Teachers lament declining standards of parent-written coursework
An extensive study by the National Union of Teachers has damned the ailing quality of coursework written by cheating parents. Samples taken from thousands of pieces of fraudulent coursework overwhelmingly indicated that most parents were consistently failing to reach the standard of sham coursework required for GCSE and A-Level,’ said an NUT spokesman, who admitted marking isn’t really that big a deal. It’s a sad reflection on our education system when you find pupils frantically re-writing their parents’ hastily bodged coursework on the day of the deadline. We may as well send them into the exams to write it themselves.’
Examples of poor parental efforts were rife, not least as several signed their work by Mum and Dad’. There was a GCSE geography project on Town Planning that has come to exemplify the malaise that has set in over fake coursework since its heyday in the Nineties,’ said one examiner, who loves trying to make dirty words out of the available grades. It started off well enough I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the basic syntax errors were an attempt to emulate a 16-year-old’s grasp of the English language, not the work of an illiterate turd.
But barely was I two pages in, when the author stopped discussing the relative merits of building a shopping centre outside St Albans and started ranting about when the hell they were going to phase those traffic lights at the top of the high street and how they must have missed the area’s annexation by Poland. I still gave it a B. Those traffic lights are a bitch.’
As the average grades for fake coursework continue to plummet year-on-year, parents were quick to defend their falling academic achievements. There’s just so much more pressure on parents these days,’ said Fran Andrews, who ruined her daughter’s chances of an A* by forgetting to take the internet links out of the Napoleon essay she downloaded on her behalf. By the time you’ve lied about your address to secure the best primary school and then faked a whole religious faith to get into a good secondary, you barely have the energy to forge a decent Macbeth essay. But at the end of the day it’ll all be worth it. Like any caring parent, we just want the best shot at ultimately falsifying that means-tested student fees form.’
Godschool's Blog 
NO ONE ever did my homework and I will neve do my daughter’s. Helping a little to understand concepts and search for resources is about it plus heaps of praise of effort and good work. They need to be able to think for themselves or they won”t get far in the real world.
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I think you’re very wise.
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Thankyou, but it is just common sense.
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Of course it is — but I wonder sometimes whether common sense is surgically removed from politicians when they enter Parliament!!! 😉
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That is so funny! :)) :)) 🙂
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It made me laugh too :yes:
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What parents don’t realise is that they are doing their children no favour at all – just the reverse…and as a couple of people have said, teachers are not fools, they know when this is happening.x
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It does the children no favours, unless parents help them to develop study skills, which is the main idea.
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Was this meant to be an April Fool?
My first thought was that the kids were set challenges by their parents to improve on parental presentations….a useful paradox, for those who could work out that. But then I wondered, from reading on, whether the parents were purposely set the challenges, it was not clear to me. Then, I thought of April Fool.
We have to remember, the parents of today are not in the main daft, foolish, or ignorant, about basic skills of life. They couldn’t afford to be; this is indicated by the devious routes taken to obtain the best for their kids’ start in life and their own survival in a complex society. The article and its author, I feel, leave much to be desired.
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:)) ha ha! no – it’s from the ‘Newsbiscuit’ site (as per the attribution), which I have only recently discovered. It has fun and is satirical at the expense of politics and often makes me laugh out loud. I find it a very useful vent for frustration!
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Never heard of newsbiscuit. This article does feed into the prejudices of various quarters of our media and society and would be hard to extrapolate it from that.
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Irresponsible?
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What do you think?
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Here’s the comment from one of my teacher daughters, who sounds off regularly on such subjects: (she teaches modern languages at secondary level) ‘Damn right. Thanks for this!!’
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Her subject seems only to attract lip service.
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She has commented to me that many parents don’t seem to understand that if they do their child’s homework this disadvantages them in the long run.
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…..and so, what do you think?
Regarding modern languages, I wonder how many parents can really assist with, or, do the homework their kids get. UK is renowned for its lack of other language teaching and low level of general ability in that department.
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I think this was a general comment made after discussion with fellow teachers in other subjects.
As to Newsbiscuit – I enjoy the satire and it vents some of my frustrations with the present set-up in its various forms.
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I think it’s so sad when parents do their children’s homework. It’s always the same, the disadvantaged kids are always a step behind, when often they are the brighter pupils!
xxxxx
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The article just made me laugh, PP, it is so ironic!
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Its quite worrying that so many parents help their children with homework is it because todays generation are too busy doing facebook/twitter and such like instead of school work 😉
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I suspect there are a lot of reasons. Some parents are over-anxious that their children should do well. Some kids are not confident and ask for more help than they should. Some I bet are just plain lazy!
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Cheating never was a good idea.lol.xx
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Surprising how many people think they can get away with it!
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Too caring parents. :no: I’m a teacher and I can see how flagrantly the parents prepare all the stuff the students are asked to prepare. As “Elliot” said: “Not all teachers are fools”. 😉
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How do you handle it, Vahid?
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I ask other teachers if they have had the same problem with the student, if so, I ask their parents to come over and explain. I also ask about the procedures of collecting and analysing the data, and how they developed the arguments and and came to specific conclusions. If possible I ask for the sources, for the drafts, and I ask them to present the findings as a lecture.
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That’s very thorough and also a very positive approach!
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It is called ‘course work’ these days….During my High School Teaching days…Essays and the like…done at home…often carried the unmistakeable ‘hallmark’ of ‘parents’ – or someone other than the student….Not all teachers are fools….;)
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Indeed they are not :yes:
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