Is it normal not to bring any text or exercise books home?

"Not always the case."

Lucky you. The schools in our LA are massively underfunded. In fact the funding formula review has been found in favour of the schools our LA so that they will benefit from more funding. I used to be a governor, and none of the secondary schools could balance their books in spite of making cut after cut after cut. In my school it was very obvious there wasn't enough cash for extras

I wouldn't bother with buying your own text books. They aren't used massively in keys stage 3 science as teaching and learning has moved away from 'book work'. But it could be useful to get some cheaper CGP style revision guides.
It is poor form for a teacher just to say 'revise sound'. I would ask for a list of objectives and if you get no response then go to the HOD. They should be able to provide you with a list of objectives for all topics and suitable websites for home study.

Also OP - if you go into Waterstones they can order you any book, including text books. Sometimes the ones on Amazon are old and out of date. CGP books are particularly good and every waterstones should have a guide to show you which CGP books are available.

School budgets are hugely tight. I'm a secondary teacher and we don't have enough textbooks for y7-9 pupils to take them home, they have to be shared between classes and we have a range of books that we use in class rather than one specific textbook but we do let them take exercise books home. At GCSE and A Level our students all have a textbook for each unit to take home and use for the full two year course. It's so important if you want them to really excel that they have good quality resources to use at home and buying those books is the school's number one budget priority after employing people to teach and run the school. I'm convinced that it's one of the reasons why we're one of a very small number of schools where disadvantaged pupils make more rather than less progress than the rest of our pupils.

My DD1 has been all the way through secondary, the only text books I ever saw were MFL ones. Exercise books also stayed at school and brought home very rarely. For GCSEs we bought relevant revision guides.

My DD2 in in y7.

OP
I recommend you definitely purchase the CGP KS3 Science book, very clear and at the right level.

Other things we have found useful

• French Grammar book and French verb book published by Collins
• a general 'world religions' book
• children's encyclopaedia

You can probably get a CGP book for maths too (but I don't need one so have never looked)

Haven't bothered with books for History & Geog as what they cover is so wide ranging it hasn't somehow seemed necessary.

English is hit and miss too, never found anything much useful for that.

DS1's textbook have a label stuck on the first page of the book, you supposed to put your name on it, and the book is returned to school at the end of year for another student, if any book is missing, you have to pay for it.It is interesting to read the label to see who had the book before you.

I would prefer to have a copy of text book myself, as I always highlighted my textbook when I was at school. I would highlight the part I feel important, and write notes beside. I still remember the first days of the school year, we went to the school just doing registration, and brought back lots of textbook, and then make cover for each book using used magzines. And you can read the text book in advance if you are interested, and then compare your understanding with the teacher's opinion.

many schools nowadays just don't have enough in their budgets for textbooks

Not always the case. Our son has his own text books (with his name in the front etc), but just isn't allowed to bring them home. He says that there are several piles of them in the classrooms, so they don't just have the one set for everyone, they do have "one per pupil". Presumably they don't allow them to leave the school to preserve them from damage in rucksacks or risk of getting lost.

Ofsted don't like text books and most schools can't afford them.

DD only now gets textbooks in year 12. She did get an English lit revision guide from school for GCSE English lit though, but many schools nowadays just don't have enough in their budgets for textbooks. I bought revision guides for DD when she was doing her GCSEs though and they were massively helpful.

After reading that Badbadbunny, I think we will definitely invest now in yr 7. I'll have 2 kids going through the system, so it makes sense. Homework is such a nightmare and like you say, BBC bitesize is really not always helpful! Thanks.

My son is year 10. Brings home exercise books but not text books which aren't allowed off the premises. When we've raised it, had the response of basically look it up yourself on the internet, usually being lazily pointed to BBC bytesize. Yes, excessive use of scrappy worksheets too which are awful - usually printed so small you can hardly read them and in black and white (really useful when there is a coloured map or words highlighted in red!!). We've found BBC bytesize to be pretty inadequate - either going on about stuff not learned or not detailed enough for the topic. Son (as us) have been regularly stressed trying to find internet resources at the right level and often basically son trying to remember what was in the text book!

Anyway. for gcse year 10, we've bit the bullet and bought a full set of text books from Amazon after telling son to make a note of each text book used in class. It's made a massive difference - homework now done far quicker as we're not wasting time trawling google and he can concentrate on exactly what he needs to know, which is also quicker when it's just a recap of what has already been done in lessons using the same book so easier to recognise/remember. Wish we'd done it years ago.

