3 and 4 , most schools set two homework activities each week: typically, one literacy (such as a worksheet on collective nouns, or a book review ) and one numeracy (a worksheet on bar charts).

In Years 5 and 6 , children may have two or three pieces of homework each week. ‘The amount begins to increase to prepare children for SATs and the transition to secondary school,’ says Steph. These activities might include maths worksheets, researching a topic, book reviews and grammar exercises.

Alongside formal homework tasks, most children bring home reading scheme books from Reception onwards, with weekly spellings and times tables from Year 1 or 2.

Learning logs and homework challenges

Not all schools rely on handing out worksheets. Learning logs or challenges are becoming more popular: children are given a folder of suggested activities – from writing a poem to building a model castle – and must choose a certain number to complete throughout the term.

Other schools ensure that homework ties in with the current class topic. ‘We have a themed approach, and set homework activities that give opportunities to explore the topic in a fun way, for example, designing a method of transport that Phileas Fogg could use to travel the world,’ explains Steph.  

Modern homework methods

Unsurprisingly, technology is playing an increasingly important part in homework. Some schools use online reading schemes such as Bug Club , where teachers allocate e-books of the appropriate level, or subscription services like SAM Learning  to set cross-curricular tasks.

A growing number also set homework electronically , with children logging into the school website to download their task.

What if the homework is too much – or too hard?

If you feel your child is overloaded with homework, speak to the teacher. ‘Forcing children to complete homework is counterproductive, because they come to perceive it as a chore,’ says Rod Grant, head teacher of Clifton Hall School, Edinburgh . ‘This makes learning appear boring, arduous or both, and that is really dangerous, in my view.’

Most schools publish their homework policy on the school website , telling parents exactly what to expect. ‘Teachers should make their expectations very clear in terms of deadlines and how long it should take, and should also differentiate tasks to suit the level of the pupil,’ adds Steph.

No homework at all?

If your child doesn’t get any homework, you may feel out of touch with his learning, or concerned that he isn’t being challenged. But there are good reasons why some schools don’t set homework, or set it only occasionally, says Rod. ‘Although homework can be beneficial, family life tends to suffer as a result of it being imposed,’ he explains. ‘ If a school isn’t providing homework, there’s plenty that parents can do at home instead : reading with their children, doing number puzzles on car journeys, using online resources, and so on.’

Parents may also worry that without doing homework, children won’t develop study habits for later life. ‘There is genuinely no need for a six-year-old to get into a routine of working at home; there’s time to learn that later,’ Rod advises. ‘Parents need to relax and encourage children to love learning – and that comes when learning is fun, relevant and engaging, not through doing homework tasks that are unchallenging, or secretarial in nature.’

Homework: advice and support for primary-school parents

For information and support on all aspects of homework, from managing other siblings to helping with specific subjects, head to our Homework area.

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How Much Homework Is Enough? Depends Who You Ask

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Editor’s note: This is an adapted excerpt from You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education ( Viking)—the latest book by author and speaker Sir Ken Robinson (co-authored with Lou Aronica), published in March. For years, Robinson has been known for his radical work on rekindling creativity and passion in schools, including three bestselling books (also with Aronica) on the topic. His TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” holds the record for the most-viewed TED talk of all time, with more than 50 million views. While Robinson’s latest book is geared toward parents, it also offers educators a window into the kinds of education concerns parents have for their children, including on the quality and quantity of homework.

The amount of homework young people are given varies a lot from school to school and from grade to grade. In some schools and grades, children have no homework at all. In others, they may have 18 hours or more of homework every week. In the United States, the accepted guideline, which is supported by both the National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association, is the 10-minute rule: Children should have no more than 10 minutes of homework each day for each grade reached. In 1st grade, children should have 10 minutes of daily homework; in 2nd grade, 20 minutes; and so on to the 12th grade, when on average they should have 120 minutes of homework each day, which is about 10 hours a week. It doesn’t always work out that way.

In 2013, the University of Phoenix College of Education commissioned a survey of how much homework teachers typically give their students. From kindergarten to 5th grade, it was just under three hours per week; from 6th to 8th grade, it was 3.2 hours; and from 9th to 12th grade, it was 3.5 hours.

There are two points to note. First, these are the amounts given by individual teachers. To estimate the total time children are expected to spend on homework, you need to multiply these hours by the number of teachers they work with. High school students who work with five teachers in different curriculum areas may find themselves with 17.5 hours or more of homework a week, which is the equivalent of a part-time job. The other factor is that these are teachers’ estimates of the time that homework should take. The time that individual children spend on it will be more or less than that, according to their abilities and interests. One child may casually dash off a piece of homework in half the time that another will spend laboring through in a cold sweat.

Do students have more homework these days than previous generations? Given all the variables, it’s difficult to say. Some studies suggest they do. In 2007, a study from the National Center for Education Statistics found that, on average, high school students spent around seven hours a week on homework. A similar study in 1994 put the average at less than five hours a week. Mind you, I [Robinson] was in high school in England in the 1960s and spent a lot more time than that—though maybe that was to do with my own ability. One way of judging this is to look at how much homework your own children are given and compare it to what you had at the same age.

Many parents find it difficult to help their children with subjects they’ve not studied themselves for a long time, if at all.

There’s also much debate about the value of homework. Supporters argue that it benefits children, teachers, and parents in several ways:

• Children learn to deepen their understanding of specific content, to cover content at their own pace, to become more independent learners, to develop problem-solving and time-management skills, and to relate what they learn in school to outside activities.
• Teachers can see how well their students understand the lessons; evaluate students’ individual progress, strengths, and weaknesses; and cover more content in class.
• Parents can engage practically in their children’s education, see firsthand what their children are being taught in school, and understand more clearly how they’re getting on—what they find easy and what they struggle with in school.

Want to know more about Sir Ken Robinson? Check out our Q&A with him.

Q&A With Sir Ken Robinson

Ashley Norris is assistant dean at the University of Phoenix College of Education. Commenting on her university’s survey, she says, “Homework helps build confidence, responsibility, and problem-solving skills that can set students up for success in high school, college, and in the workplace.”

That may be so, but many parents find it difficult to help their children with subjects they’ve not studied themselves for a long time, if at all. Families have busy lives, and it can be hard for parents to find time to help with homework alongside everything else they have to cope with. Norris is convinced it’s worth the effort, especially, she says, because in many schools, the nature of homework is changing. One influence is the growing popularity of the so-called flipped classroom.

In the stereotypical classroom, the teacher spends time in class presenting material to the students. Their homework consists of assignments based on that material. In the flipped classroom, the teacher provides the students with presentational materials—videos, slides, lecture notes—which the students review at home and then bring questions and ideas to school where they work on them collaboratively with the teacher and other students. As Norris notes, in this approach, homework extends the boundaries of the classroom and reframes how time in school can be used more productively, allowing students to “collaborate on learning, learn from each other, maybe critique [each other’s work], and share those experiences.”

Even so, many parents and educators are increasingly concerned that homework, in whatever form it takes, is a bridge too far in the pressured lives of children and their families. It takes away from essential time for their children to relax and unwind after school, to play, to be young, and to be together as a family. On top of that, the benefits of homework are often asserted, but they’re not consistent, and they’re certainly not guaranteed.

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Do our kids have too much homework?

by: Marian Wilde | Updated: January 31, 2024

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Many students and their parents are frazzled by the amount of homework being piled on in the schools. Yet many researchers say that American students have just the right amount of homework.

“Kids today are overwhelmed!” a parent recently wrote in an email to GreatSchools.org “My first-grade son was required to research a significant person from history and write a paper of at least two pages about the person, with a bibliography. How can he be expected to do that by himself? He just started to learn to read and write a couple of months ago. Schools are pushing too hard and expecting too much from kids.”

Diane Garfield, a fifth grade teacher in San Francisco, concurs. “I believe that we’re stressing children out,” she says.

But hold on, it’s not just the kids who are stressed out . “Teachers nowadays assign these almost college-level projects with requirements that make my mouth fall open with disbelief,” says another frustrated parent. “It’s not just the kids who suffer!”

“How many people take home an average of two hours or more of work that must be completed for the next day?” asks Tonya Noonan Herring, a New Mexico mother of three, an attorney and a former high school English teacher. “Most of us, even attorneys, do not do this. Bottom line: students have too much homework and most of it is not productive or necessary.”

Research about homework

How do educational researchers weigh in on the issue? According to Brian Gill, a senior social scientist at the Rand Corporation, there is no evidence that kids are doing more homework than they did before.

“If you look at high school kids in the late ’90s, they’re not doing substantially more homework than kids did in the ’80s, ’70s, ’60s or the ’40s,” he says. “In fact, the trends through most of this time period are pretty flat. And most high school students in this country don’t do a lot of homework. The median appears to be about four hours a week.”

Education researchers like Gill base their conclusions, in part, on data gathered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.

“It doesn’t suggest that most kids are doing a tremendous amount,” says Gill. “That’s not to say there aren’t any kids with too much homework. There surely are some. There’s enormous variation across communities. But it’s not a crisis in that it’s a very small proportion of kids who are spending an enormous amount of time on homework.”

