Did you pass your children’s O’ levels/GCSE’s or did they?

I was a secondary school teacher and I also was very ‘uncomfortable’ with coursework. I found that students fell into three categories.
Those who worked tremendously hard and whose results were achieved through their own ability and commitment.

Those whose parents completed the bulk of their coursework. So in effect were cheating.
Those students who didn’t care, left all their coursework until the last minute and had to be given far more teacher support than they were allowed in order to achieve a grade. In my school teachers were ‘obliged’ to do this so that the school could achieve the best results possible.
To be fair to those students who work hard and deserve good results grades should be based on controlled assessments within the classroom with a final examination.

I recall one of our daughters having a piece of work marked in early juniors. She had attempted to spell the word ‘tonsillitis’ (you can just imagine the result!) The teacher had crossed the word out and wrote in red biro TONSILITUS.
?

The old style French coursework was ridiculous and it was actually more the fault of the exam boards setting it. I always said if my son shouted downstairs “mum how do you say....in French”. Was I morally obliged to say “is this coursework ?” In which case I couldn’t tell him, but if just part of ordinary homework then I could.???

As for helping with/doing homework for any pupils it should not be so demanding that a Parent ends up doing it. Homework should just be reinforcing/practising what has been learnt in class. If it is too hard then the school should be made aware !

My only 3 contributions to my DC’s schoolwork was a homework timetable on the notice board, a willingness to test them on whatever they were revising for exams. I learnt a lot that way, especially in science-where I’d really struggled at school.
The third was when one DD was writing a philosophy essay at Uni. She rang in tears and gave me the title saying she couldn’t think how to start it.
My wonderful contribution? “Why not write the section that you do know and come back to the introduction?” Thank heavens it worked.

I had a similar experience to OP's, but, as another poster has said - actually about essays and dissertations for their children's degrees!
My 'friends' did believe me, but also laughed saying that 'of course they would have expected me to take that attitude' as I was so naive. They were shocked when, on quizzing, I said that it had never occurred to me to do any of my kids' work - my job was to provide a good environment, general support etc.
It felt strange - I grew up in a working class area - not exactly rough, but you ended up pretty robust. I worked in difficult and deprived places - I would have called those 'friends' naive about most aspects of life. But their sheltered upbringing and posh jobs had taught them to be sharp-elbowed about some things.
I put 'friends' in inverted commas because I honestly did think less of them after that. I am still in touch with one, but after the latest news I wonder why! Her grand-daughter's parents have claimed a full time school place on the basis of one of them doing 2 hours a week as a 'key worker'. As my 'friend' is in a childcare bubble with the family, I had assumed she would be covering those 2 hours. Oh no - the DGD is so clever that she 'needs' full time schooling. Quite unlike my own DGCs who had to manage with parents who got their own qualifications!

I also have to say that I am slightly shocked at the little bubble of anger that I am feeling as I type!

Wow! That is the definition of helicopter parents

My mum did A Level English when she was at school and always fancied herself as good at it (could have read English at uni etc etc). So once, when I was about 13, she did my English homework. It got slated. She shut up after that!

Doing someone else’s course work or homework is cheating.
How could anyone take pride in work that was not their own ?

On a lighter note, an acquaintance always said how good he was at crosswords. We were always impressed when he showed them all filled in... until we discovered that if he got stuck on a word he just looked at the solution to that clue.

During lockdown my daughter has had a great time making cardboard models of famous buildings for her daughter's homework!

So what happens when all these kids who have had their coursework done for them get to university and have to work on their own?

I once worked in a school where a non academic department had coursework to do. Because it was non academic, the students that picked it as an option were non academic and had to have a LOT of help.

The staff would take the students one at a time after school and sit with the students and tell them what to write.

A tricky situation because one of the department was married to the deputy head.

Ellianne

So what happens when all these kids who have had their coursework done for them get to university and have to work on their own?

They struggle and get 2.2s or 3rds.

I certainly didn't - I helped them with their learning but stood back for the course work that was being marked.

The only cheat I ever did was for my OH during his medical degree - he was up to his eyes, so I wrote a psychology essay for him - I/he got full marks and a special mention by the tutor!! But he felt so guilty that he fessed up - the tutor laughed like a drain and said that his wife had done an essay for him when he was a student!

