How to create a homework timetable

Sep 7, 2024
5 min read

Updated: Jul 22

This is just a snippet from The Parents' Guide to Homelife and Study. If you’d like the full version, with clear, up-to-date advice, practical tips and actions you can take at home, click below.

Read the full guide: The Parents' Guide to Homelife and Study - GCSEs

As your teen heads back to the classroom in the new academic year, they’ll get their new timetable. This shapes their days and weeks in the year ahead. As well as what they do in the school or college day, they’ll need to do work in their own time. The best way to organise this is to create a homework timetable. Let’s look at what’s involved, why getting it right improves their quality of life and chances of success, and how you can help.

Homework timetables

Whether they’re studying for GCSE or sixth form, your teen will receive homework or assignments to complete in their own time. For GCSE students, this is usually a set amount each week. Typically, they’ll receive homework on a certain day and have a few days before it's due. In most cases this follows the same pattern each week. For example, if they have English lessons every Tuesday and Friday, they might get English homework set on Fridays to be handed in on Tuesday. It’s similar for sixth form students, they’ll just get more.

Your teen needs to prepare their own homework timetable. This means looking ahead to what they do each week and planning when they'll do their homework over evenings and weekends, fitting it around other things such as after-school activities or time with friends and family. Don’t let them convince you they can do their homework as and when, or that they can’t plan because they don’t know when they’ll get it. That isn't true.

Planning their homework timetable is something they should do themselves. Once they’ve done it, take some time together to review it and see if it’s realistic. If it isn’t, help them make adjustments. If you’re really concerned, speak to the school.

If your teen doesn’t know where to start, we’ve outlined the steps below.

Why homework timetables produce good results

Little and often is the key to success, which is why it’s so important to set a routine. In most cases it’s good habits that produce results, not short-term spurts of activity. Planning their time carefully now avoids a last-minute panic or feeling overwhelmed because they’ve got behind and don’t know how to catch up. It also means they create a balance between what they have to do and what they want to do. Understanding and mastering work-life balance is a skill that sets them up well for the future and improves their life once they enter the world of work.

How to plan a homework timetable

Start by excluding the time they spend at school and getting there and back. None of this time can be used.
Block out any time spent on after-school (or before-school) activities, such as clubs, sports, music lessons and practice.
Block out family time, such as dinner each evening.
Block out a little leisure time. They should always have something to look forward to.
Block out at least half an hour, preferably an hour, before bed for wind-down time, so they’re more likely to get a good night’s sleep. This is about creating lifelong healthy habits; adults and children alike can struggle to get to sleep because they don’t wind down beforehand.
Adjust bedtime to fit the time they need to get up the next day. For example, if they usually get up at 7am to reach school by 9am, but on Wednesday they go in early and need to get up at 6am, they won’t have as much time on Tuesday evening because they'll need an earlier night.
This should leave a few hours each weekday evening (or possibly in the morning, if they’re early risers) and time over the weekend to allocate to homework. It’s better to spread the work over the week than to do the minimum on weekdays and spend the whole weekend catching up.
Don’t forget to factor in 30 minutes each day to go over the work they’ve done, tidy and organise their notes, and identify anything they haven’t quite understood (which they can then ask about and resolve). This is revision time. Most students won’t think about revision at the start of the year, as exams seem far away, but if they do this now they’ll be in a much stronger position when exams loom in the spring and summer terms.

GCSE timetables

Once they’ve completed steps 1 to 8, they'll be left with windows where they can do homework.

One and a half to two hours on weekdays (perhaps with Friday off), plus three to four hours spread across Saturday and Sunday, should be enough. This leaves time for things they enjoy, like watching their favourite programmes or phone time.

Split homework time into 30-minute chunks: 25 minutes of work followed by a 5-minute break. Phones should be silent during work time. They need to fit their homework into these windows, planning carefully to match which subjects they’ll cover to when work is set and when it’s due. They should also allow catch-up time for study and revision, as in point 8.

Sixth form timetables

For sixth formers the process is the same, except they’ll need to dedicate more time to homework, study and research. Two to three hours on weekdays (perhaps with Friday off), plus five to six hours spread across Saturday and Sunday, should be enough.

This might sound intense, but all those gorgeous free periods during their timetabled day are meant for study. They may be taking fewer subjects, but they'll be going into them in much more depth. Less timetabled classroom time gives them the space to master independent study, essential for both university and work later in life. They can use some of the time to exercise, catch up with friends or do something they enjoy, but they'll have to make it up in the evenings or at weekends, otherwise they won't cover enough ground to do well, whether it's coursework or exams. Using their free periods wisely during the school day gives them much more free time when school’s out.

With that in mind, they should complete steps 1 to 8, adjusting step 1 to include some of the study periods they have during the school day. This leaves them with windows to do homework and research.

As with GCSE, they need to fit their homework into these windows, planning carefully to match subjects to when work is set and due. Unlike GCSE, where homework is very specific, they’ll be expected to do lots of their own research to complete the tasks set.

Keeping a balance

Teens need to do extra work outside the school day to get the best outcomes. This should be planned around commitments they can't change (the school day, big events) while allowing time for other things they enjoy. Breaking study into manageable chunks (a short amount each day), with an end goal in sight (free time without guilt), feels achievable. That makes them much more likely to stick to their plan and stay focused, helping them feel good about themselves and putting them on the path to success.