C&Ping 'work' at primary school - is this normal?

[AnarchyAunt]

DD (8 and in Yr 4) was telling us about the work she'd been doing at school today, and out of this conversation came the news (well, news to me) that they are allowed to C&P from websites and then hand it in as 'work'.

She says that they have been told that they can't just C&P an entire page and hand it in, but its ok to write some of your own words and C&P some bits, and there is nothing to show the teacher which bits are which.

I will speak to the teacher about it as DD may of course be mistaken, but is this usual?

It's quite easy to tell which part is written by an eight year old and which parts are C&P'ed!

Quite honestly it depends what the objective of the lesson was and what was being C&P'ed.

Oh, I know that the teacher will be able to tell which bits are which

I was more bothered that the children weren't learning that they should be making it clear when something was/wasn't their own words. Not full referencing obviously, but DD seemed nonplussed when I said 'but if you've copied it then it isn't your work'.

It might be that the objective of the lesson is, for example, to use a search engine, or multiple search terms, or simply adding text and pictures from the internet to a powerpoint. SO there are cases where a straightforward cut and paste job is acceptable. If the objective is to "research" a topic, I would expect a precis or summary rather than a straight cut and paste, but I teach year 6!

They should at least be being taught that if they C&P they should make it clear that that's what they've done and where they got it from, IMO.