Etta Kralovec, author of The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning , disagrees, saying NAEP data is not a reliable source of information. “Students take the NAEP test and one of the questions they have to fill out is, ‘How much homework did you do last night’ Anybody who knows schools knows that teachers by and large do not give homework the night before a national assessment. It just doesn’t happen. Teachers are very clear with kids that they need to get a good night’s sleep and they need to eat well to prepare for a test.

“So asking a kid how much homework they did the night before a national test and claiming that that data tells us anything about the general run of the mill experience of kids and homework over the school year is, I think, really dishonest.”

Further muddying the waters is an AP/AOL poll that suggests that most Americans feel that their children are getting the right amount of homework. It found that 57% of parents felt that their child was assigned about the right amount of homework, 23% thought there was too little and 19% thought there was too much.

One indisputable fact

One homework fact that educators do agree upon is that the young child today is doing more homework than ever before.

“Parents are correct in saying that they didn’t get homework in the early grades and that their kids do,” says Harris Cooper, professor of psychology and director of the education program at Duke University.

Gill quantifies the change this way: “There has been some increase in homework for the kids in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. But it’s been an increase from zero to 20 minutes a day. So that is something that’s fairly new in the last quarter century.”

The history of homework

In his research, Gill found that homework has always been controversial. “Around the turn of the 20th century, the Ladies’ Home Journal carried on a crusade against homework. They thought that kids were better off spending their time outside playing and looking at clouds. The most spectacular success this movement had was in the state of California, where in 1901 the legislature passed a law abolishing homework in grades K-8. That lasted about 15 years and then was quietly repealed. Then there was a lot of activism against homework again in the 1930s.”

The proponents of homework have remained consistent in their reasons for why homework is a beneficial practice, says Gill. “One, it extends the work in the classroom with additional time on task. Second, it develops habits of independent study. Third, it’s a form of communication between the school and the parents. It gives parents an idea of what their kids are doing in school.”

The anti-homework crowd has also been consistent in their reasons for wanting to abolish or reduce homework.

“The first one is children’s health,” says Gill. “A hundred years ago, you had medical doctors testifying that heavy loads of books were causing children’s spines to be bent.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems. There were also concerns about excessive amounts of stress .

“Although they didn’t use the term ‘stress,'” says Gill. “They worried about ‘nervous breakdowns.'”

“In the 1930s, there were lots of graduate students in education schools around the country who were doing experiments that claimed to show that homework had no academic value — that kids who got homework didn’t learn any more than kids who didn’t,” Gill continues. Also, a lot of the opposition to homework, in the first half of the 20th century, was motivated by a notion that it was a leftover from a 19th-century model of schooling, which was based on recitation, memorization and drill. Progressive educators were trying to replace that with something more creative, something more interesting to kids.”

The more-is-better movement

Garfield, the San Francisco fifth-grade teacher, says that when she started teaching 30 years ago, she didn’t give any homework. “Then parents started asking for it,” she says. “I got In junior high and high school there’s so much homework, they need to get prepared.” So I bought that one. I said, ‘OK, they need to be prepared.’ But they don’t need two hours.”

Cooper sees the trend toward more homework as symptomatic of high-achieving parents who want the best for their children. “Part of it, I think, is pressure from the parents with regard to their desire to have their kids be competitive for the best universities in the country. The communities in which homework is being piled on are generally affluent communities.”

The less-is-better campaign

Alfie Kohn, a widely-admired progressive writer on education and parenting, published a sharp rebuttal to the more-homework-is-better argument in his 2006 book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing . Kohn criticized the pro-homework studies that Cooper referenced as “inconclusive… they only show an association, not a causal relationship” and he titled his first chapter “Missing Out on Their Childhoods.”

Vera Goodman’s 2020 book, Simply Too Much Homework: What Can We Do? , repeats Kohn’s scrutiny and urges parents to appeal to school and government leaders to revise homework policies. Goodman believes today’s homework load stresses out teachers, parents, and students, deprives children of unstructured time for play, hobbies, and individual pursuits, and inhibits the joy of learning.

Homework guidelines

What’s a parent to do, you ask? Fortunately, there are some sanity-saving homework guidelines.

Cooper points to “The 10-Minute Rule” formulated by the National PTA and the National Education Association, which suggests that kids should be doing about 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level. In other words, 10 minutes for first-graders, 20 for second-graders and so on.

Too much homework vs. the optimal amount

Cooper has found that the correlation between homework and achievement is generally supportive of these guidelines. “We found that for kids in elementary school there was hardly any relationship between how much homework young children did and how well they were doing in school, but in middle school the relationship is positive and increases until the kids were doing between an hour to two hours a night, which is right where the 10-minute rule says it’s going to be optimal.

“After that it didn’t go up anymore. Kids that reported doing more than two hours of homework a night in middle school weren’t doing any better in school than kids who were doing between an hour to two hours.”

Garfield has a very clear homework policy that she distributes to her parents at the beginning of each school year. “I give one subject a night. It’s what we were studying in class or preparation for the next day. It should be done within half an hour at most. I believe that children have many outside activities now and they also need to live fully as children. To have them work for six hours a day at school and then go home and work for hours at night does not seem right. It doesn’t allow them to have a childhood.”

International comparisons

How do American kids fare when compared to students in other countries? Professors Gerald LeTendre and David Baker of Pennsylvania State University conclude in their 2005 book, National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling, that American middle schoolers do more homework than their peers in Japan, Korea, or Taiwan, but less than their peers in Singapore and Hong Kong.

One of the surprising findings of their research was that more homework does not correlate with higher test scores. LeTendre notes: “That really flummoxes people because they say, ‘Doesn’t doing more homework mean getting better scores?’ The answer quite simply is no.”

Homework is a complicated thing

To be effective, homework must be used in a certain way, he says. “Let me give you an example. Most homework in the fourth grade in the U.S. is worksheets. Fill them out, turn them in, maybe the teacher will check them, maybe not. That is a very ineffective use of homework. An effective use of homework would be the teacher sitting down and thinking ‘Elizabeth has trouble with number placement, so I’m going to give her seven problems on number placement.’ Then the next day the teacher sits down with Elizabeth and she says, ‘Was this hard for you? Where did you have difficulty?’ Then she gives Elizabeth either more or less material. As you can imagine, that kind of homework rarely happens.”

Shotgun homework

“What typically happens is people give what we call ‘shotgun homework’: blanket drills, questions and problems from the book. On a national level that’s associated with less well-functioning school systems,” he says. “In a sense, you could sort of think of it as a sign of weaker teachers or less well-prepared teachers. Over time, we see that in elementary and middle schools more and more homework is being given, and that countries around the world are doing this in an attempt to increase their test scores, and that is basically a failing strategy.”

Quality not quantity?

“ The Case for (Quality) Homework: Why It Improves Learning, and How Parents Can Help ,” a 2019 paper written by Boston University psychologist Janine Bempechat, asks for homework that specifically helps children “confront ever-more-complex tasks” that enable them to gain resilience and embrace challenges.

Similar research from University of Ovideo in Spain titled “ Homework: Facts and Fiction 2021 ” says evidence shows that how homework is applied is more important than how much is required, and it asserts that a moderate amount of homework yields the most academic achievement. The most important aspect of quality homework assignment? The effort required and the emotions prompted by the task.

Robyn Jackson, author of How to Plan Rigorous Instruction and other media about rigor says the key to quality homework is not the time spent, but the rigor — or mental challenge — involved. ( Read more about how to evaluate your child’s homework for rigor here .)

Nightly reading as a homework replacement

Across the country, many elementary schools have replaced homework with a nightly reading requirement. There are many benefits to children reading every night , either out loud with a parent or independently: it increases their vocabulary, imagination, concentration, memory, empathy, academic ability, knowledge of different cultures and perspectives. Plus, it reduces stress, helps kids sleep, and bonds children to their cuddling parents or guardians. Twenty to 30 minutes of reading each day is generally recommended.

But, is this always possible, or even ideal?

No, it’s not.

Alfie Kohn criticizes this added assignment in his blog post, “ How To Create Nonreaders .” He cites an example from a parent (Julie King) who reports, “Our children are now expected to read 20 minutes a night, and record such on their homework sheet. What parents are discovering (surprise) is that those kids who used to sit down and read for pleasure — the kids who would get lost in a book and have to be told to put it down to eat/play/whatever — are now setting the timer… and stopping when the timer dings. … Reading has become a chore, like brushing your teeth.”

The take-away from Kohn? Don’t undermine reading for pleasure by turning it into another task burdening your child’s tired brain.

Additional resources

Books Simply Too Much Homework: What Can We do? by Vera Goodman, Trafford Publishing, 2020

The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Children and What Parents Can Do About It by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish, Crown Publishers, 2007

The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by Alfie Kohn, Hatchett Books, 2006 The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning by Etta Kralovec and John Buell, Beacon Press, 2001.

