"Optional" primary school projects

[neverbeenskiing]

DD (7) has times tables and spellings to learn every week which they're tested on each Friday, these are supposed to be practiced each night. She also has one piece of English homework and one piece of Maths homework each week and we have to listen to her read, ask her questions about what she's read and comment on her understanding in her reading diary each night. They lose a house point if there are any gaps in their reading diary and they miss their playtime if any homework is not done. DH and I both work FT, I am usually home about 6pm and he gets home about 6.30pm. We also have a 2 year old. So fitting all this in along with DD's swimming and music lessons can be difficult but we manage and I accept that it needs to be done.

In addition to the above, DD's school like to regularly set 'optional' extra home learning tasks, which are then judged and a winner chosen from each class. These tend to be large, complicated projects that take a lot of time and no 7 year old could realistically do without a lot of parental involvement. Think constructing a castle with a working drawbridge and a moat, or designing and carrying out a science experiment and illustrating your method, hypothesis and results on a giant poster, that sort of thing. They will email us with the brief (which is usually an A4 page long) and a deadline, and the email will always say that it's "optional". Fair enough. My issue is that every time without fail DD will come home a few days before the deadline and tell us they've had an assembly where the Head Teacher has told them all about this very important project they "have to" do and that it needs to be really good because the best one will get a prize! One of us then ends up spending most of the weekend frantically trying to cobble together a project with DD while the other one deals with the toddler, at the expense of family time and all the other jobs that need to be done at weekends because we don't have time in the week.

AIBU in thinking that there is no point in the school framing something as being "optional" to parents if they're then going to get the kids all excited about it as the majority of parents will feel they have to do it?

I have mixed feelings about projects - some the children found interesting and really got into and others were just a chore to get done.. They came up with the ideas, we discussed it they would work and then they built them with varying amounts of help. One child loves craft projects and just gets on with it the other less keen and needs a bit more support but it always is their idea and work. However, we have a lot of craft items in already or can get hold of them which not everyone can do.

What is it teaching the child when their parent does the majority / all of it? They aren’t learning anything except that their efforts aren’t good enough. I wish schools wouldn’t reward those projects.

How long do they give you? If its like a month that would be too bad.

Homework wise she is getting to the age where she could do a small bit at childminders or afterschool's.

My daughter had these kind of projects. They were supposed to take no more than 30 mins but that was a joke as they were always complicated and not much could be accomplished in 30 mins. They were always set on a Thursday and so had to be done over the weekend and we would tend to spend at least half a day motivating and trying to complete it as very few could be done without parental input. If we mentioned this to the teachers then they would say the standard "they're optional and no need to spend more than 30 mins".

However, one child created an amazing cake in the shape of a castle (mother was a cake decorator) and they earned the maximum house points. It always seemed that those projects created without obvious parental help didn't tend to get house points.

I learnt to ignore these "optional" projects with my second child as I really felt that it just created stress and spent too much of our weekend organising.

YANBU OP. Bloody make work which only the frustrated crafters and uber keen SAHMs actually like.

I still remember decorating a sodding potato at 10pm because DD had decided the night before the deadline that she really did want to join in the competition after all (having said nowt about it for the previous 2 weeks).

And my potato didn’t even win.

No just no. Get your child to do it. Don't do it for them. It is obvious which ones are the parent projects.

And my potato didn’t even win

I bet your potato was beautiful, @minipie.

We had "optional" projects too. A list of 10 themed ones and kids were under pressure to do experiments and build models for prizes too.
I let DC do it, provided glue and paint as necessary. They never won a prize, but at least could claim it was their own work.

I learnt to ignore these "optional" projects with my second child as I really felt that it just created stress and spent too much of our weekend organising.

I totally agree. That's the thing though, I think as they say it's "optional" you should be able to ignore it, but it's difficult to ignore when your child comes home all hyped up because it's been sold to them in an assembly and they're now convinced that if they don't do it they'll be the only one!

@Hankunamatata they usually give us about 2-3 weeks from when the email goes out. But then they seem to do these assemblies where they get the kids all excited about it a few days before the deadline, at which point parents who have already decided not to do the "optional" project either have to disappoint their DC or cobble something together in a weekend.

I would definitely feed back to the school that you feel it’s too much pressure. You’re probably not the only parent feeling this way, but if no one speaks up, nothing changes. I also think it’s rubbish when the expensive and / or parent made projects always win.

Be strategic. You need 1. A sympathetic and willing DSis or LF (lovely friend), both if possible, who 2. Has been through this with their own year 1-6s and 3. has completed said optional projects with their own children ( useful if same school as they often do these mummy/daddy homework’s on repeat) or 4. Is a crafting/research/ project genius who loves doing this stuff just for the hell of it. If you get any pushback from school say you’re teaching valuable lesson on inter generational cooperation and time management. And recycling.
Anyone need a Tudor house (with jutting out bits)? Various swords? Holiday diary? Model working volcano? Gear operated mechanicals? Models of frogs insides? Cells with plasma jelly stuff in them??

That is all very harsh. I wish this country would put aside its homework obsession. There really is no need at that age. When they are older it affects their mental health too. Id rather they stay an extra half hour at school to get it done but that obv would be costly etc etc

My dd is 5 and in primary 1 in Scotland. We get a load of homework that's to last 2 weeks home at a time. I have a dh that is constant nightshift and a 6 month old so I don't have the time to do all her homework. I do the important bits, like learning her words and letters etc. But playing with playdough I don't do, I don't go out to parks to get leaves etc.

We also have to take pics of their homework and upload them to a site. Again I just click hand in.

They are going back to paper homework soon which I think is better.

If the project was so important to their learning, they would do it in schooltime.

By DC3 (and two terms of lockdown learning) I have lost what little enthusiasm I had for this sort of shit. I will facilitate if any DC is particularly interested in a topic but the deal is they do the vast majority of it.