School projects - how much did you help your children?

Shame on all parents who do their child's projects for them!

Encourage, help find resources, help with some suggestions if the child is completely stuck, but never, ever do their work for them. Better that they have nothing to hand in than to cheat. Anyway, it is obvious from the Teacher's viewpoint when a parent has done the work and not the child.

I don’t think that the schools should set that kind of homework as it’s totally unfair to the pupils whose parents are unable,for various reasons,to do it for them.
In fact it raises the question about the need to set homework for children of all ages . In countries such as Finland youngsters do not have homework and the educational standards are one of the highest in Europe!

P.S. When I was a Teacher, I would have expected the Parents of a Disabled child to support their child appropriately, of course.
I do think children are over burdened with projects and homework. They need time to relax and recuperate. The half term holiday especially needs to be kept free. Maybe a very small piece of homework but not a big project. Little ones in the long Summer break need to be encouraged to keep reading too.

I helped a bit but usually it meant taking them to library or to visit a museum or something. I did proof read DS's dissertation to check spelling etc but the subject was well over my head.
I remember my mum pulling down & re-knitting the hat I had to make for my doll in primary school. I still hate knitting!

My grandkids don’t do homework... parents have told their schools that it’s a no- no and unecessary... the parents are both child psychologists .... the school accepted their statement and nothing else was heard. The kids lose marks on their report cards/letters.... parents dont care!

Both my DCs amd DGCs were/are pretty motivated where projects are concerned. Lots of encouragement and ideas but they had/have to pull it all together themselves, with great success I might add.

I remember the dreaded geography project when we were about 14, involved contours, soil samples, bark rubbings and interviewing farmers. I enjoyed the map bit, loathed the rest. two of us got together and rode our ponies around the allotted area, not much going on about geography. certainly no help from parents then.

Being a teacher myself, my help with school projects was to listen to what DS or other youngsters said he intended to do, suggests books that were relevant, check for spelling mistakes or factual ones, but leave it to them to suggest the corrections.

I once had to expend enormous tact while requesting two mothers of school-leavers not to help their daughters by writing their essays for them.

The only useful homework for primary children is reading plus doing a whole range of activities of the parents’ / children’s choice to enrich their children’s lives, as much as time and finances allow.
At secondary school, finishing off some class work, practising eg more examples of something taught, and learning vocabulary for languages are my suggestions.
No projects, unless optional.

I would help them as much as they needed but I wouldn't do it for them. If they were struggling, I'd make suggestions. Teachers are very aware about who does the the work with home projects.

I had very little input into my children's homework or projects.

If they asked for my assistance, I looked at it and made suggestions but they did the work.

With coursework, I admit I sometimes read it through and, if there was a mistake, I would point to the relevant paragraph and see if they could work out the error for themselves. With a second and careful look, they found the error.

As a retired headteacher I agree with many of the comments but whilst we (teachers /staff ) KNOW when parents have done or contributed towards a project on many occasions that is exactly what we wanted.
The projects are not tests to be judged whose is best but to encourage parents to talk to their children and problem solve together
Sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t but we felt we had to try.
Many parents wanted ideas about how to ‘help ‘ their children and projects are just one way we could suggest.
Always a difficult decision to ask parents to help, but damned you’re right damned you’re wrong .
OF COURSE some parents are pushy but does the school not try to encourage parents because we know some cannot/will not help .... I suggest not ... we have to find other ways to support those children...

Why don’t parents realise that teachers are savvy enough to know when a child has done the work themselves? They’re not doing their children any favours

My children were used to me making Christmas decorations and crafting. They used to help. So...they were fairly competent when it came to making things and would be full of ideas.

When my son was about 8 he was set a homework where he had to - every night for a month - draw a picture of the phase of the moon. Being away with the fairies he completely forgot about it until the day before it had to be handed in. Resourcefully I remembered that our newspaper showed every day, with the weather report, a diagram of what that night’s moon looked like. And Hurrah! we still had the previous month’s papers in the recycling! So DS laboriously copied out every half, full, crescent etc shape and took the homework proudly in to school.
I got a note from his teacher that afternoon. ‘Nice try, Mrs Nona but the moon was clouded over for all but 5 nights this month.’ DS was mortified that his mum had made such a wally of herself.