The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents by Harris M. Cooper, Corwin Press, 2001.

Seven Steps to Homework Success: A Family Guide to Solving Common Homework Problems by Sydney Zentall and Sam Goldstein, Specialty Press, 1998.

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How Much Homework Do American Kids Do?

Various factors, from the race of the student to the number of years a teacher has been in the classroom, affect a child's homework load.

In his Atlantic essay , Karl Taro Greenfeld laments his 13-year-old daughter's heavy homework load. As an eighth grader at a New York middle school, Greenfeld’s daughter averaged about three hours of homework per night and adopted mantras like “memorization, not rationalization” to help her get it all done. Tales of the homework-burdened American student have become common, but are these stories the exception or the rule?

A 2007 Metlife study found that 45 percent of students in grades three to 12 spend more than an hour a night doing homework, including the six percent of students who report spending more than three hours a night on their homework. In the 2002-2003 school year, a study out of the University of Michigan found that American students ages six through 17 spent three hours and 38 minutes per week doing homework.

A range of factors plays into how much homework each individual student gets:

Older students do more homework than their younger counterparts.

This one is fairly obvious: The National Education Association recommends that homework time increase by ten minutes per year in school. (e.g., A third grader would have 30 minutes of homework, while a seventh grader would have 70 minutes).

Studies have found that schools tend to roughly follow these guidelines: The University of Michigan found that students ages six to eight spend 29 minutes doing homework per night while 15- to 17-year-old students spend 50 minutes doing homework. The Metlife study also found that 50 percent of students in grades seven to 12 spent more than an hour a night on homework, while 37 percent of students in grades three to six spent an hour or more on their homework per night. The National Center for Educational Statistics found that high school students who do homework outside of school average 6.8 hours of homework per week.

Race plays a role in how much homework students do.

Asian students spend 3.5 more hours on average doing homework per week than their white peers. However, only 59 percent of Asian students’ parents check that homework is done, while 75.6 percent of Hispanic students’ parents and 83.1 percent of black students’ parents check.

Teachers with less experience assign more homework.

The Metlife study found that 14 percent of teachers with zero to five years of teaching experience assigned more than an hour of homework per night, while only six percent of teachers with 21 or more years of teaching experience assigned over an hour of homework.

Math classes have homework the most frequently.

The Metlife study found that 70 percent of students in grades three to 12 had at least one homework assignment in math. Sixty-two percent had at least one homework assignment in a language arts class (English, reading, spelling, or creative writing courses) and 42 percent had at least one in a science class.

Regardless of how much homework kids are actually doing every night, most parents and teachers are happy with the way things are: 60 percent of parents think that their children have the “right amount of homework,” and 73 percent of teachers think their school assigns the right amount of homework.

Students, however, are not necessarily on board: 38 percent of students in grades seven through 12 and 28 percent of students in grades three through six report being “very often/often” stressed out by their homework.

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When Your Child Has Too Much Homework

• How Much Time Is Ideal?
• Time Management
• Set Up a Homework Corner
• Have a Homework Routine

Are you concerned about the amount of time your child spends on homework each evening? Perhaps you feel like your child is spending a lot of time on their homework, and they are not getting anything out of it.

If your child is overwhelmed by homework, you can help them by examining their habits to find the source of homework trouble. Once you have identified the root of the problem , you can guide your child to a solution.

1) Find Out How Much Time Your Child Should Be Spending on Homework

While there are no set rules on exactly how much homework a child should have, there are some guidelines to help you decide if the amount of homework is too much or just right. 

The most common guideline is the 10-minute rule, which states that a child should have about ten minutes of homework per night for each grade they are in.

With this rule, a first-grader would average 10 minutes of homework, a second grader would have 20 minutes per night, and so on.

The 10-minute rule is recommended by the National PTA and the National Educators Association. Keep in mind that it is a guideline—some high school classes and advanced work classes may have more homework than the general guideline.

Often, teachers will send home a letter explaining their homework policy in the first weeks of school. This policy will often include more personalized guidelines, including how much time homework should take each evening.

2) Check How Well Your Child Uses Their Homework Time

If you realize your child is spending more time on their homework than expected, you will need to do some troubleshooting to solve the problem. Is your child or teen sitting with their homework out, yet they are doing something else, like texting friends or watching a TV program. Check to make sure they are focused on their work during the time they are working.

You want to check this first hand.

Your child or teen may simply not be aware of how distractions can impact their homework time.

If you find your child is not focused on homework, use the following suggestions to help them stay focused during homework time.

3) Make Sure Your Child Has a Homework Corner at Home

Your child or teen will benefit from having a specific place where they can work on their homework. The area should be someplace that is comfortable to work, allows for an age-appropriate amount of parental supervision, and access to any needed supplies or resources.

Completing homework in a specific place will help reinforce habits.   Your child will get used to doing their work in that specific spot.

4 ) Have a Regular Homework Routine to Prevent Procrastination

Sometimes, school-age children will put off doing larger homework assignments rather than trying to complete them a few days before they are due. Rather than spending 10 to 20 minutes for several evenings on the large assignment, they will have to spend hours to get the work done.

Having a regular homework set time in their daily schedule will give them the time to work on their assignments on most days. Tweens and teens will need to make sure they keep track of the different due dates in their different subjects.

Work Straight Through or Take Breaks?  

Remember that 10-minute rule stated earlier? That rule would lead to an eighth-grade student doing 1 hour and 20 minutes of homework each night. High school students can expect even more time on homework.

If your child needs a break and tries to push through, they often find it difficult to maintain focus. They may be seated at the table, but their work will slow down or stop altogether.

Some children and teens are able to sit down and work straight through until their daily homework is completed. Others may find they need to take a short break every 40 minutes.

Some children or teens may also experience a condition that affects their ability to focus for long periods of time. Examples include ADHD, depression , and anxiety .

Children and teens who struggle with focusing for long periods of time will need to keep their abilities in mind when they plan to do their work. They may benefit from a distraction-free area, splitting homework time between before and after school or another creative arrangement that accounts for their needs.

5) Check for Reasons You Need to Follow up With the Teacher

Sometimes homework overload is not something that can be solved only at home.

Your child does not know how to do the assignment. If your child or teen does not know how to do the work, they may take a very long time trying to complete it. Sit down with your child and watch them try to do their work. Do they understand the directions for the assignment? Are they missing skills they need to complete the work?

If it is the first time your child has struggled to understand how to do the homework, encourage your child to discuss the problems with the teacher in the next class session. If your elementary or middle school child is starting to fall into a pattern of struggling with work, you will want to be included in the conversation over the struggle with the material. If your child is in high school, use your knowledge of your teen to decide if they should handle it completely on their own.

You want to let the teacher know quickly if your child cannot do the homework so that the teacher can help address any gaps in knowledge early.

Nationwide schools are adopting rigorous curricula that build from grade to grade. Missing a skill in one grade level can lead to missing building blocks for following years.

Fortunately, teachers can find ways to address gaps in learning. The earlier a teacher is aware of a gap, the faster the gap can be addressed before it becomes a larger gap in learning.

Your child takes an excessive amount of time to complete their homework. Perhaps your child does sit down every evening in a distraction-free area and focuses on their school work, only an assignment that should 10 minutes actually takes 40 minutes. Your child might be working hard and know what to do, but they are very slow, especially compared to other kids in their class.

This may be caused by a learning disability . Children with dyslexia may struggle to learn to read and then read very slowly.   Children with dyscalculia, a disability in math , may take an exceptionally long time to complete work involving numbers, estimation, and math.   Fortunately, there are teaching and learning methods that can help children with these issues once they have been diagnosed.

Your child has multiple assignments due at the same time. This is a situation that you may only expect in high school when you know your teen will have several different subjects and teachers, each with their own calendar of assignments. Teachers may assign a large project with a due date right before or after a break, believing it would be convenient for everyone to have it due. Sometimes school calendars have other days, like the midpoint in a quarter, that seems ideal to have work due.

It's often the convenience of certain dates in the schedule that can cause multiple assignments to be due in middle school. Children in elementary school who see different teachers throughout the day in an effort to individualize to skill level may be surprised to find themselves caught with too much work due at the same time.

Ideally, teachers will plan out large assignments far in advance of the due date so that even if multiple subjects require work to be turned in on the same day, children can plan ahead and work slowly. Sometimes, this doesn't happen.

Teachers are often somewhat isolated from one another in schools, each working in their own classrooms, so teachers may not even know that they are assigning work that will all be due at the same time.

If your child has a truly unreasonable amount of work due at once, talk with the teachers involved. Some schools have set policies limiting the number of large tests or projects that can be due on a single day. Even if your child's school does not have a specific policy, teachers may be able to change due dates or come up with a plan that will allow your child to get the work done without being overwhelmed.

A Final Word From Verywell

Learning to get homework done regularly can help your child develop a growth mindset, where they know that their hard work will lead them to learn and opportunity. Finding ways to overcome difficult periods in school will also help your child or teen learn that they can find ways to meet challenges and be successful in school.

