Could be a stupid question, but once they've finished secondary what do you do with their school books?

I've kept a bankers box for each child and at the end of each year add anything interesting, everything else is recycled or donated. They're mostly full of stuff from primary school.
DS burnt his notebooks from his least favourite subject as soon as he'd finished his GCSEs. Unfortunately there's still a brown patch on his carpet as he chose to do it in the metal bin in his bedroom.
My Mum kept my O level Chemistry notes (why???) and a project on the Romans from when I was 8 and that's it. I'm more sentimental though.

And if you had already chucked them - the answer would have been 'tough'.

There is no reason for keeping things in case there is the happy chance that someone else might want them in a number of years time. The teacher should have asked to have kept a selection of your DDs work, if it was of such vital importance to her.

The way I view it, is it's not your stuff, and if your DD doesn't want to keep it, it's not for you to say that she should.

It infuriates me to see stuff which has been put on the throw out pile being retrieved, only to be dumped in the garage/loft and not looked at for the next 30 years, by which time it's hopelessly spoilt and has to be thrown out anyway. And it might well be your DD who is lumbered with this task anyway.

Keep the very good ones recycle the rest.

We turfed out a heap of DS's primary school junk modelling yesterday, photographed it and binned it.
He's 19...

I'm told by DD that I lack sentiment. I don't really, it's just that most stuff isn't meant to last. I can't remember who it was - might have been Dawna Walter of Life Laundry who asked 'Does it make you smile?' The misspelt poems make us smile, so pass the test.

I'm 40. I have an art folder of my A-level art stuff and a handful of secondary school reports (they're hilarious!). And that's it. I have even chucked out all my university stuff, including my dissertation

My mum may have old mother's day cards I made still, but it's possible she binned them after the recent divorce from my dad, I daren't ask. She was ruthless in chucking stuff

I'm being sensible with my own dc's stuff.

If your DD doesn't want them, then throw them out. Or at most, only keep one or two especially worthwhile pieces e.g. some sort of project or a good set of field notes if she did Biology/Geography. But not the crap of "Monday 3rd October - page of dictated notes from teacher", "Wednesday, 5th October, homework based on dictated notes from teacher", largely saying the same thing. Or those horrible scratty worksheets all bent and torn. You get the idea.

DS has chucked all of his, bar one or two special pieces but sadly DD has kept the lot, but when she gets her own place the whole box is going. If she wants to fill her house with crap, she can.

Can you tell I am the daughter of a hoarder?

I've just remembered a piece of DS3's work that we did keep: " I hop my cat has 8 citterns. 4 boy citterns and 4 girl citterns." She was spayed when we got her, so DS3's wish was not to be.

I don't have anything from my childhood bar a family photo album my mother left behind when she fucked off to Spain.

I wish she'd kept something. not known for sentiment, my mother.

There's some of those dreadful art projects somewhere up in the loft too. the ones we spent all weekend on and ££££s in Hobbycraft. The ones that go into school then come home a week later and you think 'WTF we spent ages on that' so you don't chuck it right away

I love the primary oddments. Inaccurate secondary diagrams of xylem and phloem I can live without.

My favourite piece says firmly 'Antm pom' at the top, followed by
'Crchg leevs,
leepng sqrls
bondng cwalas
Antum'

with the handy translation on the back:

Autumn poem

Crunching leaves
leaping squirrels
bounding koalas
Autumn

I'm still not sure how those cwalas got into it.

I am ruthless croissant... Hate " stuff"

Haha-I'm a teacher and told my new year twelves to refer to their gcse revision guides, only for one if them to ask me 'but what if we've burnt them, miss?'.

My tip would be to get rid of them straight away. With anything like this, the longer you keep hold of things, the more sentimental 'weight' they accumulate and therefore they become increasingly difficult to let go of. If you get rid of it as soon as it is no longer actively needed, this never becomes a problem in the first place.

I have a KS1 style book bag for each child that mementos are kept in.

At the moment I have a huge stash of Secondary books but DS is using DDs ones.
Once he finishes GCSEs I think we'll have a massive bonfire of both their stuff

I have a bankers box for each of the DC. That's enough.

I stuffed all mine into the garden incinerator and had a ceremonial burning. It was very cathartic

My dd took all hers to the dump the day after she had finished her last A level so she couldn't be made to sit retakes.