why are teachers STILL setting 'cover your book' as a homework?

[BrendaandEddie]

I have rarely had a book fall apart, if it does, you fix it.

This must be the lamest and most pointless 'educational' activity since ' write our classroom rules' lesson.

Scottish here....what is a grammar school?

The next homework in science will be 'draw the Bunsen burner'.

I used to love doing this. I am now reminiscing about September 20 plus years ago. First all the new stationary including a new fountain pen and a Forever Friends pencil tin. Then, new exercise books to cover. I think it was optional at my school, but I did every single book. Pretty sure I did it for replacement exercise books when the first was used up too.
i was such a swot.

I loved doing mine
In fact if either of my dc have to do it I shall laminate it for them AND used my binding machine to put the book back together

I have to put my stationery items to use you see

Ah, this takes me back. When I were a lass, we had to cover our exercise books, usually brown paper or wallpaper, a satisfyingly hypnotic and soothing process.

What's more it wasn't homework, we used up valuable teaching and learning time to do this. :o

So many reasons, but one of I suspect that one of the top ones is because (frankly) teachers and pupils are rarely as keen on homework as parents and SLT are. You have a HW timetable, something needs to be set or SLT will be on your back, there's nothing worthwhile to get them doing this early in the term: "cover/decorate your exercise books" is a good one. The younger ones often seem to enjoy it.

I ask all my classes to. Not as homework but as an expectation. You can buy it for £2.05 and free postage from Amazon. 3 metres of it. I find the books stay nice and clean and not dog-eared etc.

The SLT must have been awol from DS's school last year. He had about 4 1/2 pieces of homework in yr 9, at least 1 of which might well have been a book covering assignment.
Sigh.

Ah well.

My last dd as in dc4 is still downstairs now covering all her new books for 6th form (still can't do this year what ever crap)

She did unexpectedly amazingly well in her GCSEs after struggling at school with fantastic teachers.

We are so proud we could burst.

She's so excited and pleased we could all burst.

Cover away I say!

Well done to Hellocampers dd, so nice to hear a story like that. You've made me smile!

nice story but relevance to book covering?

homework is supposed to consolidate learning.
Not to be busy work

I hate it too for younger kids but either do it properly or dont do it at all. Ditto uniform

As a teacher I liked the kids covering their books because it did help to protect them from falling apart (they are very flimsy) but it a.so helped me identify the individual child's book when marking or doing reports, without actually having to read the name on the cover.

WE buy plastic covers here.

Take off at the end of year & reuse.

I put plastic covers on text books because if they are returned in a damaged state at the end of the year parents are (rightly) expected to pay for them.

The school used to have a daft policy of asking parents to remove the plastic covers before returning the books at the end of the school year, but now they have a sensible policy of leaving on the plastic cover if it's in good condition. I only had to cover about a third of our text books this year.

I love September and look forward to covering my DS's school books with sticky back plastic. Very theraputic!! Only one teacher has set it as homework, the others have set proper homework, so they look to be hitting the ground running this year (start of year 9).

The thing that annoys me though, which happened twice last year, is where they hand out the new books on day 1, I cover them that evening, and then the homework for day 2 is to put pictures etc on the books, meaning the pictures have to be stuck on the plastic and then the whole lot recovered again. Why couldn't the teachers have set it the same day they handed out the books!

I used to love backing my books at school! I was a geek though!

Thanks iguana I will look on Amazon. Ours set it as homework. You get detention if you don't do it for next lesson two days later. I don't drive and bus to nearest town is £6
They didn't do it last year in year 7 so I didn't buy any.

Tbh as an ex ta in a very deprived area I would have hated to think some of my children's families some of who didn't have the option to internet shop (post office card accounts) were worrying about finding cash for bus and to plastic back exercise books when many were struggling food wise.

If kids are pupil premium then the school may well be able to help with it.

we werent asked to do it at my secondary school, and if you chose to, theb only clear plastic allowed. However they absoloutley hammered us with schoolwork and homework so excercise books only lasted a term anyways then onto the next one.

I used to love covering my books at back to school time, almost as much as I loved shopping for pens and pencils and rubbers and rulers.

The fancy girls at school had their books covered with sticky back plastic. The really fancy girls had theirs covered with metallic sticky back plastic. The rest of us had wallpaper