National Education Association. Research spotlight on homework. NEA reviews of the research on best practices in education .

Xu J. Why Do Students Have Difficulties Completing Homework? The Need for Homework Management . J Educ Train Stud . 2013;1(1):98-105. doi:10.11114/jets.v1i1.78

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other Concerns and Conditions With ADHD .

Hulme C, Snowling MJ. Reading disorders and dyslexia . Curr Opin Pediatr . 2016;28(6):731-735. doi:10.1097/MOP.0000000000000411

Kaufmann L, Mazzocco MM, Dowker A, et al. Dyscalculia from a developmental and differential perspective .  Front Psychol . 2013;4:516. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00516

By Lisa Linnell-Olsen Lisa Linnell-Olsen has worked as a support staff educator, and is well-versed in issues of education policy and parenting issues.

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Rethinking Homework for This Year—and Beyond

A schoolwide effort to reduce homework has led to a renewed focus on ensuring that all work assigned really aids students’ learning.

I used to pride myself on my high expectations, including my firm commitment to accountability for regular homework completion among my students. But the trauma of Covid-19 has prompted me to both reflect and adapt. Now when I think about the purpose and practice of homework, two key concepts guide me: depth over breadth, and student well-being.

Homework has long been the subject of intense debate, and there’s no easy answer with respect to its value. Teachers assign homework for any number of reasons: It’s traditional to do so, it makes students practice their skills and solidify learning, it offers the opportunity for formative assessment, and it creates good study habits and discipline. Then there’s the issue of pace. Throughout my career, I’ve assigned homework largely because there just isn’t enough time to get everything done in class.

A Different Approach

Since classes have gone online, the school where I teach has made a conscious effort as a teaching community to reduce, refine, and distill our curriculum. We have applied guiding questions like: What is most important? What is most transferable? What is most relevant? Refocusing on what matters most has inevitably made us rethink homework.

We have approached both asking and answering these questions through a science of learning lens. In Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning , the authors maintain that deep learning is slow learning. Deep learning requires time for retrieval, practice, feedback, reflection, and revisiting content; ultimately it requires struggle, and there is no struggle without time.

As someone who has mastered the curriculum mapping style of “get it done to move on to get that next thing done,” using an approach of “slow down and reduce” has been quite a shift for me. However, the shift has been necessary: What matters most is what’s best for my students, as opposed to my own plans or mandates imposed by others.

Listening to Students

To implement this shift, my high school English department has reduced content and texts both in terms of the amount of units and the content within each unit. We’re more flexible with dates and deadlines. We spend our energy planning the current unit instead of the year’s units. In true partnership with my students, I’m constantly checking in with them via Google forms, Zoom chats, conferences, and Padlet activities. In these check-ins, I specifically ask students how they’re managing the workload for my class and their other classes. I ask them how much homework they’re doing. And I adjust what I do and expect based on what they tell me. For example, when I find out a week is heavy with work in other classes, I make sure to allot more time during class for my tasks. At times I have even delayed or altered one of my assignments.

To be completely transparent, the “old” me is sheepish in admitting that I’ve so dramatically changed my thinking with respect to homework. However, both my students and I have reaped numerous benefits. I’m now laser-focused when designing every minute of my lessons to maximize teaching and learning. Every decision I make is now scrutinized through the lens of absolute worth for my students’ growth: If it doesn’t make the cut, it’s cut. I also take into account what is most relevant to my students.

For example, our 10th-grade English team has redesigned a unit that explores current manifestations of systemic oppression. This unit is new in approach and longer in duration than it was pre-Covid, and it has resulted in some of the deepest and hardest learning, as well as the richest conversations, that I have seen among students in my career. Part of this improved quality comes from the frequent and intentional pauses that I instruct students to take in order to reflect on the content and on the arc of their own learning. The reduction in content that we need to get through in online learning has given me more time to assign reflective prompts, and to let students process their thoughts, whether that’s at the end of a lesson as an exit slip or as an assignment.

Joining Forces to Be Consistent

There’s no doubt this reduction in homework has been a team effort. Within the English department, we have all agreed to allot reading time during class; across each grade level, we’re monitoring the amount of homework our students have collectively; and across the whole high school, we have adopted a framework to help us think through assigning homework.

Within that framework, teachers at the school agree that the best option is for students to complete all work during class. The next best option is for students to finish uncompleted class work at home as a homework assignment of less than 30 minutes. The last option—the one we try to avoid as much as possible—is for students to be assigned and complete new work at home (still less than 30 minutes). I set a maximum time limit for students’ homework tasks (e.g., 30 minutes) and make that clear at the top of every assignment.

This schoolwide approach has increased my humility as a teacher. In the past, I tended to think my subject was more important than everyone else’s, which gave me license to assign more homework. But now I view my students’ experience more holistically: All of their classes and the associated work must be considered, and respected.

As always, I ground this new pedagogical approach not just in what’s best for students’ academic learning, but also what’s best for them socially and emotionally. 2020 has been traumatic for educators, parents, and students. There is no doubt the level of trauma varies greatly ; however, one can’t argue with the fact that homework typically means more screen time when students are already spending most of the day on their devices. They need to rest their eyes. They need to not be sitting at their desks. They need physical activity. They need time to do nothing at all.

Eliminating or reducing homework is a social and emotional intervention, which brings me to the greatest benefit of reducing the homework load: Students are more invested in their relationship with me now that they have less homework. When students trust me to take their time seriously, when they trust me to listen to them and adjust accordingly, when they trust me to care for them... they trust more in general.

And what a beautiful world of learning can be built on trust.

26 Aug How Much Homework Is Too Much?

Is homework actually beneficial or should we be letting our children play?

While there have been no conclusive results in more than 100 years of study, current research seems to suggest it bears no learning benefits in primary school years.

In a recent inquiry into homework approaches by the Victorian Education and Training Committee, Dr Michelle Cotter of the Principals Association of Victorian Catholic Secondary Schools stated, “Homework is believed to serve a purpose when it consolidates or extends student learning, skills and aptitude. Homework should enhance a student’s capacity to understand and apply concepts, skills and knowledge.”

However, 10 and 11-year-old brothers Lachlan and Robbie find this ‘consolidation’ of concepts to be a waste of time. Says Lachlan, “Homework isn’t important because we’re learning the same things we learned at school during the day.”

While some might say this is a typical child’s response to extra work, Lachlan isn’t referring to a lack of enjoyment completing homework tasks, he’s responding to the fact that his capacity to understand and apply concepts – his learning – isn’t enhanced by completing schoolwork at home.

Education expert Dr Misty Adoniou says, “Homework actually doesn’t have an impact on learning outcomes in the primary school years, so we know it doesn’t have any learning benefits”. Similarly, the Committee stated, “There’s strong evidence and general agreement that homework at the primary school level has little impact on academic performance, but may play an important transitional role in preparing students for secondary school and beyond.”

So if the point of homework is purely as a preparatory task for high school and tertiary education, perhaps we need to rethink our approach and actually include tasks that carry benefits for students. It may be that the kind of ‘study’ primary students should be undertaking doesn’t fit within our concept of academia, and we should be looking beyond bookwork and into the impact of ‘play’ in childhood development.

In his book Free To Learn , development psychologist Dr Peter Gray says,

“Play is how children learn to take control of their lives” – therefore promoting independence and self-development.

Gray goes on to say that anxiety levels among children are at an all-time high due to the stress of too much homework, and a lack of time to play. Instead of encouraging students to sit at a desk during their free time, completing pages of comprehension, maybe we should place emphasis on independent and creative problem-solving through play and social interaction.

Instead of focusing on the academic skills required to achieve good grades, we could aim to provide them with the social and creative skills required to actually do a job.

When adults book appointments, go for job interviews, engage in business negotiations or attend parent/teacher meetings, they use a myriad of communication skills learned throughout the course of their lives. These skills begin to develop during childhood by running around the playground with peers, talking to others, building forts, arguing with siblings and working towards resolving issues independently.

When asked what they would rather be doing in place of homework, Lachlan and Robbie said, “Having fun with family, going outdoors or drawing”. The boys’ mother Natalie said homework has a crushing effect on the time that should be spent playing, growing, and generally enjoying their childhood.

On the other hand, Year 1 teacher Rachel Ong focuses on the practicalities of homework in a class of 25 to 30 or more students, sharing that teachers are unable to provide each student with one-on-one instruction on a daily basis. She says doing homework guided by an adult allows children to ask questions, and generally learn while assured someone will be there to help them should they get stuck.

However, this places a lot of pressure on parents and assumes they have ample time and knowledge on all subjects to effectively assist. Natalie frequently oversees her children’s homework, but says, “Lack of time and understanding contribute to the often unfinished state of their homework”. She also states that homework tasks sometimes aren’t explained properly, and she finds herself unable to help. If homework tasks were oriented around Gray’s theories on the importance of play-based development, these issues wouldn’t exist.

