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

Counting on me would lead to a fail.

No we never did.

Some parents probably fail.

I think you are on the wrong thread, sweetheart. Try arts and crafts

Hi all,,could anyone please tell me what pull 3 means on an Anchor needlepoint tapestry kit? I've no idea! Thanks so much.

I once wrote an A level essay on Dickens’ Hard Times for a daughter who had not even opened the book. This was not for an exam. I love Dickens but hadn’t read that one. I flicked through, enjoyed it and got a C!

I once did a painting for DS's GCSE coursework. I was shocked to find that inspite of my 4 years at art school and my career in design it had only been given a C! My only defence is that I had food poisoning at the time and had to keep stopping to throw up, so perhaps not at my best.

DD tells me it is rife among the students she sees at unversity. So much is available on line now and they are sharing it and all submitting identical pieces of work. She says they are amazed when they are found out but all the stuff is very recognisable,

This thread is 2 years old!

My children passed their own. Just exams in those days. No modules etc that parents could help with or continuous assessment.They passed thei A-levels and then their degrees, in the same way.

I failed my maths O’ level, back in 1969. Maths was always my worst subject.

For some ridiculous reason, I decided, 25 or so years later, to have another go and attended Maths GCSE evening classes.

Why oh why? I was still hopeless at it, but gamely persisted.

One evening, at home, trying and failing to do some of the homework, I just cried. My DH shouted to my son, ( who didn’t take after his useless mother in that department) “Help your mother!!”

He rolled his eyes, reluctantly did as asked, but he knew he was on to a losing cause

I failed the exam yet again!

Didn’t stop me from spending all my working life in banking, and managing perfectly well without my qualification.

I never helped any of mine and they never asked me to. My mum never even knew what subjects I was studying, let alone help. All my children went to University and none of them ever asked for help except just once when my husband, who was a prof, helped her to understand some maths. Sometimes our grandson would sit with my husband to try to work out what was required in a maths problem but he did his own work, we wouldn’t dream of cheating.

Not homework though I did hear them practise their tables at primary school and I did listen to their seemingly endless practice of speaking for French oral exams and drama exams. I sometimes felt I could have gone in and passed the exam.
It’s interesting to see the results of
“make a poster to show what you’ve enjoyed about. . .” Homework. It used to be obvious who had had a lot of parental help. Now it seems to be more about who has the internet and a printer. I’m happy to admire either.

When my son did his GCSE’s he did all his own work but another lad got his Dad to help him. Honestly it was laughable. It was Design Technology and we turned up for the exhibition of all the work. He was pretty hopeless at practical stuff and all the kids laughed when his Dad turned up with a beautiful, full size canoe he had clearly made for his son!!

I didn’t help with gcse or A level. I supported dyslexic daughter to calm and work out a structure for her final dissertation in 3rd year of her degree.
She was living in a shared house 3 hours drive from home and anyway, I was abroad. She phoned me weeping, overwhelmed with the need to structure 6000 words. We talked for 45 minutes. She calmed down, began outlining the areas needing covered and set out a framework
She got a 2.1

Nope, it would never have occurred to me or my children and anyway I was far too busy. I have helped prepare them for interviews and really don't have a problem with that. It's something I have a lot of experience in and which I'm pretty good at. Even now they still ask for my help and i'm really happy to oblige.

Reported - he is flooding lots of our forums!

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

It was always thus! I remember - must be 70 years ago - my cousin had to provide samples of needlework and hadn't got the hang of smocking. My mum, who had made dozens of smocked frocks for me and my sisters, did the sample for her. She passed her Higher exam and got into the Domestic Science College and the rest is history.

Same as BlueBelle, it never entered my head and they certainly never asked for help.
My adult children don’t help the Grandchildren either, what is the point?
If they don’t understand, they should ask the teacher or find out for themselves.

My only involvement in cheating was nearly 60 years ago in primary school. It was nearing the end of term and I had fallen behind with my knitting. We were given our scarves to finish at home by the end of the week. My mum did some of mine. When I handed it to the teacher she spotted the difference right away. She said I see the knitting fairy has helped you out!

I’m still useless at knitting and sewing!

On his first day at school, DS2 leant over his homework so we couldn't see and said "It's none of your business". Neither of the other two asked for or needed any help. They have managed.

DD is still absolutely furious that when she was 8 she did a plasticine model of some kind for a school bazaar competition and even though hers was outstandingly the best, she was disqualified from winning the prize because they said one of her parents had made it.

This was totally untrue, DH was away on business and DD was, is and will always have, very deft fingers. I, on the other hand, am totally cack handed and couldn't have made what she made if I practice 24/7 for a month.

Unfortunately, by the time we found out the prize winners had got their prizes and everything was being dismanteled and put away. But, as I said, it still rankles her and she mentioned it to me only last week.

I used to work in a small library close to two primary schools, and we always knew when either had given the children a project for the holidays, since the first gimlet-eyed parents (almost always the mothers) would be in immediately, trying to grab every last book on the Tudors or Vikings or whatever it was (we had an excellent children’s library) off the shelves.

For a while we weren’t allowed to limit them, but eventually a ‘3 only’ rule was brought in.

But that still left the odd parent coming in 2 days before school started again, hoping there would still be something available....

And I do still remember once painstakingly colouring in a woodpecker for a dd’s ‘birds’ project, after she’d gone to bed in a tearful tizz because her project wasn’t going to be ready for the new school term the next day.
I still tend to think that primary-age holiday projects are a form of teachers’ revenge on parents!

My dear old dad,now long gone ,was a bespoke tailor. He was so skilled and made suits for Saville row. I was struggling with a skirt for o level needlework and he made it for me. The teacher who never liked me threw it down and told me to unpick all the stitching and remake it as it was full of errors.
I knew it was perfect as my dad was a professional tailor but couldn't tell her that he had made it. In frustration I swore at her and left the classroom. I went immediately to the head and apologised to avoid being expelled. I was thrown out of needlework class which I was very pleased about.
My dad was furious with me,the teacher and the skirt !!

My elder son is far brighter and far more academic than DH and I (he is the first on either side of the family to go to university), but younger son not half as bright and required a lot of paid tutoring to coax him through. No work done for him though, beyond our scope. Second son didn’t go to university but is doing okay in an office job he seems to enjoy.

Children, no - husband, yes.

My husband has a specific learning difficulty that was only discovered when our youngest son was diagnosed with the same difficulty and we were told it was inherited. (Husband did well in maths and the sciences, but initially got a U for his English GCE - upgraded on resit.) He started a college course when we were courting and his notes were brilliant, but he had no idea how to turn them into assignments with sentences and paragraphs. I helped him - and as a result he proposed to me, saying that he had a lot more assignments to do, so he needed me to stick around.

We married at the end of his second year of a three year HND course and then he began a very long period of study at Uni. I still helped occasionally by correcting his written work (it was a science based degree), but I also helped him to help himself. He began to use a spelling dictionary and learned sentence construction and came out of Uni at the top of his year group in both his undergraduate and post-graduate studies; he then took, and passed, professional practice exams in two different disciplines. His job now frequently involves writing for publication and I still do his proofreading, but I rarely find much to correct beyond an occasional typo.