to think school projects, at least at primary level, are a complete waste of time?

[emkana]

At least, that is, when the parents do the projects for the children, which seems to be the case for the majority of the children in dd's Year 4.

Dd has done everything herself, the only thing I did was get books out of the library for her and bookmark relevant internet pages. She has researched it, drawn pictures, written out a rough copy and then copied it out in neat - because her teacher said it should be handwritten. Shame it turns out the other two classes in her year were told it could be typed - could have saved us a lot of time there .And now her work will be compared to soembody else's project which was typed on a PC, with fancy lay-out and pictures inserted, and thought out by an adult. It's just not a level playing field is it? Aibu to want to go to the teacher and point out the effort dd has put into it all by herself?

YABU

I did a project, in Year 4, on the USA. As a result I still remember that New York was originally called New Amsterdam.

Well I knew that without doing a single project at primary level

Its not the project your objecting to, is it, its the unlevel playing field.

I'm a secondary teacher, and we have very sensitive radar for work done by parents - I'm sure even more so at primary.

Project work is great though. My dd1 is in P5 (y4) and did a huge project about Mars last term - it was fantastic!

I am a teacher. Believe me it is very easy to spot those children who have had a lot of help from their parent, or who have even had their parent do the project for them Personally I would prefer something the children have produced rather than a 'perfect' project that they have barely contributed to.

Your DD should get a lot of credit for doing so much on her own. Well done, I wish she was in my class.

So what would you think about a parent who came in to tell you how hard their child had worked?

YANBU. But I wouldn't worry too much - teachers aren't stupid

Did you know that in Year 4, though, OP?

Oh definitely

You're bluffing....

But it's not really about your child impressing the teacher is it? It's about your child learning something through the topic.
So it doesn't matter that much what anybody else's topic looks like, does it?
If she was interested in what she was learning and she's proud of what she's produced then isn't that a good thing?
If it was a competition then I could understand but not for a topic to encourage learning, understanding and possibly enjoyment of a topic.
And I agree that teachers can tell when the topic has been done by the child and when it's been done by the parent.
Topics (imo) are for the benefit of the child not to impress the teachers.

I agree, juule, which brings us back to my point that for the majority of children in my dd's year this whole thing has been a waste of time because they haven't actually learned anything.

good poitn juule.

i hate shcool projects, particularly in year 4 and have come to the conclusion books are better than computers in these cases. computers are so hard to pinprick exactly what you are looking for.
dont worry about it. you don't know what the other children's work will look like but you know your dd worked hard and presumabley enjoyed herselrf

Am mostly miffed that dd's class was told it should be handwritten and other two classes were told it could be typed. Handwriting it took so much time which dd could have spent doing nicer things.

If all the other parents have done the project for their children and, as a result, the children have learned nothing, then that's their loss, isn't it. Your dd has done it properly and has learned something.

There's no point you telling the teacher how much work your dd has put into it. That will be evident.

I did mine all on my own.

I think my dc learned quite a lot from projects in primary and they mostly seemed to enjoy doing them too. I helped sometimes, less so as they got older, but just because a project looks professionally produced doesn't mean a child had no input, and you might be surprised in some cases just how much. I also think that even by year 4 my dc were getting to the point their ICT skills were good enough to produce impressive(ish) stuff with publisher, word or powerpoint. Those skills were only learnt by me helping them in the early stages, so they gained both knowledge & ICT skills through primary projects. Thinking back, I always encouraged them to put some hand drawn stuff in and sometimes hand written bits too (though ds in particular has always been quite opposed to writing if typing is an option) so that those skills are helped along as well.

Occasionally they enjoy looking back at their old projects too & remembering bits about how they created them, so do keep hold of it, they're far better keepsakes than exercise books.

How it 'ranks' with other peoples projects shouldn't be a major concern of yours or theirs, it's more about learning to research a topic and put together the findings and having fun on the way imo.

I think the problem with typing the project is that there are usually quite a lot of children who then just cut and paste things from the internet. They often haven't read it through even, just see the title of the piece and then cut and paste it into their project.

I think the amount of work put into a project is evident, no need for parents to come in and tell me! I can see for myself.

Don't compare with others! It might look better to an adult, but the teacher won't be fooled! They don't want cut and paste-they want the DC to understand and enjoy the project. Teachers can tell the level of adult participation!!

i think projects in primary are great - we did one on Australia aged 8 which left me wanting to see echidnas, duck-billed playpuses and wombats (achieved aged 27).

my brother did one on Wagner - (the ring cycle had just been televised) which raised eyebrows (though was v. evidently his work.)

Dh is telling me about the ones he did about The Willow Pattern, A midsummers Nights dream...and Bude Canal....(for the kulcha)

he preens

emkana - I've had this & it's so annoying & unfair.

My dd did her work all by herself and did a presentation as well. Her friend's mum actually wrote & typed her dd's work & came into the school carrying a model she'd built for the hour long presentation her & her dd did.

Couldn't believe the teachers let this happen & gave her full marks.