At the end of the day, homework in its current state seems to be placing a lot of pressure on both parents and children, for little gain. Children attend school for about 30 hours each week, but insisting they study for 20 to 40 minutes per night on top of that is almost the equivalent of having a full-time job – from the age of six. If the only benefit of homework in primary school is to prepare for higher education, we need to rethink what homework is administered and why – preferably looking at the benefits of play and getting primary students to take an active role in their own development.

Words by Charlotte Karp

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How much homework is the right amount?

Many parents worry that their child is doing too much, or too little, school work at home.

While homework volumes vary considerably from school to school and even teacher to teacher; by secondary school, almost all students are expected to do some homework on a daily or weekly basis.

A 2014 OECD report found that Australian 15-year-olds spend an average of six hours a week on homework. This is slightly more than the international average of five hours per week and significantly less than the 13.8 hours Shanghai’s students allocate to homework every week.

The picture is quite different at Australia’s independent schools though, where 15-year-olds devote an average of nine hours a week to homework.

In NSW, the Department of Education offers guidelines but no set minimum homework requirements, leaving it up to schools to determine their own policies in consultation with parents and teachers.

Nonetheless, the department’s policy is that homework is a “valuable part of schooling” that “allows for practising, extending and consolidating work done in class. Additionally, it establishes habits of study, concentration and self-discipline.”

The Scots College in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs supports the department’s view, saying that its philosophy concerning home learning is premised on three principles:

* Home learning consolidates work in class without being new work. * Home learning is showed off rather than being assessed. * Home learning is driven by the student’s interests and needs.

As an example, Scots suggests this daily homework schedule for years 7 and 8:

* 20 minutes of Maths * 10 minutes of language/instrument practice * 10 minutes of reading * Respond to the question “What else do I need to do?”

The last point allows students “an opportunity to expand on their studies, finish incomplete work or try to work through a problem in their studies,” Scots says. As well, the school expects students to dedicate home learning time to each of their subjects every week.

Similar guidelines are offered by Danebank Anglican School for Girls in Sydney’s South. The school’s policy states that, homework “should be appropriate to the student’s skill level and age; interesting, challenging, purposeful, and meaningful in helping students develop their knowledge and skills at all times.”

Taking these factors into account, Danebank outlines a daily homework schedule for years K-12:

Kinder and Year 1: No more than 20 mins Year 2: No more than 30 mins Year 3 and 4: 30–45 mins Year 5 and 6: 1 hour Year 7 and 8: 1½ hours Year 9 and 10: 2 hours Year 11: 3 hours Year 12: 3½ hours

The emphasis on homework at independent schools is well-founded. OECD data shows that extra study at home is rewarded by better test scores, as evidenced by the results of its 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) – a series of standardised tests similar to NAPLAN.

Testing of more than 28 million 15-year-olds in 65 countries showed that among the highest achieving schools in the Maths component, “students saw an increase of 17 score points or more per extra hour of homework.”

International research shows that relevant homework in reasonable doses has positive benefits for students overall, particularly at the high school level.

In terms of how much time students should put into it, Duke University psychology professor and author of The Battle over Homework , Harris Cooper, endorses the “10-Minute Rule” – multiply the year level by 10 to get a rough estimate of how many minutes of homework students should be doing on a daily basis. Academically-focused and senior students should aim to do a bit more.

Most important though for Cooper is balance.

“My feeling is that the effect of homework depends on how well or poorly it is used. Teachers should avoid extremes. All children will benefit from homework but it is a rare child who will benefit from hours and hours of homework,” Cooper cautions.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Education at Glance report, 2014 https://www.oecd.org/edu/ Education-at-a-Glance-2014.pdf

NSW Department of Education and Communities Homework Policy document, May 2012 https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/ policies/curriculum/schools/ homework/Hwk_Pol_guide.pdf

How much home learning should my son be doing? – Ryan Smartt, Coordinator of Studies and Academic Staffing, The Scots College https://www.tsc.nsw.edu.au/ tscnews/how-much-home- learning-should-my-son-be- doing

Danebank Anglican School for Girls Homework Policy K-12 http://www.danebank.nsw.edu. au/wp-content/uploads/ Homework-Policy.pdf

Students in these countries spend the most time doing homework – Sonali Kohli, Quartz.com, December 12, 2014 http://qz.com/311360/students- in-these-countries-spend-the- most-time-doing-homework/

Homework’s diminishing returns – Harris Cooper, New York Times , December 12, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/ roomfordebate/2010/12/12/ stress-and-the-high-school- student/homeworks-diminishing- returns

Author: Mindy Laube

Mindy Laube is a creative content specialist with a strong background in digital and print journalism gained over a 14-year career at the Sydney Morning Herald. You can find her on Twitter or LinkedIn. View all posts by Mindy Laube

1 thought on “How much homework is the right amount?”

for the past three days, I have been doing homework for 6 hours a day. 6 HOURS in 3 DAYS! It’s mainly my mother who always tells me to do my homework and not to do anything else until it is completed. My mother isn’t a bad person, she just wants the best out of me, even though my grades are low and I have trouble concentrating in class and doing my work, but that is nobody’s fault but mine. It is my fault I am failing and it is my fault that I have a lower chance to pass Year 11 than almost everyone else in my class. I am actually meant to be doing my homework now instead of writing this but the homework I am doing I find quite stressful especially how I have two things to do that are both due tomorrow and i haven’t gotten close to finishing. Before you criticise me, saying “you stupid idiot, why are you typing this whole stupid thing when you should get a move on with your homework?” and some people might reply with “you’re*” because they didn’t have a good enough grammar and spelling education.

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Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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How Much Homework Is Too Much for Our Teens?

Here's what educators and parents can do to help kids find the right balance between school and home.

Does Your Teen Have Too Much Homework?

Today’s teens are under a lot of pressure.

They're under pressure to succeed, to win, to be the best and to get into the top colleges. With so much pressure, is it any wonder today’s youth report being under as much stress as their parents? In fact, during the school year, teens say they experience stress levels higher than those reported by adults, according to a previous American Psychological Association "Stress in America" survey.

Odds are if you ask a teen what's got them so worked up, the subject of school will come up. School can cause a lot of stress, which can lead to other serious problems, like sleep deprivation . According to the National Sleep Foundation, teens need between eight and 10 hours of sleep each night, but only 15 percent are even getting close to that amount. During the school week, most teens only get about six hours of zzz’s a night, and some of that sleep deficit may be attributed to homework.

When it comes to school, many adults would rather not trade places with a teen. Think about it. They get up at the crack of dawn and get on the bus when it’s pitch dark outside. They put in a full day sitting in hours of classes (sometimes four to seven different classes daily), only to get more work dumped on them to do at home. To top it off, many kids have after-school obligations, such as extracurricular activities including clubs and sports , and some have to work. After a long day, they finally get home to do even more work – schoolwork.

[Read: What Parents Should Know About Teen Depression .]

Homework is not only a source of stress for students, but it can also be a hassle for parents. If you are the parent of a kid who strives to be “perfect," then you know all too well how much time your child spends making sure every bit of homework is complete, even if it means pulling an all-nighter. On the flip side, if you’re the parent of a child who decided that school ends when the last bell rings, then you know how exhausting that homework tug-of-war can be. And heaven forbid if you’re that parent who is at their wit's end because your child excels on tests and quizzes but fails to turn in assignments. The woes of academics can go well beyond the confines of the school building and right into the home.

This is the time of year when many students and parents feel the burden of the academic load. Following spring break, many schools across the nation head into the final stretch of the year. As a result, some teachers increase the amount of homework they give. The assignments aren’t punishment, although to students and parents who are having to constantly stay on top of their kids' schoolwork, they can sure seem that way.

From a teacher’s perspective, the assignments are meant to help students better understand the course content and prepare for upcoming exams. Some schools have state-mandated end of grade or final tests. In those states these tests can account for 20 percent of a student’s final grade. So teachers want to make sure that they cover the entire curriculum before that exam. Aside from state-mandated tests, some high school students are enrolled in advanced placement or international baccalaureate college-level courses that have final tests given a month or more before the end of the term. In order to cover all of the content, teachers must maintain an accelerated pace. All of this means more out of class assignments.

Given the challenges kids face, there are a few questions parents and educators should consider:

Is homework necessary?

Many teens may give a quick "no" to this question, but the verdict is still out. Research supports both sides of the argument. Personally, I would say, yes, some homework is necessary, but it must be purposeful. If it’s busy work, then it’s a waste of time. Homework should be a supplemental teaching tool. Too often, some youth go home completely lost as they haven’t grasped concepts covered in class and they may become frustrated and overwhelmed.

For a parent who has been in this situation, you know how frustrating this can be, especially if it’s a subject that you haven’t encountered in a while. Homework can serve a purpose such as improving grades, increasing test scores and instilling a good work ethic. Purposeful homework can come in the form of individualizing assignments based on students’ needs or helping students practice newly acquired skills.

