Mumsnet Talk

Feeling a bit upset today as we took my daughters home learning project into school today and it is awful compared to everyone elses. She did it almost alone with a little help from me but it is all her own work. Other kids have made models and forts and papier mache masks, the task was to create your own story using words, pictures or models but most kids have done models or in fact the parents have made the models because the standard of some of them was amazing no year 1 child could have made them!! My DD was in tears as she only had a few sides of paper and some pictures, and she was in tears shouting at me that I made her do it wrong. I have another child at home and I honestly do not have the time to sit down and make these intricate models and surely home learning is about the childs work not the adults.

Just wondering how much help and input other parents put into their childs projects. Feel like a terrible mum at the moment and I have let my daughter down she must feel terrible :0( !

I send my DD in with work she has produced (Reception). I too feel shit about it but I KNOW it is the right thing to do. The teacher should be able to reassure her. Classic example - we got the class toy a few weeks back with a diary to write in: DD wrote a few basic sentences BY HERSELF - eg: We had fun, Dad went out. I was very very proud of her. The parents in the weeks following us have done the same. Before our week, there were pages and pages of adults writing a long account of the toy's week! pointless.

Hold your head high and praise your daughter for her efforts

Poor old you. Don't feel so bad. I'm sure the teachers can tell the parent's creations from the children's own work from a mile off and will credit your DD accordingly. Just explain this to your DD when she has calmed down a bit tonight.

FWIW my parent's gave me hardly an input whatsoever in my homework when I was a child. They seriously gave me very, very little help at all and I went on to gain a 1st class degree with honours.

Hope your school is good at rewarding genuine work - as always, I would mention it to the teacher if she is upset.

My Ds1 won a prize in Reception for a decorated egg. I had no idea of the expected standard, and just let him at it with a load of paint. The result was quite cool, but nothing like the amazing and complicated displays the other children made. And then he won! I was very chuffed.

Agree with the others. Your child's teachers will be able to spot the genuine work as opposed to the parent's work. Does make me chuckle when I see some of the fabulous efforts that turn up at school, clearly the dads have spent AGES on them, whilst the child has probably banished to the TV

Teachers really want to see the children's work. I provide materials, maybe talk through their ideas with them, but generally let them get on with it themselves.
Our head teacher this year emphasised that she wanted to see the childrens own work but if parents were desperate to have a go they could do their own and she'd send them home a certificate

The teacher should be able to comfort reassure and praise the children accordingly, that's part of her job. Incidentally, how did you get to see all the other children's models? I must confess, if I had known that people in general were going to see my daughter's model I'd be inclined to make a great deal of it myself, or to plan and compose it, allowing my daughter to help. (That's what we do at home already.) I understand that this negates quite a bit of the educational purpose of the project but I'd want my daughter's project to be one of the nice ones. But surely teachers must already know that home projects are going to be largely done by parents. (Maybe that's part of the idea, otherwise why not do the project in class?)

You know what's really depressing? When you help quite a lot, and they still don't a good mark.
Or worse still, one time DS won a competition, I think it was design an easter card, and everyone was saying, you can see they chose that one because it is so clearly the child's own work. I had actually helped quite considerably with inpiration and hand-holding.