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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Endless homework printing

40 replies

Celeriacacaca · 02/02/2018 20:22

I have just helped DS, year 11, print off next week’s homework. It took 45 mins and I have just counted the pages - there are 180 in total! AIBU to think this is ridiculous, terrible for the environment and costing me a fortune in ink. Clearly it’s a way of school’s saving £ but I think it makes the teachers put things on paper without thinking it through. One 24 page handout was in a huge font and, if in smaller size, would have gone on 1/4 of the pages. Does anyone else have this? Rant over.

OP posts:

mirime · 02/02/2018 21:05

As for converting, it doesn't always convert well, and we don't know if it's actual text or a paper that's been scanned.

eatthepineapple · 02/02/2018 21:22

Are you sure he was meant to print all of it? I'm a teacher and often you don't actually fill out all of the exam paper so can just print out the pages you need. That seems like an awfully long exam! Or have I misunderstood?!

JenniferYellowHat1980 · 02/02/2018 22:45

English papers are lengthy and do now require answers written in the booklet. However I would happily accept homework exam practice to be done on exercise paper and just email the past papers to facilitate.

outofmydepth45 · 02/02/2018 22:50

Another saying use zamzar here or another. Also surely it can be read and notes added on screen?!

kikibo · 02/02/2018 23:09

If you want to see whether a PDF is text or not, just double click a word and if it gets selected you can convert no problem. If not, it's scanned like a pic and you'll need OCR (optical character recognition).There are free OCR converters online but they might not be very good.. still, you won't lose much by trying.

Anyway that's ridiculous. I wouldn't be amused either.

mirime · 03/02/2018 09:09

If the answers need to be on the exam paper itself, I'd export as image/screen shot it, paste it into Microsoft Publisher (I realise most people don't have this, but I'm sure it can be done in Word or anything that let's you create a text box) make text boxes in the appropriate places for the answers, save as PDF and email it back.

Anything else is likely to be a faff, as those online converters aren't great for anything other than plain text, and even then they can be annoying as they can do strange things to the formatting. OCR isn't great either, even Adobe's own.

agentdaisy · 03/02/2018 09:15

That's ridiculous and I'd be refusing to do it. With my printer that would cost £11 for ink alone.

I'd email the teachers who set it and the head of year at the least. For a lot of families where I live they simply wouldn't be able to afford to print that much work and that's assuming they have a printer at all.

ragged · 03/02/2018 09:16

Google docs offers a fab pdf to MS Word converter. In case anyone wants a recommendation for a reliable service. It's a bit rubbish with tables, is only problem I've found.

I'm on my 2nd yr11 kid & never had to print 180 pgs at home.

TheSecondOfHerName · 03/02/2018 09:17

DS2 is in Y11 and yes it is ridiculous.
Each past paper is 15-20 pages long, and he is doing several each week.

He can't just read them digitally as there are bits to fill in, graphs to draw on etc.

I have started printing them half size (two pages fitted on to one A4 sheet).

TheSecondOfHerName · 03/02/2018 09:20

And the exam boards have not made the PDFs fill-in-able. They are all just images of each page of the exam paper.

ferrier · 03/02/2018 09:23

Our school does this too. The stuff needs to be printed out for ds to work with it properly but the school leave it to is to print. Costs a fortune in ink with three dc.

AnnaleeP · 03/02/2018 09:30

Most teachers are not tech savvy ime.

Printing costs for Y11 students are substantial in schools with the demand for endless past papers. Not helped by their inability to set a print double sided or the fact that actually most past papers don't need to be printed out and written on, they can be read on a screen and scrap paper used. Any graphs and so on in the paper can be printed out for just that page. But students insist on printing the whole thing out. I think you need to check what is being printed out at home if that much paper is being used. I guarantee it's not all needed.

I agree that homework that requires being printed out should be printed by the school, but that is a separate issue to revision work.

littleducks · 03/02/2018 09:30

How frustrating. To start I would be printing 2 pages to a sheet double sided but I think you should discuss with school about how much it's costing and how wasteful it is

NicheArea · 03/02/2018 09:45

Printer ink is so expensive. I would complain to school on cost grounds alone. I am poor and replacing ink cartridges is a significant expense for me.
Sending stuff home for printing is a model which is pushing the costs onto families which is less economical of their money and time, as well as being environmentally unfriendly. And all the loose sheets get lost / mixed up/ stored separately from exercise books .

ferrier · 03/02/2018 17:13

I personally don't have time to check what needs to be printed and what doesnt. The ideal person for that job would be the teacher. And they really shouldn't be requiring students to do any printing at all.

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