Homework should not be used to extend class time to cover more material. If your child is constantly coming home having to learn the material before doing the assignments, then it’s time to contact the teacher and set up a conference. Listen when kids express their concerns (like if they say they're expected to know concepts not taught in class) as they will provide clues about what’s happening or not happening in the classroom. Plus, getting to the root of the problem can help with keeping the peace at home too, as an irritable and grumpy teen can disrupt harmonious family dynamics .

[Read: What Makes Teens 'Most Likely to Succeed?' ]

How much is too much?

According to the National PTA and the National Education Association, students should only be doing about 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level. But teens are doing a lot more than that, according to a poll of high school students by the organization Statistic Brain . In that poll teens reported spending, on average, more than three hours on homework each school night, with 11th graders spending more time on homework than any other grade level. By contrast, some polls have shown that U.S. high school students report doing about seven hours of homework per week.

Much of a student's workload boils down to the courses they take (such as advanced or college prep classes), the teaching philosophy of educators and the student’s commitment to doing the work. Regardless, research has shown that doing more than two hours of homework per night does not benefit high school students. Having lots of homework to do every day makes it difficult for teens to have any downtime , let alone family time .

How do we respond to students' needs?

As an educator and parent, I can honestly say that oftentimes there is a mismatch in what teachers perceive as only taking 15 minutes and what really takes 45 minutes to complete. If you too find this to be the case, then reach out to your child's teacher and find out why the assignments are taking longer than anticipated for your child to complete.

Also, ask the teacher about whether faculty communicate regularly with one another about large upcoming assignments. Whether it’s setting up a shared school-wide assignment calendar or collaborating across curriculums during faculty meetings, educators need to discuss upcoming tests and projects, so students don’t end up with lots of assignments all competing for their attention and time at once. Inevitably, a student is going to get slammed occasionally, but if they have good rapport with their teachers, they will feel comfortable enough to reach out and see if alternative options are available. And as a parent, you can encourage your kid to have that dialogue with the teacher.

Often teens would rather blend into the class than stand out. That’s unfortunate because research has shown time and time again that positive teacher-student relationships are strong predictors of student engagement and achievement. By and large, most teachers appreciate students advocating for themselves and will go the extra mile to help them out.

Can there be a balance between home and school?

Students can strike a balance between school and home, but parents will have to help them find it. They need your guidance to learn how to better manage their time, get organized and prioritize tasks, which are all important life skills. Equally important is developing good study habits. Some students may need tutoring or coaching to help them learn new material or how to take notes and study. Also, don’t forget the importance of parent-teacher communication. Most educators want nothing more than for their students to succeed in their courses.

Learning should be fun, not mundane and cumbersome. Homework should only be given if its purposeful and in moderation. Equally important to homework is engaging in activities, socializing with friends and spending time with the family.

[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids' Health .]

Most adults don’t work a full-time job and then go home and do three more hours of work, and neither should your child. It's not easy learning to balance everything, especially if you're a teen. If your child is spending several hours on homework each night, don't hesitate to reach out to teachers and, if need be, school officials. Collectively, we can all work together to help our children de-stress and find the right balance between school and home.

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How Much Homework Is Too Much?

Are schools assigning too much homework.

Posted October 19, 2011

Timothy, a fifth grader, spends up to thirteen hours a day hunched over a desk at school or at home, studying and doing homework. Should his parents feel proud? Now imagine, for comparison's sake, Timothy spending thirteen hours a day hunched over a sewing machine instead of a desk.

Parents have the right to complain when schools assign too much homework but they often don't know how to do so effectively.

Drowning in Homework ( an excerpt from Chapter 8 of The Squeaky Wheel )

I first met Timothy, a quiet, overweight eleven-year-old boy, when his mother brought him to therapy to discuss his slipping grades. A few minutes with Timothy were enough to confirm that his mood, self-esteem , and general happiness were slipping right along with them. Timothy attended one of the top private schools in Manhattan, an environment in which declining grades were no idle matter.

I asked about Timothy's typical day. He awoke every morning at six thirty so he could get to school by eight and arrived home around four thirty each afternoon. He then had a quick snack, followed by either a piano lesson or his math tutor, depending on the day. He had dinner at seven p.m., after which he sat down to do homework for two to three hours a night. Quickly doing the math in my head, I calculated that Timothy spent an average of thirteen hours a day hunched over a writing desk. His situation is not atypical. Spending that many hours studying is the only way Timothy can keep up and stay afloat academically.

But what if, for comparison's sake, we imagined Timothy spending thirteen hours a day hunched over a sewing machine instead of a desk. We would immediately be aghast at the inhumanity because children are horribly mistreated in such "sweatshops." Timothy is far from being mistreated, but the mountain of homework he faces daily results in a similar consequence- he too is being robbed of his childhood.

Timothy's academics leave him virtually no time to do anything he truly enjoys, such as playing video games, movies, or board games with his friends. During the week he never plays outside and never has indoor play dates or opportunities to socialize with friends. On weekends, Timothy's days are often devoted to studying for tests, working on special school projects, or arguing with his mother about studying for tests and working on special school projects.

By the fourth and fifth grade and certainly in middle school, many of our children have hours of homework, test preparation, project writing, or research to do every night, all in addition to the eight hours or more they have to spend in school. Yet study after study has shown that homework has little to do with achievement in elementary school and is only marginally related to achievement in middle school .

Play, however, is a crucial component of healthy child development . It affects children's creativity , their social skills, and even their brain development. The absence of play, physical exercise, and free-form social interaction takes a serious toll on many children. It can also have significant health implications as is evidenced by our current epidemic of childhood obesity, sleep deprivation, low self- esteem, and depression .

A far stronger predictor than homework of academic achievement for kids aged three to twelve is having regular family meals. Family meals allow parents to check in, to demonstrate caring and involvement, to provide supervision, and to offer support. The more family meals can be worked into the schedule, the better, especially for preteens. The frequency of family meals has also been shown to help with disordered eating behaviors in adolescents.

Experts in the field recommend children have no more than ten minutes of homework per day per grade level. As a fifth- grader, Timothy should have no more than fifty minutes a day of homework (instead of three times that amount). Having an extra two hours an evening to play, relax, or see a friend would constitute a huge bump in any child's quality of life.

So what can we do if our child is getting too much homework?

1. Complain to the teachers and the school. Most parents are unaware that excessive homework contributes so little to their child's academic achievement.

2. Educate your child's teacher and principal about the homework research-they are often equally unaware of the facts and teachers of younger children (K-4) often make changes as a result.

3. Create allies within the system by speaking with other parents and banding together to address the issue with the school.

You might also like: Is Excessive Homework in Private Schools a Customer Service Issue?

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Copyright 2011 Guy Winch

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Guy Winch, Ph.D. , is a licensed psychologist and author of Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure, and Other Everyday Hurts.

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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

Homework in year 1.

sunshinevibe · 21/11/2021 12:27

How much homework does your year 1 (5/6 year old) get? My son goes to a state primary and it's really ramped up this year. Obviously he gets his weekly reading books but on top of that he now gets 10 spellings for a weekly test, maths homework and literacy which is often writing a page and sometimes science too. Is this normal or is the school particularly homework heavy?!

My DD is year 1. They ask them to read daily. Spellings will start in Jan. I don't think they get any more than that until year 3. They have access to various online programmes (Reading Eggs, Mathletics) which they can use at home but nothing specific is set. Yours sounds a lot in comparison.

DS is in year 1. He has daily reading plus one piece of homework at least every two weeks but I make him do one a week.

My dc is older, but it sounds like similar amount to how much my dc got when in yr1. Reading everyday, weekly spelling, maths/literacy home work, sometimes other subjects like science/art/history etc. But my dc's school always said homework is optional in ks1, so didn't need to finish them if the dc is not up for it or distressed.

Ah okay. It's probably optional to us too although I haven't been told that and my ds always wants to do well in the spelling test so I have to study the words with him or else he's upset. Do you think homework helps? I thought the current thinking was that homework doesn't have any impact on attainment but maybe that's just secondary?

DS in year 1 gets:- 2 books per week and is expected to read daily 10 spellings per week 1 piece of maths homework

Daily reading for 10 min and spelling plus optional math games online. What you’ve described sounds like a lot if it’s not optional.

Year 2 now but it's fairly similar. 5 spellings, half a dozen maths qns, a reading book and a library book although they're expected to read nightly. Then every half term there's a themed craft project.

We get a book a day (because we read them and send them back everyday, it would be less if we didn’t) and 4 or 5 spellings. Voluntarily my DC does a daily hand writing sheet, daily maths sheet, an extra reading book (we do 12 a week), practice a times table to proficiency (working on 5x’s at the moment), and a go one one of the 3 apps they’ve provided from school. At the moment we’re also learning lines and songs for a school play and christingle with an external group. I have one that gets bored easily and loves to read, write and is fascinated by maths.

Mine is meant to read daily but in practise books are changed 3 times a week so we don't do every day. Weekly spelling test usually 6 words where we are asked to practise 5 mins per day. Then we are meant to do a set amount of Nessy, numbots and abacus maths each week. I think it's 10 mins X 3 but I don't really stick rigidly to it. If he wants to do more one day, less others then fine. There are days we skip it entirely if he is nackered or doing sports clubs.