As for text books being online via kerboodle etc - yes, some are, but what a pain to try to read as you're constantly resizing as they're A4 portrait but a computer screen is landscape, and often the topic is both sides of an open book with say a diagram on the left with the key/info on the right page, so ideal with an open book, but painful flicking between screens on a computer screen. The online "books" are nothing more than a pdf with no hyperlinks and not formatted for screens. Just something else to make homework more time consuming and irritating!!

I don't think my dd brought many books home in the eary stages of secondary. I think the teachers are pretty wise to what goes home may not come back!
I remember the same kind of thing with dd with regards to looking up info on the internet. Very daunting and remember the strain of her struggling to find correctly suitable information. I used to try to help her in the beginning and have a few back up sites I had found during the day if she was struggling to find stuff. Definately cursed the teachers for not giving some website's as a guide. I think maybe it is all part of learning them to search but think its very frustrating for them esp learning to scan through all the information.
I would of thought she was meant to bring home her science book for revision though. But maybe it is all rather easy going at this stage. Dd brings home a lot now esp science but she is in the later years. I am sure it will all come together. I expect you should get a parent evening soon and can find out more then.
We have been given example websites in these later years on show my homework, also revision books to buy, Doddle site, Mathswatch site to work on and optional maths cards to purchase ect. It will all come together I'm sure

Interesting, DD doesn't bring textbooks home either and finds homework very stressful. I've been comparing my experience of homework with her and was wondering why that was (KS2 experiences haven't helped), but you have just made me also realise I always had a textbook to work from and therefore it was less stressful than trying to find the appropriate info on the web and revise from notes of taken myself. Hmm. Worth finding out some textbook names, I think.

The only reason they would be doing this is that the children are losing their books/textbooks and the budget does not stretch to new books. We recently bought new textbooks for our GCSE students and the budget only allowed for one between two - every time we have to send a textbook to isolation or home for a student with medical needs to use, it is one more that usually doesn't come back

If they have a login for kerboodle, then they have access to the same text book as they use in school (well, kerboodle is oxford uni press, but other publishers are similar). The books are there online. No need to pay out for the paper version.

I hate worksheets. They always end up on the floor or ripped.
They are so prescriptive too. I asked my Y5s to quickly draw a few pieces of fruit yesterday in preparation for a task. Cue lots of moaning and rubbing out, 'I can't draw an apple' etc. They've been fed templates and outlines since Year R, that's why.
Anyway, rant over.

Textbooks are pricey on Amazon. Roughly £20 for single copies.

I'd get the books tbh, if you can afford them it's a small investment. I've never heard of any other system around the developed world where children work entirely from photocopied sheets.

Before spending any money, do just ask the school if your child have a log in for online textbook websites, such as kerboodle mentioned by a pp. This is what my children use.

It's one of the unspoken 'mysteries' of why private schools get better results imo. One of mine got all A* based solely on being able to always review his work from the textbook and fantastic bespoke workbooks provided by the school.

Both my children use a mixture of traditional textbooks, online textbooks (Kaboodle) & Internet research. They have excercise books for every subject although DS does all his work on an iPad/laptop but it has to be printed out & stuck in his excercise book.

Links are routinely given to specific web pages/online textbook pages each c to complete homework/revision.

Last school- never took them home. Too many got lost/wet/eaten by dog. School in rough area with many chaotic family set-ups, multiple kids sharing a bedroom etc.

Current (better) school - they do. Much easier for everything.

Never known a school where textbooks could go home, except for in Year 11 or revision guides.

Some school in our area don't let children to bring the text book home, some let. I would suggest OP to ask DD to write down what book they use at school, then you can buy one copy yourself to keep it at home. I can't imagine how children do their revision without a text book.

Dd brings home her exercise books,they go in for marking so she doesn't always have them all. She has a Maths text book that she takes backwards and forwards to school and any texts she is studying in English she gets a copy of those as well. Her bag is ridiculously heavy some days. Yesterday for example she had Maths text book,two Maths exercise books,English exercise book, copy of Lord of the Flies,three piano books and an exercise book (for piano lesson), Science and French exercise books,her planner, a book for independent reading (compulsory) pencil case,geometry set,calculator,sketch book and water bottle.