Homework - aibu?

[CeliaFate]

Ds is in year 6 and his topic is Space.
Their homework is to make a moon buggy.
That's it. No criteria of how far it has to travel, or what it must be made up of. Just make a moon buggy. So he could stick cotton reels to an egg box and send that in. If he'd had a list of all the things it had to have, or look like or do I wouldn't have minded so much although it's a pain in the arse.
AIBU or is that a really lazy way of getting a load of models to display in the classroom AND that year 6 pupils should be having more challenging homework?

YABU

It's a good piece of homework, allows the parents to push their kids to do as much as their parents want them to do without having to waste the time of the parents and kids who don't see the value in it.

I would agree if there had been a design brief or any sort of specification list.

As it is, I think "Instant display for classroom, box ticked, no marking or effort on the teacher's part". (BTW, I am a teacher).

YABU, I think this is the point of the homework "design brief or any sort of specification list". I don't think the teacher actually expects moon buggies. It is a research and design your own piece with a final model. Y6 shouldn't need any parental input to do this and it seems challenging enough on your own.

At least it's not some dull SATS paper..My ds would enjoy making a moon buggy.

It's meant to be open ended to be accessible to all, and to allow children to be creative, solve problems, etc. You can do as much or as little as you like. Some children will stick a cotton reel to an egg box as they have no parental support. Others will go all out; research, design, build and evaluate an amazing moon buggy. Surely as a teacher you should be able to get that?

Oh and ps we set similar challenges and it's a pain trying to find space to display them all! Instant display is certainly not why we do it.

How hard is it to go to the library or tap 'moon buggy' into google?

I think half of this task is actually reaching the child to find information out themselves. In year 6 it's not long before they start secondary school so won't have the basics handed to them on a plate anymore.

Whether or not it's an easy piece of work for teachers is irrelevant. I think it's more about developing your child's own curiosity in a subject.

It sounds a bit of a pain, but I'd swap you our year 4 homework - write a letter to a friend in hieroglyphics!

DC's school homework is all like this (open ended project).
I tend to work on the basis that they should do about 30 minutes for each week the homework is set and set expectations accordingly.

But it really is a question of produce what you want - at DC's school the teacher gets anything from the most intricate models to a scrawled page of A4.

I have no problem designing, researching, planning. All valid.
The problem is with the way the task was given "Make a moon buggy".
Too open ended for my ds - he needs a structure or he will take the easy way out and stick milk bottle tops to a shoe box so he can get back to stuff he likes doing. He's capable of so much more and his teacher should have differentiated the task to stretch those who could do better. I suppose it's the lack of expectation that's annoyed me.
If it had been presented in a more challenging way, I can see the merit.