And the winner is... MUMMY! (Lighthearted)

[DriveVerySlowlyPastNumber23IWantThemToSeeMyHat]

Anybody else get slightly pissed off at Easter bonnet parades etc when the winners picked have clearly been created by the parents? 😂

My DSIL always took over the home projects that her son had been assigned because he went to a posh private school where it was the thing for the parents to 'help' although the creations were presented as the child's work. By the time he was 9yrs, he was quite fed up with not being able to make his own creations. When it came time for him to present his latest diorama, he walked to the front of the class and said,
"This is supposed to be an Eskimo village. My mom did the whole thing and wouldn't let me help at all". Then promptly sat down. I was very proud of him for outing DSIL! 🤣

I was HoD in a Scottish high school.

One of the teachers in the department had an S1 class reading a book called "The Wee Man". She said she'd give a prize to the pupil who made the best "house" for the wee man, using a shoebox.

The winning entry had a full set of furniture, a disco ball and was illuminated by a bulb powered by a battery.

Winning reply!!! 😂

Not quite the same but I'm still FUMING that I got SCREAMED at by my teacher that my homework, which was a drawing of a map, was not as good as the girl's sitting next to me. Yes, mine was probably a bit on the rushed side and not that great but she had been showing it to me before the teacher had looked at it. Her 19 year old brother had done it for her.

I'm 42 and I'm still mad when I think about it. I'm mad at her for keeping quiet while I got screamed at and I'm mad at the teacher for expecting me to have produced work that was of the same standard. It was obvious that she hadn't done it.

Did he at least give you the prize? I would have made him 😂.

I remember DC having a dress like a bug day in reception, they had to make their own costumes. I got her a white tshirt and she made her own design then I helped her make some wings and an antennae headband. I’m not sure what she was really, but she was happy.

One of the boys in the class had a massive papier mache monstrosity he definitely had not made at four years of age. He looked smug as fuck and fully expected to win. To my delight, he did not win and he started sobbing.

This year, we have a stupid “make a recycled outfit” day coming up. I’m refusing to participate.
It really winds me up that on WBD, a few years ago, the prize was won by a child in an expensive bought costume. My son was in a full Robin Hood costume made from scratch including bows and blunt arrows made by his grandad, a tunic made by his great grandmother, a hat made by his nan. He was 5 and we all pulled together to make sure he had the best costume we could provide. I was fuming that the little girl in a blue Matilda dress off Amazon won the best fancy dress prize. The prize was a £10 Amazon gift voucher.
Last year both DC had to make Easter bonnets so I left them to it, they even made their own hats out of cardboard boxes. Prize went to “Matilda” girl and another girl in DS2’s year. Both children with creations that mummy had clearly bought off Etsy. I even saw the listing!
Furious doesn’t cut it.

In 1967, I was on holiday in Butlin's Ayr with my parents. I was 7.

Mum hadn't expected me to ask to enter the fancy dress competition. The other entrants had brought costumes with them.

Mum sent Dad to the camp newsagent's with instructions to beg for remaindered papers at the end of the day.

Somehow, she got hold of a stapler. She stapled the newspapers onto me as a top and skirt, folded some into wee concertinas and stapled them onto my plimsoles, made me a newspaper hat and gave me a bundle of papers to carry with a cardboard sign saying 'Daily News'.

I got into the finals and was delighted.

When my kid did Romans at school they had to build a colluseum from cardboard. The child who won was taken to Rome by mummy and bought a “build your own kit” at the gift shop. Her dad turned up in a gladiators outfit. Presumably that was a prize for mummy too. Absolutely mental

Our school makes all the children do things like this IN class so no one can cheat. I think it’s a great idea myself becasue it’s so disproportionate sometimes.

I work in a school. 2 of my favourite photos from a while ago are...
1 - a beautiful watercolour painting of an angel that a 'child' won for a Christmas card competition. And...
2 - a photo of a card that the same child made for their teacher when she left.

Not in a MILLION years would you ever put them together. I wouldn't ever choose something that is clearly a parent's work.

Yeah, we never had any of the stuff (not that I was going to realistically make any of it, all the crafty genes when to my sister). I'd never even seen sticky back plastic, and as for pipe cleaners...my Dad smoked a pipe, he had a reaming tool to clean it with and one tatty thing that might once have looked like the shiny white fluffy things on TV, but hadn't for many years.

