To not want to spend time at weekend doing this sodding homework?

[eleflump]

I know I probably am BU...

DS is in Year 7, and has to do a project on castles. He has to do research on various types of castle - do labelled drawings, write about them, all ok.

Except the last task - to make a model of a concentric castle. Which needs to take at least two hours.

I work full-time, DH works full-time, and next weekend I am also working Sunday, which leaves me Saturday to do everything I need to do. And Christmas is coming.

I was crap at art projects at school, thirty-odd years later, it hasn't got much better. DS is crap at art projects and won't have a clue without me trying to help him.

I am going to need to go and buy all the stuff to make the bloody model...which will take up more time.

I thought I had left all this behind at primary school!!!!

Oh - another thought...how the bloody hell is he going to get it to school on the bus?????

Why don't they do this stuff at school where they have the time, the resources, and (presumably) people who know how to do it?!!!

Just a quick note from the other perspective - loads of teachers hate setting HW, nevermind setting endless and fiddly projects. It's the powers that be who demand interesting and varied HW tasks so the teachers have to comply. There are many teachers who just don't agree with HW and in this time when work is demanding and families barely see each other I am one of them.

I don't think much will change though. I agree with the PPs who suggested leaving him to it, not in a mean way, the teacher will really appreciate efforts which are fully those of the student.

My sympathies, I work FT too and my profession is pretty demanding. I hate these types of activities, and deeply dislike teachers who force parents to do this extra work. Every minute spent on something like this means that we have less outings, less meals together, less time that we actually enjoy. Plus there is no evidence that this type of forced parental involvement actually makes a difference.

When I was a working on my doctorate in the US, I had to make a pirate ship from for my academic supervisor's daughter.

My daughter missed a outing to the city library today as she had to stay at home with DH to finish her homework. She is 7, and has mountains of homework, including these idiotic construction projects.

I feel your pain. I spent a good part of yesterday finding materials and helping DD make a Torah scroll (including cover & yad). Also Y7.

This is how far we have got...

YANBU - it's ridiculous at any age but particularly at secondary school. My dh made a model of an Amazonian animal for my ds last week...ds was going to do a 3D drawing but teacher said that would be unacceptable as she wanted to hang them from her classroom ceiling.

I had thought it might have been less bother for ds to take a 30 minute detention for not doing it...I am completely uncreative but fortunately didn't go to a school where they thought it was appropriate to set this rubbish as homework for 13 year olds (and there's no educational value, it's just to decorate the classroom).

Need - I do sympathise, and I certainly understand that teachers are required to do this nonsense, but couldn't you give them a choice? Learn 3 facts about a castle or make a model or draw a picture of one - that type of thing, so that the kids (and their parents) who have nothing better to do with their time love this sort of model making still get to do it, but the ones who don't have the time/inclination can spend 10 minutes doing something which is too time consuming?

What annoys me the most about project homework is that kids who do want to do it themselves get marked badly because some parents will do the project and the marks aren't for the child's work.

DS spent hours on one of these projects in primary year 5 and told he'd failed it/received low marks. The child that recieved the highest makes clearly couldn't have constructed the finished project, due to the level of skill and detail in it.

I refused to let DS engage in any of that crap after that project.

I'm a French teacher... my summer term Y7 topic is "my home" which leads to a spoken presentation by each pupil on their dream home. On the first day of term a letter goes home to all Y7 parents saying that the only piece of homework which will be set all half term is for each student to create the model that their presentation will be about. I make it clear that 30 minutes a week over seven weeks would equal about 3 and a half hours work if they choose to leave it to the last minute. I ask parents, just like they would any other homework, to support/encourage their child and check they are doing it.

I have had photo diaries, The Sims/minecraft houses on video or screen shotted, I've had toy farms, doll's houses, cardboard boxes turned in to houses, I've had lego models, I've had plasticine and play dough. I've had biscuit sculptures and cake models (eagerly enjoyed by presenter, students and teacher alike post presentation). One year I had a small fish tank because the child loved scuba diving.

Every year the year seven students with older brothers and sisters start eagerly chattering about it as soon as Easter gets near. It creates a massive buzz - the technology/art/ICT teachers can, and have lent a hand to students. I have never had a student not have a model and I have never had a single complaint from a student, a parent or another teacher. In fact, the only parents that I ever get feedback from are the ones with not so academic children, or who are not so academic themselves who enjoy helping their child with French homework without the challenge of feeling unable to understand.

We have a huge display of the models on the last Friday of term and the students vote for their favourites from lots of categories (ICT, Art, Construction, Imagination, Architecture). It is never the ones clearly made by parents that win. Oh, and I mark the French bit. The students, and I, love it.

Clearly I shouldn't bother with this. MN said so.

TheSecond - that is very impressive! You are obviously the kind of creative parent the rest of us hate

Not only do we have bloody bastard making homework, we then get invited in to look at the projects that all the other adults have made at a special afternoon about a week later, which usually means taking time off from work. I've seen the only model I was interested in (because I inevitably made it). Why would I want to go and look at Little Jonty's Dad's model FFS?!

Oops, the way if really goes down, those letters get lost, children do something else during their free time, and because your assignment is due the weekend I'm in DC/San Diego/Heidelberg/Paris, DH/neighbor/babysitter/a random doctoral student does the actual work. You get no letters because as parents we are picking our battles. My DD recently used a project from her previous school (we have moved this year) to complete a labor-intensive take-home project.

By the way, how do you learn French while you are building a model?

