to think that it is extremely eye-rolly indeed to award top prize to a Year 4 school project which was done on a Mac Book Pro?

[effedorf]

Especially given that I am not talking about wealthy independent sector, but London state primary in very mixed area?

Also confused about why you would have beef with the teachers. Parental involvement with homework should be encouraged, it's a good thing. It is not something that all children should be denied just because sadly some are.

I don't understand parents who think their own child's education is entirely someone else's responsibility.

And the reason people don't think your beef is with the teachers is that you didn't mention the teachers at all in your OP.

CloudsAndTrees - there is a big difference between parental support and involvement, which is good, and parents doing the vast majority or all of a project (or Easter bonnet or whatever) which is bad.

EduCated - no it is about pupils winning prizes when they have done their work on sophisticated software (sophisticated in home pc terms, not sophisticated in the great scheme of things) which a 9 year old could not do without a lot of adult intervention.

And no, I don't hate the teachers, or hate the parents, or hate the child, or wish my child had won, or will lose any sleep over it, or any of that stuff.

My observation was merely a cynical about the children who have the most sophisticated resources getting the top prize.

And why should there be a prize anyway? For a project? Why not just a mark?

Yes, perhaps I should STDG. As I said, lazy shorthand on my part.

Maybe it was a really good idea that the kid came up with at the outset in the classroom and discussed with the teacher. And then went home and put it into practice.

How could you possibly know?

And I'm still mystified about the whole Mac Book Pro thing. a) What exactly was the software that the kid used and b) how do you know?!

They all worked when they were tucked away in the loft..... I haven't tried plugging them in recently though.

[eeeee. It were good enough for me when I were a youth emoticon]

I just do know Kiriwawa.

So am I getting this right... You are pissed off because you can't be bothered to help your kids, but other parents can, so that makes the other parents bad? Well it is an interesting view point I suppose. As an aside we only own a Mac, so if dd wants to do homework on it should I say no or be branded an evil parent that helps their child?

No you have got that entirely wrong Nancy75 but many thanks for your amusing contribution.

Riiiight. So this is one of those AIBUs where you're not going to answer anyone's questions or give any further information, nor will you accept that YABU.

I'll leave you to it then

Maybe it's GarageBand... but the child in question's Dad is Chris Martin or Brandon Flowers?

I sort of get the point you are (now) making, but:

A) It might just have been deemed the best for the content/idea

B) I'm almost certain the teachers will have a very good idea of how much parental input each project had and will be able to judge each on its own merits

C) That completely is not the point you made in your OP

Sorry Kiri, what was it you wanted to know?

My 8-year-old has just produced what I consider to be a fairly impressive* 6-week homework project. By herself. On a PC. Using software that I've never used.

She wrote her own script, arranged to borrow a costume, staged the whole thing and the only input she had was DH pressing 'record' for each section. She then took herself off and used Movie Maker to combine her talky bits with background music and images which she'd selected.

The resources she had at her disposal weren't sophisticated (DH, a PC and a camera phone) but what she did with them impressed me. Her teacher told her she enjoyed watching her movie - that was the assessment.

When children in my Y4 class bring in homework projects there are no prizes (beyond self-satisfaction and maybe the occasional moment of glory if you're the smallest child in the class and you bring in a project that is 3 times as big as you). Assessment takes the form of everyone having a look at everyone else's project and talking about them. For my class, it's one of the few things that parents can confidently involve themselves in.

*albeit not impressive enough to win a prize but then again, no prizes were won by any child/parent

To be fair, effedorf, you would have to work hard to be more unclear in your thoughts and posts on this thread - you can hardly blame nancy75 for misunderstanding what you were saying - and she didn't deserve a sarcastic answer.

To turn around what you just said:

"It just sucks for the children whose parents don't give a shit."
and
"I am not prepared to put in the hours!"

So, you are literally posting on mumsnet to point out that you dont give a shit and it is crap for your child.

Good for you realizing this!

Some children have a natural curiosity that drives them without parental input.

I forgot to ask, what form did the prizewinning project take?

You're kidding yourself if you think teachers don't know who has been helped or turns in work well above their level. We know exactly who has shit parents and who has tiger parents.

We also know which parents are the ones that will sulk and blame the teachers when they think their little precious doesn't win everything.

Nancy surmised from what I had said that I was pissed off because I couldn't be bothered to help my kids.

Anyway, I am struggling to get my point across. One or two have understood me. I can't find the exact words to make my point, so I shall bow out with genuine thanks for all contributions .

I think OP is getting an unnecessarily hard time.

I have owned a MacBook - then I had three windows laptops in succession. Video editing was a piece of piss on the MacBook. It sucked at a lot of other stuff - but it had a perfectly integrated interface which meant that it was totally intuitive to add music, effects etc. I have loads of great DC videos & montages from my MacBook days. I honestly tried to replicate them on PC - but the video editing PC software was either ££££ or crap or really fiddly to install. On a shared PC, of course, you wouldn't even be allowed to install new software.

Good software really flatters the worker - and I'm not sure 'previous generation' folk always understand how easy some of the whizzy flashy stuff is to do with the right tools.

As your issue is actually about the parents doing the work, I think you need to get over it. This has always happened. If they're asked to make a model of a building in Y4 there will be children bringing in scale replicas of the Houses of Parliament made from matchsticks amongst the wonky toilet roll castles.