HOME SCHOOLING QUESTIONS ANSWERED: How Many Hours a Day Should We Be Doing Schoolwork?

This is one of the most common questions we’re asked at Coach House: “How many hours per day should my child be doing schoolwork?”

Let’s put “schoolwork” in air quotes for a moment, because that term carries a lot of baggage. Many parents equate schoolwork with sitting at a table, pen in hand, filling out worksheets. But real learning — especially in a home education setting — looks very different.

Let’s Use English as an Example

According to the NSW Department of Education, students should be engaging in around seven hours per week of English-related learning. That’s right — seven hours per week, not per day.

But English includes far more than just reading and writing exercises. It encompasses:

• Reading novels, articles, instructions, signage, recipes, websites

• Listening to texts such as audiobooks, podcasts, or spoken instructions

• Viewing texts including films, news clips, animations, YouTube videos

• Writing stories, emails, reports, text messages, blog posts

• Language and grammar work including spelling, punctuation, vocabulary

• Discussion about texts and ideas — even casual conversations at the dinner table

• Media and digital literacy, such as decoding social media, navigating websites, interpreting memes

So, when a child is watching a film and then chatting about it with their parent — that's English. When they’re typing to friends, researching a topic, or listening to an audiobook — that’s English too.

How We Structured English at Home

In my own family, we spread the seven hours across the week like this:

• Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Up to one hour of focused bookwork — spelling drills, phonics, grammar, punctuation.

• Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: Reading, listening to audiobooks, or watching and responding to films or educational videos.

Those activities alone easily filled six to seven hours per week. And that’s before we even counted the endless daily reading and interaction with text through gaming, emails, online chat, research and everyday conversations.

You could meet all your English hour requirements simply by using the reference books provided in our Coach House curriculum — even without assigning a novel. That said, the NSW syllabus does require students to study four extended texts per year, including novels, biographies, non-fiction works or media texts. We build these into our programs intentionally. They are often attached to integrated units, for deeper learning experiences.

Maths: Not Just Textbooks and Timetables

Mathematics is easier to quantify. The Department recommends four to five hours per week — but again, this includes a wide range of activities:

• Traditional bookwork: problem solving, arithmetic, written exercises

• Practical activities: cooking, shopping, building Lego, drawing maps

• Spatial reasoning: geometry through design, art, Minecraft builds

• Data and statistics: creating charts, interpreting tables, reading graphs

• Real-world problem solving: planning a garden, building something from instructions, navigating with GPS

In my home, we scheduled Maths like this:

• Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturday mornings: one hour of structured bookwork

• Other days: maths concepts integrated into science, history, art, geography and technology projects

Maths learning does not require five days a week of textbook work. Real mathematical thinking happens all around us — from baking a cake to budgeting pocket money to programming a simple game. Please understand me though - practical activities are add-ons when it comes to Mathematics. There is no substitute for progressing systematically through a properly organised course of study. The magic happens when the right course of study is implemented at the right level for the individual learner.

Recommendations from NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority)

English: 6 - 7 hours per week Creative Arts: 2 hours per week PDHPE: 2 hours per week

Mathematics: 4 - 5 hours per week Technologies: 2 hours per week Languages: 2 hours per week

Science: 4 hours per week HSIE (History, Geography, Commerce & Work Education): 3 hours per week

The NSW syllabus recommends 3 hours per week for HSIE (Human Society and Its Environment), which includes History and Geography.

However, you do not need to teach both subjects every week. The same is true when your child is doing multiple elective subjects. At Coach House, we structure our programs so that your child can focus on one subject at a time. Electives usually change every one to two terms, to keep things fresh and exciting.

For example:

• Your child might study History for 3 hours per week during Term 1 and 2,

• then switch to Geography for 3 hours per week during Term 3 and 4.

This approach ensures depth of learning without overload — and still meets all HSIE requirements across the year.

Reframing the Question

When parents ask, “How many hours should we be doing schoolwork each day?” — what they’re really asking is: “Is my child doing enough?”

Rest assured: if your child is engaging with the world, asking questions, creating things, solving problems, reading, thinking, talking and reflecting — they are learning.

At Coach House, we help families embrace a more holistic, natural rhythm of learning that matches real life. That means less time at a desk, and more time doing the things that make learning stick.