I'm sorry, but I cannot see how spending three and a half hours of valuable French homework time making a model is ever going to help them pass their GCSE French. So, whilst your pupils may love it, it is a complete and utter waste of time.

I am bloody dreading Secondary now. I thought all this crap would end.

YANBU. At all. I'm sick to death of bloody homework. DD is year 6 and on top of a weekly task based around maths/English etc also has spellings, timetables and a special maths workbook that she has to complete with me EVERY DAY. Admittedly only takes 15-20 mins a day, but with that on too of everything else it drives me loopy. OH works about 50-70 hours a week, I work, both kids have clubs/hobbies outside of school hours. Some days we all just want to sit and enjoy our free time, not spend an hour getting pissy at each other while trying to suss out the latest maths conundrum or craft a pyramid from paper mache. It gets worse at Secondary?!

I've had three DC make a castle of some description and I strongly recommend the cake option. Use lots of chocolate fingers, chocolate toffee log things, jelly babies for people and even if you're hopeless like me it looks ok. Have also employed the same basic technique for a Trojan horse to good effect. Drive them in to school that day, tell them their class can eat it after it has been exhibited and you won't be faced with a huge castle model which you feel guilty about throwing away.

I've found food technology to be worse. It's nothing like the relatively plain cooking I remember... Highlights include desperately trying to teach DD to roll sushi the night before a critical assessment for which she'd foolishly picked Japan as her international inspiration (practising until unbelievably late), arguing with the teacher as to whether pine nuts are nuts (they aren't), the cake which cost £12 to decorate...

We've also been to the space museum in Leicester to research for a space topic and we live nowhere near Leicester. In that case DD was devastated as the teacher didn't even read the resulting masterpiece (a diary of the only British female astronaut).

Also the cell model is an inevitability so look forward to that one!

frustrated I send letters directly to parents via the post to circumnavigate the inevitable variances in the organisational abilities of students. Once a week during their lessons I have them write in their planners "French: Continue work on ideal house model, due XXX". Parents (mostly!) sign their children's planners. I imagine the sudden appearance of a 'shock project' would put the ball squarely back in the parents court.

To answer your, and Sue's question you learn French and it helps you gain a GCSE because...
You are basing your presentation on your model. We spend term in class conjugating verbs to talk about what it is, what it looks likes, what is has and doesn't have, how you made it and what you made it with (past tense) and the conditional tense (ideal home would be/have, could be/have, should be/have etc.), working on opinions and justifications, stretching vocabulary using dictionary skills (Icing sugar, double sided sticky tape, Fish tank, "which represents concrete" etc. don't come up in many other contexts!), they practise speaking out loud in French to an audience, they hone their presentations, they work together and peer assess, they build on feedback from me.
Every single child has to prepare a bespoke presentation - every single part they put in to their model they have to be prepared to speak about - which means that even while they are building it they are thinking about "how can I say this? What could I say?".

I don't think it's wasted time, and my head teacher mustn't either. Especially since our perfectly ordinary, not particularly leafy, "Good", mixed sex, comprehensive has a GCSE French take up rate of c. 70% and a A*-C pass rate averaging c.80% for the last five years.

Thank god none of my DC had to make the French house model - that really is making my blood run cold as an idea. Making the models is bad enough, but dragging out my GCSE French to explain it would have truly been the icing on the cake.

Which is exactly why I cover that bit in class time Mysteryfairy ;)

So the 3.5 hrs at home is unrelated to French after all - it's just making a model. Glad it hasn't caught on with any of my DC's MFL teachers.

Sorry, but I would absolutely hate it if my child was set that French homework, but I probably wouldn't say anything. Maybe I need to start. I think I will.

Oh bloody hell oops - desist this nonsense immediately. Making a model of a house to teach French?? Thank god the perfectly ordinary yadda yadda school my DCs attend don't inflict this utter torture on its pupils (it still does very well too - funny that). Sheesh.

3.5 hours summer holiday French homework in the form of craft?!

Stuff that. And not as an aide memoire to a presentation on taxidermy.

prepares herself for the onslaught of her student's parents with a naice cup of tea and her results based evidence

Look, we clearly differ in our opinion. But if it's any consolation my blood runs cold when I'm presented with mathematical vector questions by my Y11 daughter and we spend much angst based time researching on google. I find it helps to repeat the mantra in my head "This will pass and I love you very much". Sometimes I even say it out loud, and then a bit louder.

There have been parents on this post ranging from very brusque "I always just let them get on with it and it turns out how it turns out" to "I'll do it like always I always end up seeming to".

I imagine there are teachers who are likewise reading this and thinking "I always just let them get on with it and it will turn out how it will turn out" or "the parents will do it just like they always end up seeming to do".

*NB if you are un?lucky enough to receive a letter about making a model home from French shortly after the May bank holiday from me and you don't think it's appropriate please do approach me to discuss it constructively (no pun intended).

:)

I hated French because it was reciting flashcards until enough kids mucked about and then the teacher cried.

I'd have loved the ideal house module and I bet I'd have learnt a tonne of French.

That said, the French example is spread sensible over time and the OP's seems abrupt and less tied into a curriculum.

Regarding the French model, I think I'd rather help with the discussion and verb conjugation bit as homework then have the castle built at school. Schools tend to have a supply of modelling stuff so are better equipped and teachers tend to have an eye for craft. I don't know anyone that likes making stuff as it happens. Even with subjects where I don't have the knowledge, it's easy to research via the library or internet..I am new to mumsnet so it's not a mumsnet thing but it's a common complaint at the school gates