Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think we shouldn't have to buy the set book for GCSE English Lit?

317 replies

chomalungma · 10/09/2019 21:17

We have been asked to buy the book that DS is currently studying for GCSE Eng Lit.

Yes - I can afford it. But that's not the point. There are many families who are on tight budgets. Apparently other subjects require the parents to buy equipment as well.

English is a compulsory GCSE. The school should have sets available to read.

I know that schools are on very tight budgets. I am not blaming the school at all. It's not an academy.

I blame the Conservative party. I hope people remember these cuts and the effect they have had on their children for the last 10 years when it comes to the election.

OP posts:
Original poster
chomalungma · 10/09/2019 22:03

No wonder we have barely literate children. Their parents begrudge buying them books

Hmm

Have you read any of my later responses, or are you just coming out with that statement?

Oh - and top set English , Grade 7 - so obviously doing something right.....

OP posts:
justasking111 · 10/09/2019 22:04

Back in 1972 I had to buy my own books for english to write in the margins. I still have my copy of Shakespeare and my poetry book.

CassianAndor · 10/09/2019 22:04

mouthy don’t be a berk. A child can have a gazillion books that they want to read, without that including what they habe to read for GCSE. I read masses but I certainly didn’t have any bloody Thomas Hardy.

Trewser · 10/09/2019 22:05

I did o levels about 35 years ago. The books were supplied, but we had to buy the A level texts. Normal comprehensive.

Original poster
chomalungma · 10/09/2019 22:06

At what point should I start ignoring some of the pithy responses who obviously haven't read my later responses?

Some posters on here would clearly fail their English exams if they were asked to reason.

OP posts:
Trewser · 10/09/2019 22:07

Hopefully your ds won't get to uni.

I've just spent over £200 on books for dd.

Sostenueto · 10/09/2019 22:08

Yep GCSE English Literature is a ' closed book' exam. You cannot take them into exams. Same with the poetry paper.

SuzieQ10 · 10/09/2019 22:08

I completed my GCSEs and Alevels under a labour government (the last labour government). My parents bought my text books. And revision books. Paid for my school clothes and dinners.. those things are the family's responsibility.

I'll be proud to buy my DC's upper school books when the time come. And I'll work hard to do so. My DC1 has just started school and I felt so proud purchasing the uniform. Which is MY responsibility to buy. I knew children cost a lot when I had one.

FredericaBimmel · 10/09/2019 22:08

In my dept we’re not allowed to send books home. Often they don’t come back, or if they do they’ve been so badly looked after by pupils that they only last one or two academic sessions. This is probably a function of the fact that schools will buy the cheapest edition available. The new copies of Of Mice and Men we got in feel like they’re printed on the same paper as the free World Book Day books.

Sostenueto · 10/09/2019 22:09

Level 9 here Grin

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 10/09/2019 22:09

Our local secondary school has to close at lunchtime on Fridays, because it simply can't afford not to. So if it helped to lighten the load then I would be happy to buy books. As it is, I already buy textbooks and study guides for my sons, because the school doesn't have any- they use copied handouts and we found it helped to have the textbooks.
I would actually be happy to donate money for books, perhaps if all of us who could did so, then all of the pupils would benefit. Schools don't enjoy not having books, they just often can't afford them.

cdtaylornats · 10/09/2019 22:10

Always worth checking Project Gutenberg for older stuff.

All of the Shakespeare plays and poetry is freely available to download.

Original poster
chomalungma · 10/09/2019 22:12

I completed my GCSEs and Alevels under a labour government (the last labour government). My parents bought my text books

Under Thatcher's Government, my text books were free at school. I also got a grant for University as well.

Different times, I suppose.

OP posts:
GreenTulips · 10/09/2019 22:15

Why not start a fundraiser for children or a second hand book store? Pay a set price for the books return. Then sell on at marginal profit for the school. OR even ask for them to be donated.

You could even donate the books to the school library.

‘The school’ is a community and you should be part of it. Solve the problem rather than complain.

arethereanyleftatall · 10/09/2019 22:17

Yabu. The options we have are thus;

  1. The parents who chose to have children pay for their child's book. Or
  2. A completely random person who didn't make the choice to have your child buys the book (via taxes/government).
So, yes, I do think parents should pay a tiny token towards their children's education.
Sostenueto · 10/09/2019 22:21

My dgd never wrote in any of her books. She annotated on a bit of paper. Or there's such a thing as a pencil and rubber or she used post it notes inside the book.
I can understand someone who cannot afford to buy books being worried about buying books but if you can afford it what's the problem?
This week my dgd who is doing A level maths was told after her exercise book is full she will have to buy her own graph paper this year due to lack of funds. Also they always got yearly planners. Not this year though, short of funds. She went into town and bought her own for £2.50p.and I state again we are very poor. But education first is our ethics.

Original poster
chomalungma · 10/09/2019 22:21

‘The school’ is a community and you should be part of it. Solve the problem rather than complain

That's a nice positive sentiment.

TBH - I was coming at this from the idea that it seemed wasteful to buy 100 copies of a book each year that would go home, rather than simply have a class set - and that's what I had when I was young.

However - it's been well argued on here that it's handy to have an annotated copy to take home and annotate. So I can see why school wants us to get a copy. I think I might have misunderstood DS when he said we had to buy a copy - as they do have class copies as well.

And yes - school is a community. I get that. I am just annoyed at all the cuts I have seen going on in education over the years.

OP posts:
milveycrohn · 10/09/2019 22:22

I had to buy my literature books for the 'o' level 50 years ago. (State school)
Again, it was so we could write in them.
The books were not allowed in the exams, but to help with revision (i failed, because i hated the books).
I can't remember which political power was in government, and it predates the current 'austerity' thing, so don't think I can honestly blame the Tories.

Ellie56 · 10/09/2019 22:25

When I was at school in the seventies they used to provide us all with texts. We had to annotate in pencil then at the end of the year, rub all our notes out and hand the books back. It was a PITA and took for ever.

Farrowandbrawl · 10/09/2019 22:25

I went to state school in the 90s under labour- All text books including English were supplied
Yanbu

shiningstar2 · 10/09/2019 22:25

English teacher here. I always encourage kids to get their own copy of set novels. They should be actively reading them with highlighters/ pencils in their hands. Linking key themes and significant quotations. Even if school copies could be annotated, it is just not the same looking at other people's annotations. There is no real set formula for a good English pass in the same way that there is in science based subjects more a range of issues/themes which can be backed up ('proved') in multiple ways. This means there is no substitute for careful reading/annotating own copy of text.

GreenTulips · 10/09/2019 22:28

You could also try for a block discount

DS school buy in the GCSE books at half the price of say WHSmiths and sell them at the cut price. It’s a big process, but it works.

Urskeks · 10/09/2019 22:29

We bought ours 21/22 years ago

redappleandaquamarinebow1987 · 10/09/2019 22:30

@MouthyHarpy it's completely possible that the parents buy books the child likes that are not on the school list.

CassianAndor · 10/09/2019 22:33

I’m still baffled by this annotations thing, we definitely never did this, so I’m wondering what we did do? Make notes with page refs, I suppose. I personally think that writing things out helps them stick in your brain more than simply underlining or highlighting.

(I hated English literature and this is reminding me why, such a great way to suck all the joy out of a book. Was then and still am an avid reader, though!)