No they don’t Gagajo. They get first because they’re family goes on doing the work!

I don’t think parents do their children any favours by doing the work for them. We encouraged our children that’s the best help you can give them. They both did well at school and with further education. Our son is a Master carpenter and our daughter is an Artist both followed their natural vocations.

Blimey Peasblossom. Credit to those parents!

I know of a British celeb, politicians child, who was NEVER at uni. Skipped most lectures and seminars, but still mysteriously emerged with a 1st.

From Oxford I expect ?

My only contribution was proof reading university essays. My elder daughter’s economics essays was completely beyond me, but I tried to make them flow better. My younger daughter’s history essays were much more interesting and I still remember one she wrote on the queens in the Middle Ages who were encouraged to suffer from ‘holy anorexia’. which involved starving yourself to death for the love of God ( you wanted to pray rather than eat) and thus becoming a saint and therefore conferring great honour on your husband, the King, who needless to say, hadn’t missed a mouthful of food.

My DH was teaching in the days of course work and was told off by one family for changing the work, as they already had a good example from an elder child. They weren't able to use it again.

His fault apparently.

Ellianne, I think that these kids are expert at bluffing! I do know the whereabouts of 3 of the children that were under discussion.
2 have struggled - they have ended up in reasonable jobs - but not the kind that I think their parents dreamed of, and certainly not the kind of job that needed a 'top degree from a top university'. So I suspect at some point they faltered.
1 got into a complete muddle about her job, but ended up telling her parents she was going to train in a vocation (the kind of public service vocation they sneered at, think police / nursing / social work) and they could support her to do it, or she would finance her way through.
They did put a good face on it, and like to give the impression that she could never have done it without her 'top degree' (nonsense!). I come across her every so often, and she is very good at what she does, which I think is in spite of her parents. She is always lovely to me when we meet.
As I write, it occurs to me that they were all girls - it would be interesting to know if that makes a difference.

We provided computers, books and OH gave my daughter a maths tutorial, but we never did their course work for them. By the time they got to A levels I couldn’t have helped anyway and OH worked overseas a lot!

GagaJo

Ellianne

So what happens when all these kids who have had their coursework done for them get to university and have to work on their own?

They struggle and get 2.2s or 3rds.

A bit snobby. Those are still degrees.

The only time we helped either child was DD with a geography project. She did all the work, but 10 days before it was to be submitted she went down with severe tonsillitis. We later disovered she had absesses in both tonsils.

Although she had done the work, she hadn't even begun to write it up, we spoke to the school, who insisted it had to be submitted in time. and she could not have an extension.

So one evening with poor, weeping with pain DD, the whole family sat down with her and wrote the project up. I asked questions that helped her shape her report, she whispered to her brother who typed it up on rudimentary computer and her DF drew the diagrams. The project was submitted on time. We have no idea what mark she got for the project but she passed GCSE Geography.

Ages ago now, well over 20 years, but when a dd was 17 her rather older boyfriend, who also happened to be a neighbour, was in his final degree year, and had done sod all towards his dissertation, which was due in soon.

I was beyond appalled when dd said she wanted to take all her money out of her Post Office savings account, to help him, because he’d found a lecturer at a (then) London poly, who would write it for him - for a fee.

I had naively thought that such things just didn’t happen in the U.K., though nearly 2O years previously, when I was working in the Middle East, an Indian colleague had told me quite openly that she’d paid someone to write her dissertation. She’d laughed at my reaction and said that lots of people did it.

Since dd was under 18, she had needed our permission to take her savings out - a few hundreds at the time. I said no way, but she was very upset and pleaded on his behalf.

However, the lecturer then upped the price, not just once, but several times, and in the end his parents paid.

I still feel that I should have reported it, but if he’d then failed his degree I’d have been in a load of trouble. I must say I was very relieved when that relationship came to an end not long afterwards.

I once wrote an essay on Hard Times for my daughter, not exam coursework. She hadn’t even started the book and I knew it and enjoyed doing the essay but was miffed to get only a C!
Three of my daughters shared a bedroom, unheated, and did their school work on their laps. Downstairs their father was drunk, depressed and had religious mania. I helped the children when asked but never did exam coursework.