Guilty of taking over a bit more than i should i loved projects

My sons were at a private school and weren't asked to do many projects, but mothers were frequently asked to produce costumes for school productions. The most bizarre I remember was being asked to produce a fish costume which would quickly turn inside out to be a policeman. Now, I can't think why I co-operated, but back then my low place in the school-gate pecking order and my eagerness to please meant that I always met my deadlines.

The only time I interfered in my children's projects was when my younger one did a beautiful project on the Battle of Britain . He did a great job of researching, collating it and word processing it but the cover page was awful because he did it as an afterthought and hand wrote it . Very untidy and the title not straight. I insisted he redid it much to his disgust but he got a great mark!

The nearest I came to helping oldest son with a project was when,at the start of the term in 1991,he was told to do a project on Isambard Kingdom Brunel so I wrote to Bristol tourist information centre and they sent some leaflets about him.

Children at DC1's primary school had been asked to make Easter hats for a competition (don't agree with that btw - a parade was enough). We did of course help find an old hat that we didn't need for a base, and search out some craft materials, but my 6-year old DC put it all together. Needless to say, it was gaudy and tatty but DC was so proud until creations worthy of milliners started to arrive in the classroom. Fortunately the headteacher, who was judging, ignored these works of art and gave prizes to the children who had obviously made their own. I do agree that parents should show an interest okimherenow but if they are expected to help, that should be made clear to parents and children.

I agree that it's wrong for parents to do much/most of a project, but from all I've ever heard, even if it's pretty obvious - and even if the child has told others that mum or dad did nearly all of it - teachers typically don't say anything, the child still gets praise and an A or A+.

While the others, whose parents couldn't or wouldn't help at all, or very little, get a poorer mark and, unsurprisingly, are left feeling that it's very unfair.

Having said that, I've just remembered dd coming to me on behalf of a friend who was doing Home Economics GCSE, and had to knit a basket of fruit and vegetables. (!)

'Could you please knit her a lemon, because her mum can't knit, and she's got to hand it in soon.'

I knitted a lemon. At least it wasn't the cauliflower, which she'd managed by herself.

I remember my father (highly competent engineer) doing my physics homework for me as an unscientific 12 yr old...and getting D- 'think again'!

At our local flower show there is a children’s category featuring a miniature garden. The same garden wins every year, as it is entered as the work of one gentleman’s children/ grandchildren/ neighbours etc, some as young as four! It has a duck pond, greenhouse, and wee washing line ( the one you hang Christmas cards on), complete with tiny clothes. It would be difficult even for an adult to produce.

inishowen. I copied a poem out of one of my books, and told my parents that I had written it. I think that I was looking for a bit of praise and attention, as I got very little.
To my horror my Mum submitted it to the childrens' page in our local newspaper. They printed it, and sent me five shillings. I worked myself up into a terrible state, thinking that someone would tell the paper that it wasn't my work. They didn't, but my brother found it in my book, some time later, and snitched on me! All hell let loose, and it was a long time before they let me forget it.
The words of that poem are still branded on my memory, 70 years later!

GS1 tends to go for elaborate projects which require a lot of technical help, but he does have good ideas!
I once did one of DS's GCSE art projects for him. Unfortunately I had food poisoning at the time and wasn't at my best. I was rather put out to only get a B+ after my 4 years at art school and career in design!

Cannot recall ever assisting with any project with my three. If asked I would have given guidance in whatever subject and how to go about the work. Didn't seem to have schoolwork based on projects 40 years ago. This weekend though I have been involved with GS's school project as I am looking after him DS and DIL off on holiday. He is year 3 and I cannot believe he is to produce a power point presentation on the subject. He knew exactly what he wanted to include just needing a bit prompting on the order of graphics he wanted. This was a nightmare for me as I do not have an Apple computer. Fortunately GS is a wizard on this system. Cannot believe what is required for 8 year old's homework.