Sadly, this has always been the case for a minority of families. I fail to understand quite why a children's art/ craft/ baking event means so much to them, but apparently it does. It continues as well - in Year 6, my kids were each given a pound or something, and told to invest it to make more money. Whoever made the most money for charity won something. My DD and her friends made and painted little door signs and toys out of offcuts of wood. I helped with sawing, but otherwise they just got on with it and did a good job. One girl decided to have a lemonade stand, and EVERY DAY we'd see her mum arrive with the 'lemonade' she had clearly spent the afternoon making, and popcorn too. Predictably, this mother won!!
I'm not artistically talented, so my DDs were usually perfectly happy to be left alone to make their Easter bonnets etc. DD1 did win one year, but only because I was being lazy. I couldn't be arsed to go into town after work to buy a hat for her to decorate, so I showed her some pictures of fascinators that women sometimes wear to weddings/ the races instead of a hat. I asked if she'd like to make something like that out of an Alice band and some bits from the craft box (feathers, ribbon, foam shapes etc). She agreed, and won! I think it was a case of less is more, and the fact that a child had obviously done it.
I left primary school more than 30 years ago, but still remember vividly that my friend's dad used to do all of her homework for her. She had older parents who were always at home, so had plenty of time. Crucially, her dad was a retired architect. We spent a whole term of Year 6 working on a history and geography project, which involved learning about a city and culminating in a Mon-Fri visit there towards the end of term. Every week, we'd do a written activity in our special topic books at school, then take them home to finish or illustrate. Every week, my friend would bring hers back to school, complete with exquisite drawings of buildings and city scenes, or floor plans of famous buildings. We all knew her dad had done them. It was obvious. Even after the trip, this continued. Alongside her age-appropriate diaries and diagrams and brass rubbings, these amazingly intricate drawings would appear. At the end of the year, she won a trophy and small cash prize for the best topic book. The teacher knew she had cheated, but I guess one of the governors or somebody like that got to judge the competition.
At best, parents like this are infuriating. At worst, they can be very damaging for their children. It didn't end all that well for my friend. At secondary school, she began to struggle - the teachers all thought she was OK because she seemed to understand the homework, but she'd inexplicably flunk tests in class and was often in tears. It turns out that her dad was doing her homework for her, which as you can imagine was incredibly detrimental in subjects like Maths and French, where you need to master each bit before you can move to the next bit. Ultimately, she failed her A levels. Years later (we'd have been in our mid 20s by then, and grown apart after leaving school), my mum bumped into my former friend. She was married and had two little girls, including a newborn. Mum congratulated her on the baby and told her how happy we all were for her. She had always wanted to be a mum, so was delighted having her children. Friend asked Mum what I was up to, and Mum told her that I'd recently gone back to university, to do my teacher training. Friend said, "oh she's so lucky. I'd have loved to have gone to university." The sad thing is - she probably could have, had she been parented differently. She managed to pass the 11+ and most of her GCSEs, in spite of the fact that her dad rarely let her do anything for herself. She was clearly a bright girl, and was also talented at sport, from what I remember. Unfortunately by the time it came to A levels, she simply didn't have the perseverance or the independent study skills she needed to succeed. My mum wasn't perfect (who is?!) and she also brought us up on her own, so time, money and resources were all in short supply. But I ultimately felt sorry for my friend, who was raised in relative luxury, and not allowed to learn how to do things for herself. I'm certain that her parents thought they were helping her to succeed, and doing what they thought was best, but in the end, cheating isn't going to benefit the child.