We get a few optional bits. Reading is the main thing to do. Encouraged to use educational aps & do extra curricular. They are only 5/6 years old!!

Dd is y4 in state school now but right from reception she has had reading daily, spellings to learn and a piece of maths and English homework every week

I think targeted homework helps. It certainly helps at secondary. All schools should have a homework policy. Often quality, not quantity, counts. There should also be feedback on it. So a homework log and feedback from the teacher. The best way to look at homework is by asking yourself the question : is this additional work embedding learning? So is he practicing the maths he has learnt? Are the spellings adding to his vocabulary? Is the writing task improving his skills by practicing spelling and sentence construction? Is it practicing his skills? I think reading is a given! It promotes vocabulary and of course reading skills. I tend to think science and history/geography/art etc. could be optional. I’m not a huge fan of topics with little guidance and tenuous links to the curriculum. Art shouldn’t involve the parents doing it for example. Looking up information together can be rewarding but there shouldn’t be homework for the sake of it. Homework policies are usually sensible so have a look at it.

Op that’s exactly what my y1 gets. Private primary school.

Y2 but we have daily reading, weekly spellings and then weekly topic homework (which we ignore as it isn't targeted, related to what they have been doing that week or any feedback given). I'd much prefer a proper bit of maths or English homework that is actually related to what they have learnt that week rather than 'create some autumn art'.

My y1 is expected to have a new book each day - but it isn't changed if they haven't finished it. Maths, English and 5 spellings. Even my Y3 only has 6 spellings per week though obviously they're much harder words. There's online maths for both too.

The spellings do embed learning I think as they seem to be based on the phonics they are doing during the week, eg, this week all the words have 'oy', eg employ. It's the writing which I struggle with the most as my ds is quite a reluctant writer. I suppose at this age homework is very much led by the parent so it feels like I have loads of homework every week!

Well if he’s a reluctant writer it won’t get easier if he doesn’t practice. Writing is often the sats results that disappoint schools the most big it’s still vital to improve. Art done by parents is useless but maths that builds on the curriculum is anything but.

DS is year 5 and he has 10 spellings and 20 min weekly on Times Tables Rockstars. It's been that way since year 1. In reception they had to do some reading and 6 spellings.

Reading expected 5x per week Handwriting practice (3 letters per week) Maths homework weekly Spellings (60 to learn for a half-termly test) DD has progressed onto the spellings because she's quite an advanced reader. Not all the children get spellings yet but they are all expected to do the reading, handwriting and maths.

My DD had spelling in YR. easy words she could read.

I think the suggestion from the school about creative autumn art @onemouseplace does give you and ex the chance to discuss autumn colours. Leaves changing colour, plants dying back and early morning frosts. A seasonal change children don’t always notice. We used to make collages out of dried leaves!

ex???? You and DC…..

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Wow I’m surprised to hear about so much homework. My DS in year 1 gets reading, that’s it. We do encourage him to write at home because his writing needs a lot of work, and we sometimes do some maths because he loves maths - but that’s entirely up to us as and when he wants to do it. I’d struggle to fit in a lot of homework around work and all the other stuff we want to be doing!

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Homework in High School: How Much Is Too Much?

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It’s not hard to find a high school student who is stressed about homework. Many are stressed to the max–juggling extracurricular activities, jobs, and family responsibilities. It can be hard for many students, particularly low-income students, to find the time to dedicate to homework. So students in the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs program at YouthBeat in Oakland, California are asking what’s a fair amount of homework for high school students?

TEACHERS: Guide your students to practice civil discourse about current topics and get practice writing CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) responses.  Explore lesson supports.

Is homework beneficial to students?

The homework debate has been going on for years. There’s a big body of research that shows that homework can have a positive impact on academic performance. It can also help students prepare for the academic rigors of college.

Does homework hurt students?

Some research suggests that homework is only beneficial up to a certain point. Too much homework can lead to compromised health and greater stress in students. Many students, particularly low-income students, can struggle to find the time to do homework, especially if they are working jobs after school or taking care of family members. Some students might not have access to technology, like computers or the internet, that are needed to complete assignments at home– which can make completing assignments even more challenging. Many argue that this contributes to inequity in education– particularly if completing homework is linked to better academic performance.

How much homework should students get?

Based on research, the National Education Association recommends the 10-minute rule stating students should receive 10 minutes of homework per grade per night. But opponents to homework point out that for seniors that’s still 2 hours of homework which can be a lot for students with conflicting obligations. And in reality, high school students say it can be tough for teachers to coordinate their homework assignments since students are taking a variety of different classes. Some people advocate for eliminating homework altogether.

Edweek: How Much Homework Is Enough? Depends Who You Ask

Business Insider: Here’s How Homework Differs Around the World

Review of Educational Research: Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research, 1987-2003

Phys.org: Study suggests more than two hours of homework a night may be counterproductive

The Journal of Experimental Education: Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools

National Education Association: Research Spotlight on Homework NEA Reviews of the Research on Best Practices in Education

The Atlantic: Who Does Homework Work For?

Center for Public Education: What research says about the value of homework: Research review

Time: Opinion: Why I think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

The Atlantic: A Teacher’s Defense of Homework

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In What Grade Should You Take Algebra 1?

Some students take the class early to try to gain an edge in college admissions. But experts offer caveats.

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While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, experts say there are a few telltale signs that a student is ready to take algebra in middle school, such as a genuine love of math and a firm grasp of concepts like proportions and fractions.

Algebra has long been a fundamental part of any high school math curriculum. In many places it's become a fundamental part of the middle school math curriculum, too.

In recent years, more students have begun taking Algebra 1 in eighth or even seventh grade – something that was fairly uncommon just three decades ago, when the vast majority of students were taking it in high school.

“Without a doubt, there has been a shift – not necessarily a good shift – toward getting Algebra 1 done in eighth grade,” says Kevin Dykema, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and a middle school math teacher in Michigan.

Some experts believe this shift is linked to an increased sense of pressure on students to take calculus in high school, in order to gain an edge in college admissions. Math classes at the middle and high school level typically follow this sequence: pre-algebra, Algebra 1, geometry, Algebra 2, pre-calculus, calculus. Students who take Algebra 1 in eighth grade and do well enough in the course to qualify for geometry in ninth grade are on track to take calculus before graduating from high school.

And while many students are indeed well-prepared to take Algebra 1 in eighth grade, Dykema says families should make that decision because the student enjoys and excels at math, not simply because the student wants to get to calculus.

So, when is the right time for students to enroll in Algebra 1? While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, experts say there are a few telltale signs that a student is ready to take algebra in middle school, such as a genuine love of math and a firm grasp of concepts like proportions and fractions.

If you’re not so sure about the timing of your child’s Algebra 1 course, here are some things to consider.

When Do Most Students Take Algebra 1?

Historically speaking, Algebra 1 has been reserved for ninth or tenth grade, and research indicates the majority of students still wait until high school for this course. About a quarter of the nation's eighth graders took Algebra 1 in the 2015-2016 school year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

However, the proportion of middle school students taking algebra has grown significantly over the past few decades. According to a 2013 report from the Brookings Institution, the number of students taking Algebra 1 or a more advanced math course (such as geometry) in eighth grade nearly tripled between 1990 and 2011, with nearly half the country’s eighth graders taking Algebra 1 or higher by 2011. The widespread adoption of Common Core in 2010 likely curtailed this growth a bit, with eighth grade math classes becoming a more rigorous preparatory course for algebra in high school.

“My concern is that (the decision to take Algebra 1 early) is often motivated by the thought that if I don't take seventh grade algebra, then I won't be able to take calculus as a junior – and then I won't be as competitive for top-tier universities,” says Terrie Galanti, a former K-12 math teacher who is now an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

Alexander Karp, the program director of the mathematics education program at Teachers College, Columbia University , says the timing of Algebra 1 also depends in part on a student’s location and specific school.

Although the vast majority of students will have to take the course at some point in order to graduate from high school, students in certain districts may not have the opportunity to take Algebra 1 in middle school, either due to a lack of resources or simply because they couldn’t get into the course. According to the Department of Education, 80% of eighth graders had access to Algebra 1 in the 2015 school year.

And in some places, all students take Algebra 1 in ninth grade. In 2014, San Francisco schools stopped offering accelerated middle school math classes and made Algebra 1 a ninth-grade math requirement , an attempt to close achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and those from more privileged backgrounds.

Pre-Algebra vs. Algebra 1

The concepts and skills taught in Algebra 1 – solving for different variables, graphing functions, etc. – can be fairly complex at first. Before taking Algebra 1, there are several prerequisite skills students should have experience with to ensure success.

That’s where pre-algebra comes in.

“Many students would benefit from more opportunities in the pre-algebra realm to think about fractions, proportions and ratios, as opposed to moving more quickly into the more abstract kinds of mathematics,” Galanti says.

