Three Hours of Homework a Night: Is This What 'Good Schools' Look Like Now?

Right, so picture this. Your lad gets in from school at four o'clock, has a biscuit, watches a bit of YouTube, fair enough, he's earned it. Then six o'clock hits and it's head down, pen out. Dinner at seven, back to the desk by eight, and still going at half ten. Sometimes later.

That's the actual daily routine one parent described this week. Not revision. Not a quick read-through of some notes. Proper written work, equations, tasks, the lot. Three hours minimum, on a good day. Three and a half on a bad one.

The kid's at one of those high-achieving academies. You know the type, blazer policy stricter than airport security, results that look brilliant in the league tables, and a general vibe that the school runs on controlled stress and parental anxiety. And yeah, the scores are impressive. But the parent, who didn't grow up in the British school system, is starting to wonder whether 'impressive scores' is worth their Year 9 son basically running a second shift every evening.

Because . The lad is thirteen. Thirteen. At thirteen I was mostly arguing about whose turn it was on the PlayStation and occasionally doing some light lying about whether I'd done my reading. And I turned out... well, debatable, but the point stands.

The parent's caught between two genuinely horrible options: keep him at the academic pressure cooker and hope he doesn't burn out before GCSEs, or move him somewhere with a bit more breathing room and spend the next ten years wondering if you kneecapped his future.

Is three-plus hours of homework a night normal for Year 9? Is this just what ambition costs now? Or has something gone properly sideways in how we're treating teenagers?

Drop your thoughts below, especially if you've been through this with your own kids.