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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

School bloody projects

62 replies

ovaryhill · 31/08/2015 12:46

I'm wondering what guff the school will come up with this year
I think they should be banned, last year it was build a castle a moat and different rooms that reflect your personality
No nine year old is capable of this without considerable input of time and money and I'm quite sure it's not fair on those families with a really tight budget
Some kids took ones in that had working electrics!!!
Aibu to say they they are an absolute pest and I have neither the time, money or inclination to spend my weekends helping to paint bloody cereal boxes and shopping for tat to go in them?

OP posts:

murphys · 31/08/2015 16:10

I feel the same. Not in UK so schooling a bit different, but each term there is a different project for different subjects. In fact, we are currently busy with our fourth one this term for one child!! One included a 21 day world tour, had to include the flights, accommodation, excursions, amount of currency required for each country. Had to be a minimum of 7 countries included with 18 different places. Each place had to have a whole compiled list of requirements.

Last week it was a powerpoint presentation for a made up story, had to include songs and dress up to tie in. Now for those of you who know how to crop and cut a song and put it into powerpoint, that's great, but we don't all know how to do that............ grrrrrrrr.

Had to do an indepth study in a political leader and had to be 10 pages long. Had to do a speech on him too.

Now, right now, i have just taken 5 minutes to ease frustration I am trying to help dd put a double bar graph into word as now she has a MATH project. She got it today. Its due on Thursday. FFS!!! Tally tables and info to be gathered by asking 20 elderly people certain questions. We don't even know 20 elderly people nearby to get this all done today.

Can you tell i am frustrated.!!!

No point to contact school. Its set in the curriculum by the department of education. The majority of the marks for end of term, are for the projects. Dd is in the top class, good marks matter to her. But she cannot do all this alone, I don't even know how to do half this stuff.

And what about those kids who don't even own a computer. Nearly half her class don't. We live in Africa. We don't live in a first world country where everyone has access to computers and internet available to do research. I don't know why its allowed. I work from home so I am here. What about all those parents who will only get home at 6pm tonight and cant help their dc!!

Pass the bloody wine over will you........

Gileswithachainsaw · 31/08/2015 16:45

A project over the summer would have just ruined the holidays for me. It would have hung over me till the last week, spoiling everything, before a last week of having to do the bloody thing

agree with this 100%

JacquesHammer · 31/08/2015 16:49

8 year old DD had two bits of homework: -

To either buy/colour three postcards and tell the new class teachers about something they'd done over SUmmer

Read three books and write book reviews.

Easy to do and valuable homework IMO.

I'd HATE a massive project

BoneyBackJefferson · 31/08/2015 16:55

murphys

Print screen, don't insert/import. just screen print the page and copy.

Tally charts a data collection, make them up.

JsOtherHalf · 31/08/2015 17:50

I am grateful for the summer homework DS was set after reading these.

He had to keep a summer diary for the 6 weeks, with 3 small paragraphs ( sentences really) for each week. It still took blood, sweat and tears to get him to do it.
He is 8.

LunchpackOfNotreDame · 31/08/2015 18:13

We are lucky. Our school doesn't do projects over the summer but does them over easter and christmas. They do stipulate each term that the child must do it with minimal help and it's never a big building project, usually just an a4 research poster

Hoppinggreen · 31/08/2015 18:26

We love them!
Kids really enjoy doing these so I'm happy to " facilitate". I do wonder what happens to the children who's parents can't or won't help with time or resources, hopefully teachers recognise the effort whatever the end result and reward accordingly.
From memory I've been involved in a volcano, an Anglo Saxon village, a rainforest, a robot, a boat, a weathervane, a mosaic, a Roman shield and DS still have 4 years of Primary to go!
Luckily as I said we enjoy doing them.

Lurkedforever1 · 31/08/2015 18:28

Dds have always been ok. They're always ones that don't require anything buying, just stuff lying around the house, or require parental help, are linked to school topics, and are open enough the kids can do it in a way that interests them.
Plus parents doing it for them was frowned on, when dd was in reception I overheard one parent complaining their 5yr olds all singing and dancing electric powered xmas project ( think similar to an interactive motion triggered snowman) hadn't won a prize when the honest cheap glitter and battered gift wrap efforts of another dc had.

Topseyt · 31/08/2015 18:35

I hated these things. They seemed to get ever more elaborate, time consuming and faffy as tine went by when mine were in primary school.

I am so glad my youngest is now secondary school age (13, and just about to start year 9). Secondary school has been so much better for that sort of thing. Hardly any of it.

CharleyDavidson · 31/08/2015 18:56

We don't set holiday homework, I hate it as a parent and don't want to have to set something for a class of children I don't know yet.

We do have some homeworks that are topic based, but usually try and give a choice. There are a few practical ones on there, for those children (and parents) who DO want/like them, but lots of others to choose from for those that don't.

My daughter's school did similar ad it really annoyed me because they assigned points alongside each homework and all the ones that would require considerable parent input were the ones with the highest points. And then they made it a competition with a prize at the end. I fed back to them that I liked the choice element, but not the competitive element.

There are a few activities that come naturally to feed right into our topic work in class, in weeks that there aren't those natural activities, then we set something linked to the maths that we have been doing.

murphys · 01/09/2015 07:02

Boney Thank you so much, I/we didn't even think of that!

OneInEight · 01/09/2015 07:30

Mixed feelings. My ds's did actually enjoy doing them in the early years of primary. We also were quite happy to send them in with unrecognisable collection of cardboard boxes stuck together rather than something we had done. The school also did some of the making projects at school - remembers ds2 coming home with a HT awards for a castle which looked amazingly like a shoe box partially covered in brown paint to unappreciative parent eye so I knew their expectations weren't exactly high.

The problem is if parents start competing with each other - I guess how well your child does in a worksheet is hidden from the other parents in a playground but that 5 foot model being carried across the playground is a bit too big to miss.

P.S. ds1 has only just let me bin the "volcano" made in year 2 from paper mache. He is now year 8! He must have got something from the exercise.

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