We didn't even have a lot of this stuff in school, never mind at home, yet on the programme the presenters acted as though everybody had this stuff just lying around.

I wonder if, for someone who is good at this stuff (I am definitely not, I can barely hold a pencil), it is just so tempting to fix this little bit over here … and then that little bit over there. Until they get to the point of having done at least two-thirds of whatever it is.

There was a poster on her (years ago) whose child had to spend a weekend producing a model of either a castle or a Viking ship (can’t remember which). She sent him in with the pile of shite they’d managed to produce and a note setting out just how long this thing had taken and how often they had each cried while making it. She knew how many fantastic models produced by architects were going to arrive on the Monday.

I do have a story of turning the tables on this once when I was a kid, though. We had a hat making contest, might have been Easter Bonnets, but can't remember, it was in the early 80s and I have slept since then.

Usually, I had all the artistic skills of an insect of your choice, but I made my own stuff. I made a hat out of wrapping paper in a cone shape with some stuff stuck on. The posh kid with a Mummy who didn't work arrived with a beautifully crafted monopoly board hat, complete with the little hat/boot/car made out of tinfoil, etc. The school (small village primary) decided to let the cleaning ladies judge them after we had gone home. They had no idea who made what. Next day, we arrived in school, and to my shock, I won!

The posh kid was most disgruntled, and went on about how the cleaners shouldn't have been asked to judge it. Snotty brat.

Goodness this has reminded me of the year my two spent ages colouring stuff for theirs and gluing it messily on (as had most of the others).
And the winner - the child wearing a baseball cap (just that not decorated in anyway) because his mother forgot and the person judging felt sorry for him as his mother ‘had a big job and couldn’t possibly be expected to remember such things’
I had totally put that to the back of my memory and it’s coming charging back! 14 years later!!! I probably should let it go again!

In the case of the shoebox house complete with glitter ball and working light that I mentioned above, the class teacher was also a guidance teacher and absolutely refused to admit that the mother had constructed the model.

It was very clear, unfortunately, that the child didn't have the capacity to make such a model.

I remember my sister having the homework of making a robot. She was about 6. Our father got incredibly into it. I remember it had a metal frame he built underneath its cereal packet exterior and its arms, legs and neck could move. 30 plus years later, she has repeated this with my nephew’s homework of a model Viking ship. He’s 8. She had a lovely few days with hot glue, craft supplies air drying clay and special paint. Nephew wasn’t allowed to touch, just watch 🤣

This thread is making me feel better. I’m a total control freak perfectionist and I had to realllly sit on my hands to let my 4yo and 2yo make their own Easter bonnets. I was not allowed to assist. It went against every fibre of my being to send them in to school and nursery wearing absolute eyesores, glued to their scalps with the litres of excess glitter glue deployed. But they bloody loved it, so that’ll show me. Maybe. 😂😂

(No prizes though, quite reasonably, the hand drawn rabbits were terrifying).

Our egg decorating was meant to all be done at school. The winner made a majority of his at home (I imagine with mum).

My DS is considering lodging a complaint.

I still remember the outrage when I worked in a nursery and the winner was the only one made by a child. Obviously it looked nothing compared to the beautiful creations of the parents. But the kid made it himself and that was special.

Parents were visibly pissed when they saw the winner.

Yanbu. The utterly marvellous HT at my DDs’ primary used to purposely chose a shit hat that a child had clearly made. One year I swear she chose a child with a bit of scrunched up tin foil glued to their hair.

I will never forget doing a project book age 7 or 8. I did it all by myself. I went to the library, wasn’t allowed to borrow books from the adult section (it was about wildlife, nothing racy), so sat and copied out the information I needed to take home to add to the project. Spent hours copying diagrams and food chains, used my best pens and glitter glue! Then got a middling mark while the laziest girl in the class got top marks! She had an A2 fold out drawing, clearly done by an adult, and the handwriting was definitely not hers. I was FURIOUS! Her mother had done the whole thing and she got all the credit! Whereas me and my labour of love were told room for improvement with the presentation.

Can you imagine if you had made it and not your daughter? That would have stung 😂

I always let my DC make their own, but DS1 would make DS2's for him if I didn't sit and watch.

I’ll never forget asking a child how she made something (this was for homework) for her to reply, “I don’t know! My mummy made it when I was in bed!”