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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think 10/11 year olds should be given an actual book?

234 replies

DinDjarin · 26/01/2023 21:01

DD(10)'s homework this week is to read up to page 10 in the book they are reading in class. The teacher has scanned (badly, so there's an inch or two of black around the wonky page) every single page of the book and uploaded it as a pdf on google drive. DD says they don't have a copy of the book in class.

I think they should be reading from a book at this age.

YABU - this is fine
YANBU - they should be given a copy of the book

PS is it even legal to scan and distribute a book like that?

OP posts:
Legotiger · 27/01/2023 07:57

Good God, can’t believe the OP is being berated for expecting the most basic of things - an actual, physical book - to be made available to her child at school.

Welpthereitis · 27/01/2023 07:59

PJsAndCosySocks · 27/01/2023 07:48

We have no money for whole class texts. It's so important for me that my class have a physical copy that I usually scour cheap(er) 2nd hand online bookshops and buy them with my own money. This can sometimes come in at £50 of my own money for each set. We read 6 set texts in my class each year and we read other texts for guided reading which I have also funded. It's demoralising. Don't be angry at the teacher, who sounds like they're doing their best to get around the problem creatively, be mad at the system. Rage at a government who think your children are easy collateral damage. Support the strikes because the budgets are crap and it's your children who suffer through lack of resources.

This is so sad, please let parents know what book are needed, me and my dd love going to charity shops and car boots and she had her list of book that where need for school and we picked up everyone we could find they were never no more that 50p we would send all the extra copy’s in you never know you may find the weird parents that goes to carboots every week and charity shops all the time

whataboutsecondbreakfast · 27/01/2023 08:03

Legotiger · 27/01/2023 07:57

Good God, can’t believe the OP is being berated for expecting the most basic of things - an actual, physical book - to be made available to her child at school.

Schools can't afford paper, let alone books.

It's all over the news that schools have no money.

UmmmBopDeeDooWhop · 27/01/2023 08:03

TeenDivided · 27/01/2023 07:47

What is slightly depressing is people just taking it as fact that if a school did buy books they would be lost / damaged / defaced.
Why not buy books, put a sticker in them saying which child is responsible for them this year (with spaces for 10 future years), and charge parents if their child fails to return the book at the end?
There is something in the 'if it's free people don't value it' saying. A set of books surely should last 7 years, which in theory could mean only replacing books for the equivalent of one year group each year.

You can't charge for things that are educational. That's how the system works in the UK.

And it's experience that we can 'take it as fact'.

YellowDots · 27/01/2023 08:05

Legotiger · 27/01/2023 07:57

Good God, can’t believe the OP is being berated for expecting the most basic of things - an actual, physical book - to be made available to her child at school.

Can't you? I can't believe that you can't believe it. I thought everyone knew schools had absolutely no money.

Have you read the posts working out the costs?

CaptainMyCaptain · 27/01/2023 08:07

Seaweasel · 26/01/2023 21:07

It'll be down to the school being strapped for cash then. There is no money.

This.

TeenDivided · 27/01/2023 08:10

UmmmBopDeeDooWhop · 27/01/2023 08:03

You can't charge for things that are educational. That's how the system works in the UK.

And it's experience that we can 'take it as fact'.

Show quote history

I understand that is is experience that tells you that books will be damaged.
But it is so wrong that 10/11 yos can't be trusted to look after a book properly.

You say you can't charge for educational items - even if a child willfully damages something belonging to the school? That's back to front isn't it, if you are saying schools now can't provide books because if a 10yo fails to look after it they can't be charged for it?

peaceandpotato · 27/01/2023 08:10

Could the PTA fundraise for books for next years class

TeenDivided · 27/01/2023 08:14

peaceandpotato · 27/01/2023 08:10

Could the PTA fundraise for books for next years class

PTAs really shouldn't be having to pay for basic classroom items. PTAs should be for added extras, not basics like books for in class reading.

starfishmummy · 27/01/2023 08:19

strawberriesarenot · 26/01/2023 22:00

DH (sixth form core subject head) has this for his last budget:
1 text book per staff member. Nothing for students.

The text will be scanned and photocopied relentlessly. The schools are absolutely broke in areas like ours (not deprived, but very far from wealthy).

But there's a cost to photocopying. Surely if they end up photocopying the whole book multiplied by the number of pupils the cost in paper alone is going to be huge. And that's without staff time to actually do the copying. And knowing what my son was like photocopies are going to get lost and/or scruffy and be requested again; whereas he looked after books.

Brefugee · 27/01/2023 08:20

if the schools are so underfunded (i believe it) that they can't afford books, it surely isn't too much to ask that they spend a bit of time doing a quality scan (yes, i know they have lots to do, but this would be a priority, right?)

toomuchlaundry · 27/01/2023 08:24

How long do you think it takes to scan a whole book? Which member of staff should do this as most schools don’t have general TAs anymore. Maybe a kindly parent volunteer could offer next time

Hobbi · 27/01/2023 08:29

Brefugee · 27/01/2023 08:20

if the schools are so underfunded (i believe it) that they can't afford books, it surely isn't too much to ask that they spend a bit of time doing a quality scan (yes, i know they have lots to do, but this would be a priority, right?)

