What does parental involvement actually mean?

Absolutely don't do their homework, I never have and I never will.

But "being involved" at secondary I do think includes helping them think through what work they have, and when they will need to do it. It also involves helping them avoid distractions, eg by putting their phones outside their rooms, and helping them plan when/how they will revise and what they will do for breaks. It can also involve buying plenty of nice stationery and snacks. And sometimes testing them on content that they need to memorise. Sometimes it involves letting them off chores or being a sympathetic ear when they get near to exams and the going gets tough. HTH

I support dd as in providing stuff. Eg pointing her in the direction of where to research, or doing stuff like museums that give her the opportunity. If she was genuinely stuck I'd explain something, same as when she was younger I'd have to explain non school curriculum things that she asked about in child appropriate ways she could understand. I'm more likely to support it by going off at a tangent though, or having a general conversation on random related things. I tend to take the attitude 'the teacher doesn't want to see my work' and have been known to make her go and look something up that I could answer in one word.

So eg I'd discuss at length ww2, throw in mein kampf, talk about why Russia has always been hard to invade, women/ feminism during and post war, the moral debate on Hiroshima etc. But would make her Google the date of D-day if she forgot, and make her research eg evacuation if that was the homework aspect of it, before I'd add anything on that topic.

If she had ever got genuinely stuck on homework, I would have re- explained what she needed to do, but only if there was no other way.

I think your level of involvement is fine.

I do more, but because my kids need it iyswim, not because I want to particularly.

So I do help DD2, y6, with HW, otherwise it would be a pointless exercise for her and she would gain nothing by doing it all wrong . But I always annotate the level of help given and work closely with the school.

It turned out in y11 that DD1 has dyspraxia, which explained why she needed so much help throughout secondary. I am hoping DD2 will not require the same level of input.

Same as you. And I'm a teacher! It really annoys me that some parents pretty much do their dc's homework for them. It does not do the kids any favours. Teachers aren't fooled either - we know what the kids are capable of because we see them work independently in class. When we see perfect homework come in, with more advanced vocab and no spelling mistakes, it's pretty bloody obvious why.

I'll give my dc a bit of guidance on their homework if they ask, but otherwise I just let them get on with it, and mine are only 7 and 10. It's good practice for when they are older.

I think it's about providing the support necessary to allow your DC to develop into an independent learner. For example, DS1 (yr8) sometimes lacks confidence and will sometimes panic if sees a question that he can't immediately understand. I would sit with him and go through the question and help him work out what it means but I would expect him to answer it by himself. If maths is tricky I might point him to a video tutorial on the internet so he can revise how to do it but I wouldn't do it for him.

In Yr7 I told him that he wasn't doing enough revision for his end of year exams. He said he was so I left him to it. He did OK but not as well as he wanted and now understands about revision. Better he worked it out for himself before his GCSEs.

Same as you too. Rightly or wrongly, if my DD was struggling with anything at junior school, I would tell her to hand it in uncompleted and I'd pop a note in her homework diary to say there was an issue with her understanding. This is so the teacher could pick it up and go over with her, if necessary.

However, a LOT of the parents would sit alongside their children each night, and do their homework for them if the child struggled. They'd be on a select parents' whatsapp collectively answering tricky maths questions. The homework would take hours I swear, when we would see 15 mins max. Bizarre.

If there was internet research needed, I'd give her pointers, but not do it for her.

I read with her in the early days, but admittedly did give up for a host of stuff, but she could have benefitted from this being more regular as I think it's a nice thing to do together, her dad was better at this.

Now in Y7, she's very self disciplined and gets homework done with no intervention.

You're not a lazy parent. But I guess, from your other thread, we need to step in a little more than our own parents did with some addition support tools as and when we see our children struggling, IF the school is not able to support due to the factors you have raised.

I'm the same as you, I personally think this is a good level.

Coursework at GCSEs has been stopped partly because so much was actually being done by parents.

Children who do the work themselves will actually be much better set up for life than if their parents are doing it for them. At secondary school its worth while making sure they are doing their homework and doing a few spot checks so you know if the level of work has deteriorated.