A pre-algebra course gives students the fundamental knowledge they’ll need to do well when it comes time to take Algebra 1. Pre-algebra introduces topics like percentages, decimals and linear equations – all of which will be useful for students in Algebra 1.

Should My Child Take Algebra 1 Early?

Although taking Algebra 1 in eighth grade or even seventh grade can put students on track to take calculus before they complete high school, it’s important to note that not everyone is ready to take Algebra 1 in middle school.

“When students feel successful with what they're doing, when they enjoy what they're doing, they're that much more likely to continue in that math,” Dykema says. “We need to continually ask, ‘Are we opening up opportunities or are we closing opportunities for some of our students?’”

While taking calculus in high school may boost a students' college admission chances, Dykema adds that plenty of students who wait to take calculus until college are just as successful as their counterparts who took it early, so it's not necessary to rush a student into taking Algebra 1. Instead of worrying about whether their child is on track to take calculus before finishing high school, he says, parents should be more concerned with whether or not their child leaves high school with a strong mathematical foundation on which to build and whether the student can apply math skills to real-world scenarios.

"There are many students who are taking calculus in college who are successful – calculus does not need to be a high school class," he says. "We do not need calculus to get into a college."

In addition to having a firm grasp of the topics addressed in pre-algebra courses, Karp says you can gauge students' readiness for Algebra 1 by their experience in previous math classes. He adds that a good sense of logical reasoning is a sign that a student could be ready for Algebra 1.

Galanti also advises parents to reflect on their children's behavior at home when it comes to math – if they seem to struggle with math anxiety or spend an excessive amount of time doing practice problems before feeling comfortable with a concept, they may not be ready to take Algebra 1 until high school.

On the flipside, she says, those who tend to do well in their math courses and genuinely seem to enjoy math are likely well-positioned to take Algebra 1 early.

“If they're curious and they enjoy mathematics – if they enjoy thinking about numbers and how quantities are related – that is a sign that, yes, this faster pathway may work nicely for them,” Galanti says.

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Watch CBS News

Here's how much Americans say they need to retire — and it's 53% higher than four years ago

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: April 2, 2024 / 1:46 PM EDT / CBS News

Americans have lofty goals for their retirement, with the typical worker believing they need $1.46 million to retire comfortably — a jump of 53% from their savings target in 2020, according to a new survey  from Northwestern Mutual.

But most people are far from reaching that objective, with the study finding that the average amount held in a retirement account today is just $88,400. That means that the typical worker has a $1.37 million gap between their actual savings and their retirement aspirations. 

Due to the impact of inflation and other financial pressures, Americans today believe they need to sock away more for their golden years compared with 2020, when the typical worker pegged a comfy retirement as requiring $951,000 in savings, Aditi Javeri Gokhale, chief strategy officer at Northwestern Mutual, told CBS MoneyWatch. 

But, she added, many workers are also expecting to live longer and spend more time in retirement, which may also explain why people believe they need bigger nest eggs than in prior years. Indeed, Gen Z workers, who are currently in their early 20s, want to retire at 60, and almost 1 in 3 think they'll live to 100, meaning that they'll need to fund a 40-year retirement, the study found.

"The magic number is at an all-time high — it's 50% higher than what it was before the pandemic," Gokhale said. "The cost of living in general, whether in reality or perception, seems to be more costly now than it was before."

And more people are worried about Social Security, given that the program's trust fund reserves are set to be depleted in 2033 , which will lead to a cut in benefits if the program isn't shored up before then. 

"We're all seeing stories about Social Security, and you'll see more of that since it's election year," she noted. "So if my benefit will be cut, I have to shoulder more of the burden."

How far does $1.46 million get you?

Many of the 4,588 adults who responded to the financial service company's survey likely answered with a guesstimate, given that the study also found that only about half of boomers — many of whom are already retired — say they actually know how much they need to retire, Gokhale said.

In other words, while some people have talked with a financial adviser or worked out a detailed plan themselves for their retirement, many Americans are heading toward retirement without really sitting down and figuring out what they need. 

"There is no major calculation; it's a feeling," Gokhale noted. "Some of them probably have done some math, in terms of saving and in terms of average burn to operate [in retirement], but it generally comes [down] to feeling."

To be sure, retirement needs vary considerably, based on a person's standard of living while working, their local cost of living, taxes and other financial details. Using the rule of thumb to withdraw 4% of one's retirement savings annually, a nest egg of $1.46 million would result in about $58,400 in annual income. 

After adding in Social Security benefits, which is about $23,000 annually, that results in retirement income of about $81,000 each year — or above the median household income of $74,580.

Of course, most Americans are far from reaching $1.46 million in savings — and many head into retirement with no savings at all.  

A do-it-yourself system

The study underscores the do-it-yourself mentality of the current retirement system, which some experts have said has evolved from the shift to 401(k) programs from pensions, with the latter managed by companies to provide workers with a steady stream of income in retirement. 

But with 401(k) programs, workers typically pick their own investments and decide how much of their income to save. 

One of the system's critics is retirement expert Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist and professor at the The New School for Social Research in New York, who recently told CBS News that the current approach has left behind the bottom 90% of workers. For starters, only half of American workers even have access to a retirement plan, leaving the rest to cobble together a savings strategy.

Many Americans don't believe they have enough money to consult a financial adviser, but it's a step that she believes more people should take, noted Gokhale, whose company provides that service. "I don't believe you have to be on your own and Google search, 'What do I need for retirement'," she added.

But other research indicates there are plenty of hurdles to overcome. For one, about 6 in 10 people over 50 have never talked with a financial professional, and the reasons range from their fears that they don't have enough in savings to justify it and that it's too expensive, according to a  study published earlier this year from AARP. 

"If you are trying to do this on your own, it becomes very very overwhelming and disheartening," Gokhale said. 

For most Americans, going it alone is the standard way to plan for retirement.

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Chiefs, Carson Wentz agree to 1-year deal, per source: How he fits as Patrick Mahomes’ backup

Patrick Mahomes has a new backup quarterback: Carson Wentz .

Late Monday night, the Kansas City Chiefs and Wentz agreed to a one-year deal, a league source confirmed. An eight-year veteran, Wentz will get a chance to help the Chiefs, a team seeking to become the NFL ’s first franchise to win three consecutive Super Bowls.

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Wentz spent 11 games with the Los Angeles Rams as the backup to Matthew Stafford last season. In two games, including one start, Wentz recorded 163 passing yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He also led the Rams to a game-winning drive over the San Francisco 49ers in the team’s regular-season finale.

Even at 31, Wentz is expected to be the most athletic backup Kansas City has had during the Mahomes era. During his seven-year career, Mahomes’ backups have been Matt Moore , Chad Henne and Blaine Gabbert , all of whom were in the twilight of their careers and mostly operated the offense from within the pocket.

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Listed at 6-foot-5 and 237 pounds, Wentz is capable of being a running option if the Chiefs want to reinstall the quarterback sneak into their offense. The last time Kansas City had a quarterback run a sneak was Oct. 17, 2019, against the Denver Broncos .

With the Chiefs inside the red zone that Thursday night, Mahomes lunged forward on fourth-and-1 for 2 yards. But he sustained a dislocated right kneecap on the play after he was hit by defensive end Derek Wolfe , an injury that coach Andy Reid, years later, acknowledged was a rare occurrence.

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• Kansas City Chiefs NFL Draft 2024 guide: Picks, predictions and key needs
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Nate Taylor has been a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Kansas City Chiefs since 2018. Before that, he covered the Indiana Pacers at The Indianapolis Star for two years. He has also been a sports features writer for The New York Times and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. A Kansas City native, he graduated from the University of Central Missouri. Follow Nate on Twitter @ ByNateTaylor

Carson Wentz to sign one-year deal with Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs have a new experienced backup quarterback.

Veteran quarterback Carson Wentz is signing a one-year deal with the Chiefs, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to disclose the deal.

Wentz is slated to be Kansas City’s top backup quarterback behind two-time NFL MVP and three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes.

The Chiefs are Wentz’s fifth team in as many seasons.

Wentz was originally the second overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles . He played five years in Philadelphia and was selected for the Pro Bowl in 2017 after helming the Eagles in the regular season prior to tearing his ACL.

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The Eagles traded Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts in 2021. He was Indianapolis’ starting QB for one season before the Colts traded him to the Washington Commanders prior to the 2022 season. He had a rocky campaign in Washington and was released at the end of the 2023 season.

The Los Angeles Rams signed Wentz last year to serve as Matthew Stafford’s backup. He appeared in two games in Los Angeles and registered one start.

Wentz's started in 93 career games but has only started in eight contests since 2021.

The quarterback has tallied 22,292 passing yards, 153 touchdowns and 67 interceptions in 95 career games, resulting in a 89.4 all-time passer rating.

Wentz provides the Chiefs a veteran insurance plan behind Mahomes. Blaine Gabbert, who is currently an unrestricted free agent, was Kansas City’s primary backup quarterback in 2023.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Tyler Dragon on X  @TheTylerDragon .

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