Who do you suggest performs this 'little' task of scanning a whole book and which bit of their ample free time would you prefer them to use? Are there any ways in which school staff can let the government off the hook? Thinking of other things affected by underfunding, perhaps they should provide respite care on a weekend for the families of children with complex needs or learn a few languages to replace translation services or come in on a weekend to repair dilapidated buildings?

RockyOfTheRovers · 27/01/2023 08:40

mikado1 · 26/01/2023 21:12

Dreadful. I'm in Ireland and I can just borrow a class set of a novel from the local library. Surely that's possible?

County library services are getting rare in England. Most have closed down. We still have one and they are absolute heroes, but they don’t have the storage capacity to offer class sets of books.

GCAcademic · 27/01/2023 08:49

Asking someone to scan a book is asking them to break copyright law. In a university, for example, there will be a dedicated library team scanning book extracts and articles for teaching purposes; the main reason for this is so that they can ensure that the scan is copyright compliant.

Brefugee · 27/01/2023 08:50

Who do you suggest performs this 'little' task of scanning a whole book and which bit of their ample free time would you prefer them to use?

i did say i understand that teachers are busy. But presumably someone took the time to scan it already. They wasted their time if it is nearly unreadable. So they could have done it correctly in the first place? And if they have to not do something else because they had to spend time scanning the book (which someone actually did) then - that is why they're striking, right? I'm fully in support of that.

Or they could ask a parent to donate the time to do it? I don't know what schools in UK do. When my DCs were at school (not in UK) this wasn't an issue, but parents donated time to do all sorts of things the teachers couldn't cover.

LakieLady · 27/01/2023 08:56

Showersugar · 27/01/2023 07:40

I have tears in my eyes reading this thread, I don't have children so hadn't realised how dire things had gotten in our schools. No books, no library subscription, wow. Just wow.

Thank you for starting this important conversation OP.

Striking teachers had my full support anyway but even more so now.

It's horrifying imo, and I had no idea things were this bad.

One of my friends was the head of the library service for a local authority, and a huge advocate of books and reading for children, and has had books published about how important it is, and how parents and libraries can make a massive difference to children's literacy.

She's very elderly now, and would be brokenhearted to know that teachers are having to scan books because there's no other way kids can access them.

This has made me sad and angry in equal measure. I was (still am) an utter bookworm. The thought of having to use scanned copies is awful, there's no substitute for the real thing. We had a lovely "library" at my primary school (shelved wooden cabinets on wheels, that could be taken from classroom to classroom) and I think I'd read them all by the time I went to secondary school.

Still, this is what people voted for: this is what a low tax, low spend economy leads to.

LakieLady · 27/01/2023 09:02

RockyOfTheRovers · 27/01/2023 08:40

County library services are getting rare in England. Most have closed down. We still have one and they are absolute heroes, but they don’t have the storage capacity to offer class sets of books.

Show quote history

The school library service in my county used to have a large warehouse unit for books for schools on an industrial estate on the edge of town, and another one on the other side of the county.

Ours is now a Majestic Wines, and I'm told that the other one is a Screwfix. I assumed that they'd merged them and the bookstore had been relocated, but I'm wondering if they've just stopped the service.

LakieLady · 27/01/2023 09:05

turnipash · 27/01/2023 07:36

I wonder how long it takes ti scan a whole book and print out 30
Copies

Poor teacher (or TA)

If you costed the time it takes to do it, it may not even save a lot of money.

whataboutsecondbreakfast · 27/01/2023 09:06

@LakieLady yes it will, because teachers aren't paid overtime and most will be doing the scanning and copying in the evenings.

Parentandteacher · 27/01/2023 09:09

YABU
1)It’s legal to photocopy up to 5% of a book for these purposes.
2) They don’t have the money for books
3) if they did, 20-30% wouldn’t come back
4) the admin of working out which children have which copy is taking away from time the teacher can be teaching your child.

Parentandteacher · 27/01/2023 09:12

LakieLady · 27/01/2023 09:05

If you costed the time it takes to do it, it may not even save a lot of money.

Show quote history

She didn’t print it, it was scanned and put on a google drive. So took probably 30mins scanning time and no materials cost.

Favouritefruits · 27/01/2023 09:30

I think your school have been really kind printing everyone a copy, at our school they usually tell us what book to buy and say if you really can’t afford it then school with sort something out, I’m guessing printing a copy.

OopsAnotherOne · 27/01/2023 09:37

I left school in 2015 and the books we did have in English class were of poor standard then. They were old, falling apart, had ripped pages and there weren't enough for the whole class so many of us had to share. As the schools funding has been cut and continues to be cut, the schools simply cannot afford to replace these books. Even when I was a student, we had to buy our own GCSE science textbooks online and were encouraged to go into eBay and buy our own copies of the books to read in English.

I can imagine now, if those same books I used in 2015 have not been replaced (which I doubt they will have been due to lack of funding), most will have been lost, broken or on their last legs.

I'm sure teachers would love every child to have a book, but as their supply of books dwindle as they're not returned and the budget continues to be cut, they simply cannot afford more books.

If you were able to buy the books yourself for your child, eBay and other online sites are fantastic for second hand books for school. Some of the books we studied in English that we bought copies of on eBay were already annotated in pencil by the previous owner, which we also found helpful!

Coffeecreme · 27/01/2023 09:47

parents of sixth formers usually buy the books