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Original poster

Choking on costs fo sxith form education

127 replies

Piggywaspushed · 07/09/2017 17:31

So DS1 has come home from college today with a book list. Books are marked essential or recommended.

The essential books alone amount to £150 just for year 1!!

I teach English and we do always ask students to buy set texts so they can annotate them - but his list includes £35 text books. This is in addition to the £180 per term bus fares.

Is this in line with everyone's experiences of a 21st century education?

OP posts:
Laniakea · 07/09/2017 17:46

yes :( It is eye watering.

We're only managing because my lovely MIL gave us £200 towards books & stuff. So far we've had:

£1000 a term on bus - private bus as we're out of catchment & there is no public transport.
£350 a term railcard - to get her from home to the bus pick up point.
Biology - books = £40 + £15 lab book
Physics - books = £65
Chemistry - books = £15 + £15 lab book, but I haven't ordered the text book yet (that'll be about £30)

The books are only for year one & we've also been provided with a long list of revision books but I'm not buying any of that yet. Change in spec etc means that there's not much around second hand yet.

She could have moved to the local (walk-able) grammar school for 6th form - it is excellent & I begged her to consider it. We would have saved about £9000 over two years which would then go towards university and driving lessons. As it is she wouldn't move & will be working in her gap year & not having driving lessons as a result.

LoniceraJaponica · 07/09/2017 17:37

No. I think it depends on the subject.

DD is doing biology, chemistry and geography. The school have provided the science books, but I bough the geography book. She did AS psychology, and the school provided her with a textbook for that, but I had to pay a returnable deposit for it.

Schools nowadays just don't have the funds to provide all the textbooks students require - and it will get worse at university.