History Project Palaver/ Waste of Time

[twelveyeargap]

Hello. DD (11) had to do a history project to make a Norman castle.

She put a lot of work into it over days and days, making quite a large cardboard castle keep on a base, papier-macheed it, painted and so on. She even based it on a real castle, so it was harder than just making any old thing.

Obviously I had to put work into it as well as you can't give an 11 year old a cardboard box and a stanley knife and say, "off you go".

I paid for a taxi (!) for her to take it to school on Tuesday as it was too big and delicate to be carried up the road and put on a bus full of commuters where she often doesn't get a seat. (I had to be in work too early to bring her myself).

History teacher gave them all a cursory glance, said they could leave the projects in his room until the end of the day and then take them home.

Surely after expecting the kids to put in all that work, he could have at least arranged to have them displayed in the library for a week?

To add insult to injury, DD had a club after school, so didn't go back until today to get her project. Bloody cleaners had chucked it out!

Am gutted for her and raging for my wasted time. AIBU? Is this standard? Put hours and hours of work into something and then forget about it? at teacher and for DD.

Definitely worth a complaint to the Head about the cleaners, no way should they be chucking work out. I would have thought teacher's attitude was the fastest way to make his kids lose interest. Bizarre behaviour. I remember
at the age of about 12 spending HOURS on a history project because there was going to be a prize. I won the prize.

It was 50p....

That's awful.

I would defo say something to the school.

excuse me but can i just say that maybe the cleaners shouldn't be getting told off or blamed

i clean in a school and i find that the teachers just dump boxes and old work etc all over, bags and bags sometimes it's really annoying as if they can;t walk to the bin they have no communication skills it would seem and if you don;t take some stuff you get into trouble

personally i won't take anything oher than the bin bag myself unless specifically asked

it sounds to me that the teacher should have left a note clearly stating that these weren't to be touched and i would be having a word to the head about him

No, I don't blame the cleaners. Apparently DD's project had been put on the floor as the other projects were taking up the table space. Not the cleaner's fault. If the projects had been displayed somewhere or a note left on them, it wouldn't have happened.

I'm really more cross with the teacher that the project meant nothing to him. I agree with you there Steinermum - it's exactly how to make the children lose interest.

DD often doesn't take pride in her work - just does the bare minimum, but with this we really got her to give 100%. Bit of a slap in the face.

Take your point about the cleaners though it still seems strange to throw out something into which a child had obviously put such a lot of effort.

you shouls see the stuff they throw away honestly

recently they threw out a massive wooden dolls house ( like those from elc) because on one of the sides the dowels had come out, i took it home got dh to fix it ( a bit of super glue!!) and it's great!!

in the summer hols there was loads and loads of stuff full ring binders and the plastic holders etc, i was like couldn;t they reuse the binders ifthey emptiedthe paper out....soo wasteful

we had some stuff left in the class rooms by the bin over xmas was obv someones nativity scene theyhad made, left it there for days cos didn;t want to throw it out incase it wasn't meant for the bin, in the end got "told off" for not taking it, but how are you supposed to know i walk past the teacher every day and she never mentioned it to me

i think there shouldbe a lot more communication between the teachers, cleaners, parents, head etc

Good god.

How to instantly de-motivate a child.

She won't bother next time, will she?

oh that made me go
god I would be fuming
don't know what I would do, though
but you are not being unreasonable

Well, at least I don't seem to be being unreasonable to be upset. I was wondering if I was just upset because I'd put so much feckin time and effort in the thing!

Will further question DD to make sure I haven't missed any important fact (you never know, do you?) and perhaps then write a polite note to the teacher saying I was a bit disappointed that they hadn't been encouraged to display their work somewhere and that I felt it was demotivating to the kids not to have more made of something that so much work had gone into.

excellent idea