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What’s the most bizarre, pointless or impossible homework task you or yours have ever been given?

9 replies

NumberFortyNorhamGardens · 13/11/2023 10:25

And did you succeed in completing it?

I was inspired by the ‘horrible teachers’ thread to think of a number of WTAF homework tasks:

Being asked as a 12 year old (pre internet with nothing but a Children’s Britannica, a titchy branch library and some newspapers which may or may not have reached the bin), What are all the national airlines of the EEC? With livery. Less unreasonably I suppose, the same teacher also wanted us to list all the members of the 1979 (then current) Cabinet, with jobs. I still remember how difficult and stressful it was even trying to get that information. I was used to everything being in books!

For my DCs the worst one was arranging a visit to the sights of a local town and doing a project on it. It was a miserable wet day, they hated the whole thing and I did all the work on it. A total performance parenting project which smacked of ‘we can’t afford this school outing so we’ll make the parents do it.’

And a maths question for then 9 year old DD, which was presumably to test her thinking methods, but appeared to involve some form of algebra which they would not have gone anywhere near, and served only to puzzle and embarrass her. Class teacher objected so strongly to being questioned by DH about this that she refused to work with DH for the rest of the year.

OP posts:
BruceAndNosh · 13/11/2023 10:29

I misread the title as "housework" and wondered who is setting these goals, then mused on the time I cut the tiny patch of lawn belonging to our rented student house with a pair of scissors...

PuttingDownRoots · 13/11/2023 10:32

My DDs Maths homework last year.
It puzzled even my brother, who studied Maths at university. Not the actual method, but why you would want to even do it in the first place...

AdoringDavidAttenborough · 13/11/2023 10:35

"Make a megastructure" over the Christmas holiday, in year 1. The architecturally precise Empire State Building handed in by another child was, in my view, not made unaided by a 5 year old. Totally pointless.

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B12B12 · 13/11/2023 10:38

5 year old. Project on Islam. Didn’t even know what it was and unable to read or write.

Mydogisagentleman · 13/11/2023 11:37

Stand and count the stars!
Like a Taskmaster segment made especially difficult by the ridiculous dense fog.
We may have made up a number

determinedtomakethiswork · 13/11/2023 23:11

My daughter's grammar school. They were given a photocopy of several castles and had to cover them all in using completely different colours. My daughter had a lot of homework to do that night and so I coloured them in. I got a grade B. At parents' evening, I casually asked why that was a grade B and was told that my daughter hadn't used a wide enough range of colours. I had used grey, black and a variety of brown shades. I am still bitter about it today!

thistimelastweek · 13/11/2023 23:26

Age 10, my daughter had to research a local person/event (from a specified list of long dead people/events) and deliver a speech on that using only crib cards. Bad enough but she also had to provide visual aids.

I got 19/20.

parietal · 13/11/2023 23:31

6 year old - use the internet to research the life story of a female aboriginal painter and write about her. Seems like a nice idea, but neither google not wikipedia gave us a name or any relevant info. Plus I'm not letting my 6 year old google random things. I think we didn't do that homework.

SkiingIsHeaven · 13/11/2023 23:43

Bloody World Book Day.

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