Well done mum! You got an A*

Claims by a sacked teacher that she helped Prince Harry cheat in an AS art project have been greeted by many parents with a raised eyebrow of recognition rather than outrage at royal prerogative. The allegation - part of an unfair dismissal and sex discrimination case brought against Eton College - highlighted one of the problems of coursework: where does legitimate help from teachers and parents end and cheating begin?

Most parents are thought to help their sons and daughters with coursework if they have the time and the ability. If they can assist their offspring pass a GCSE exam in this way, well and good, they reason. Most would not waste a moment's sleep on whether or not this constituted cheating because they are worried for their children.

"Tons of parents help with the coursework," says Hannah White, whose son is in the second year of GCSEs. "Everyone knows what is going on."

Anna Jefferies, whose son has just started GCSEs, reckons about 90 per cent of the parents at her son's London comprehensive are involved in their children's coursework. "When the parents pick their children up they always ask 'what did I get for my homework?'" says Jefferies. "If I've been sitting down with my child for two hours working on a project then I want to know how it did and whether the help I'm giving is at the right level."

Many parents justify their assistance by the sheer volume of work children are bringing home. "It's been a continuous stream of coursework," says Matthew Farrow, whose daughter scored highly in 10 GCSEs this summer - without parental assistance. "And now she's doing A-levels there seems to be even more work coming home every night."

Parental complaints of homework-overload echo those of the main teaching unions. "Coursework has proliferated to the extent that it's become totally excessive," says David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. For Dr Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, today's workload amounts to drudgery.

"There are so many exams and bits of coursework that it's sucked the heart out of learning," says mother Hannah White. "People have become very cynical and learnt to play the game to a certain extent. It's become a bit of a race to just jump over all the hurdles."

Jefferies says her son's workload is far heavier than she remembers from her own school days. "When you see what they have to do, you just have to give them help in structuring the essays and planning out project work," she says.

Another parent who found himself helping his son with structuring his approach and getting organised is Charles Schofield, whose son gained eight GCSEs. "He had very good ideas in design and technology but he needed to get organised," he explains. "I think that's very common with teenage boys - I was the same at that age."

Some parents are going further, however, even so far as to write essays for their children. One mother who admits to doing this says that her daughter didn't seem to be interested in or capable of doing it herself. "It's so frustrating because they don't realise how important it is to the rest of their education and their lives," she says.

But there are upsides to all this. Many parents admit to enjoying the educational refresher their children's coursework affords. "I was guilty once at helping with the content on a project about Henry VIII because I actually enjoyed going back to the subject," says Schofield. "Really, I'd like to help more but my son resists my attempts to get involved."

If parents can't help their offspring themselves, they are engaging private tutors to fill the gap. One of these, father-of-three Simon Dalton, says that he once wrote an essay for his daughter but she rejected it because on the grounds that the teacher would spot it at once. "She asked for help with maths but I didn't have a clue, so we paid for a private tutor instead."

Most parents would be horrified to think their assistance could be seen as cheating. But it can be a fine line between guiding children - and then doing it for them. Teachers are also aware of the balancing act required.

"There's definitely the potential for overzealous teachers to overstep the mark," says an ICT teacher in a west London comprehensive. "Teachers are under so much pressure from heads to get pass marks up and that all comes from league tables. The students are also desperate to pass so you have to be quite firm about where the boundaries lie. I had to tell a student last week that I couldn't give anymore help or I wouldn't be able to pass him because it would be my work rather than his."

According to Hannah White, it's well known at her son's school that the geography teacher is pushing the limits. "He gets fantastic results, with about 85 per cent of them getting A to A*," she says. "But even the head admits he goes right up to the line, if not over it. He lets them do the work again and again, telling them what to change, until they get it right."

Yet who's going to complain when their child emerges with an A*? Certainly not a head with a school creeping up the league table. Teachers admit to feeling the pressure from ambitious senior managers. One history teacher from a large sixth form college in the Midlands says that there's so much pressure to get good results that it's in no one's interests to mark pupils' work down. "We have seen a couple of cases in the past where we've suspected a student has been cutting and pasting work off the internet but we've not been able to prove it," he says. "And it's not really in our interest to prove it: if a child fails because they've cheated then that is used in the statistics against us."

Many pupils have been spoon fed at GCSE so the A-level can be a real shock, he explains. They hate the fact that the teachers don't tell them exactly what to do and how to do it. "Even the parents complain we don't let them redraft," he says. "But I wouldn't be doing my job in preparing them for the next stage if I didn't push them to think and act independently."

Much of what might be deemed excessive help by teachers is permitted by examination boards: in English, for example, essays can be redrafted based on feedback from the teacher. Some students have been known to redraft essays six or seven times before hitting on the "right" formula.

"My teachers never crossed the line but they did tell me how to improve my coursework," says Andrew Wedderstoon, now on a gap year after leaving Glenalmond College in Scotland. "They will mark the work and then give it back with comments on how to improve it. They tell you to relook at such and such an area or go into this area in more depth."

Teachers know the boundaries when it comes to coursework - and the vast majority stand firmly on the right side of the line. Parents, of course, are not bound by the same professional and ethical considerations and only want what's best for their children in a world increasingly obsessed with academic qualifications.

"You do feel this tremendous pressure to make sure your child is doing well," says Jefferies. "It takes up a lot of time and energy. I just feel so fortunate that I'm in a position to help."

* Some of the names in this article have been changed

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST COURSEWORK

Opponents of course-work have become more vocal in recent years as abuses of the system, aided and abetted by the spread of internet technology, have become more obvious.

John Bangs at the National Union of Teachers, which called for a radical rethink on coursework earlier this year, says it has long been a concern of his members that affluent parents are doing too much. "The added value that well-off parents give is enormous," says Bangs, whose members are keen to see coursework reduced but not eliminated.

"The original intentions of coursework have been subverted by the hugely competitive examination system."

Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers agrees. "There's a real problem with differential access to help," she says. "The biggest disadvantage in education is still class."

Coursework was intended to help close that divide by allowing pupils who didn't perform well in exams to display their talents in other ways and to keep less-motivated learners engaged all year. Yet instead of engagement, the Tomlinson report describes "unimaginative, over-specified and repetitive coursework". And instead of bridging educational divides, middle-class parents find themselves driven to distraction downloading information from the internet, drawing up maps and coaching children in essay technique.

The Tomlinson proposals recommend a dramatic reduction in coursework, particularly at GCSE. If they are implemented, they would be roundly welcomed by most time-pressed teachers, exam-weary pupils - and, it would seem, their parents.

EXAM ROW: THE PRINCE AND THE TEACHER

Susan Forsyth, the art teacher at the centre of what The Sun newspaper dubbed Watercolourgate, has alleged that she was instructed to help Prince Harry cheat in his AS art project. Forsyth, who has launched proceedings against Eton College for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination, claimed that the Eton head of art Ian Burke had instructed her to write text to accompany pieces submitted in the Prince's expressive project. She also claimed to have a tape recording in which the pupil admitted having written only a small fraction of the work. The examination board Edexcel, having reviewed the Prince's work, said it found no evidence of cheating, clearing the Prince's name. He gained a B in the art A-level. The issue is destined to attract further publicity when the full industrial tribunal gets under way in May next year.

education@independent.co.uk