Why on earth aren't subject text books plugged more???

[pgtips2]

Nowadays, it seems everything is either on a screen or a booklet or a crumpled bit of work sheet copied to death.

When I quizzed my youngest they said they'd never even looked in the text book! They're lucky to have them both as print and online copies but I was aghast.

These are books which are basically either written or used for the GCSE curriculum/exam board they're sitting.

Surely, the first point of call should be - after the teaching / lesson - to look at the chapter and then make sure you do the end-of-chapter/topic tests.

But instead my kids use various online resources - which although great resources such as Save my exams and PMT, surely should be the follow on rather than the source - it just seems strange NOT to start with the book.

I think using a book as a basis provides more of a structure in your mind of the topics covered and you can sort of remember almost - after a while - where a specific explanation or question is. I should think much better for kids/boys with slight ADHD issues (suspicion here).

Thoughts please!!

@NCfor24

I too hate pdfs, but you can change them to word (I'm dyslexic so I have an easy read font). Just google, there are loads that are free.

Do you have a Kindle or other ebook reader? You can read your notes on that if you have one.

I actually think Amazon is missing a trick, an A4 sized kindle with text books loaded on it (larger size for diagrams) with options to change the font and size of text would be the best of both worlds.

The copyright would be an issue. Hoddder etc have spent a fortune on their own e-books.

However, you can have Speechify read you anything including pdfs. In the voice of Mr Beast even if that appeals...(not to me, but then I like a book).

I met a trainee English teacher last year - I was talking how, prior to the internet, we used to have to get our set of encyclopaedias down and look up information - he genuinely did not know what an encyclopaedia was and that these were real actual books. I get he had a deprived background and had worked hard to get to where he was but still, shocked was an understatement

Children aren't 'becoming dumber'

I wonder how many charity shops a Head of Department would need to dig around in to find copies of the same textbook for their full Y10 and 11 GCSE cohorts... Certainly a novel way of spending the summer holidays!

1. The curriculum changes every year, so books are obsolete before they’re published
2. My subject doesn’t lend itself to textbooks
3. They cost too much for schools to buy to be unusable in a year, so we don’t actually have any.
4. We’ve been asked not to tell sixth formers to buy textbooks because of the cost being prohibitive to those on low incomes.

So we make our own stuff and put it on Teams or whatever, like teachers up and down the country.

I'm honestly educated my eldest child.

While we do lots of things by watching documentaries and listening to podcasts and independent online research, we are using textbooks for the core subjects, and it works! Of course, if he doesn't get a concept we supplement it with other materials and work on it until he gets it, but he loves learning that way.

Vinted is an excellent place to pick up used textbooks for a couple of quid.

I wasn't suggesting that teachers scope out World of Books or Vinted or Amazon. But what if those parents that can afford to buy books, buy them, and then hand them on when they are done (curriculum dependent). You then accumulate a store of text books.

How does that help me plan at all? Getting a random amount of textbooks maybe in a year.

It's forward planning, no? It's amazing, but the schools I know that do this, accumulate a surplus of books. Who'd have thought? Some parents actually like to buy new for their kids, use that to your advantage.

Depends on your demographic, I suggest.

At my university the library has to supply 1 copy for 10 learners and we need to request this up to a year in advance for the budget. Students hate the library and often the online versions are too expensive.

the textbook must be able to be available as audio and pdf to allow students who need special fonts, etc.

it’s so much easier to use resources the university already has paid for.

students do not buy textbooks. You may as well suggest they fly to the moon, or attend an 8am seminar.

And your cupboard space!

I'm not sure we'd need much cupboard space for textbooks that parents bought for their kids brand new and at the end of two years didn't want to sell on themselves and that the kid was organised enough to bring into school.

We have enough problems getting back textbooks that belong to the school.

I'm interested in this idea OP, do you think if a textbook was written by an expert and made free to teachers for example, then extremely low (production cost only) for students, do you think the teachers would use them? Maybe there are some idealistic writers out there.

I wonder what teachers would think or whether they would have a hard time having a book passed/accepted by the school as a recommended text...

This is the real crux of it - they become obsolete so fast. Every bloody ed sec over the last 15 years has come in and fucked with the curriculum (or so it feels!) and schools can't be in a position where they suddenly have 300 text books for last year's exam syllabus. And even if that doesn't happen, if you've bought the books for one exam board, you're then stuck and unable to change to a different board should you want to, without shelling out thousands on new books.

I personally think it's a real missed opportunity. One national exam board, with text books. Homework tasks, unit tests etc built in. Everyone learns that same things, takes the same exams. It would make life much easier for students moving schools, for parent to support, and for teachers. Kids being homeschooled could study independently. But there we are.

Gove tried to implement a single exam board but couldn’t, so I don’t think it’s possible.

Tbf to DD's secondary school, they were given a revision guide for each subject and asked to donate it back after they'd finished Y11 (which DD did, apart from the subjects she was doing at A level).

At 6th form it seems to be a mix of lectures like Uni and worksheets. I'm actually finding it really hard to get revision guides for DD's A level subjects, any that I do see seem to be from about 2015/16 and I'm not sure if they're out of date or not. They definitely have to have the Eng lit books but can buy them cheaply from college.

I don't get why it isn't possible though? Other countries do it.

There is also the "teaching from a textbook is bad teaching" train of thought. But how much of that is grounded in anything remotely approaching actual proven scientific theory, and how much is based on now defunct pseudo scientific jabber like "learning styles" (visual, audio, kinaesthetic - all must be catered for in each lesson! Remember those?) is unclear.

I don't get why it isn't possible though? Other countries do it.

Yes, but it is easy to do if that is what you have always done.

Here, how would that work? Nationalising the exam boards won't work because you want a single one. Anointing one of them as the official state exam board? But Edexcel are good for maths, AQA are the best for English etc etc. I'm sure I heard something about it being an issue with regards to rules around monopolies as well.

If Gove could have done it, he would have done it, I think. He is, despite all his many faults, an extremely efficient government minister when it comes to actually doing things.

Others have already said it…textbooks are generally frowned upon in the UK. My school can afford them, but I wouldn’t be allowed to teach from them. Instead, we spend hours cherry picking the best bits from the textbooks and supplementing with lots of other resources. Probably one of the reasons teachers are leaving the profession - it creates a huge amount of extra work. Gone are the days when teachers start every lesson with ‘turn to page X of your text books..’

I use a textbook if I’m away and have to set a cover lesson. Whenever I cover other teachers’ classes, I notice that the students generally love a ‘text book’ lesson. They are straightforward and the students can work with minimal input from the cover teacher.

This has been such an enlightening thread!! I’m from Ireland, don’t even have kids yet but I often think about what school would be like for them if I continue to live in the UK.

Why does each school set their own curriculum? How do they know what they’re doing is right? How can exam results be comparable? Why are there exam boards for different subjects?

This seems like a convoluted system? Is it the size of the UK? The 4 different countries?

Also in terms of the actual point of the thread - yes to textbooks, big fan!

Why does each school set their own curriculum? How do they know what they’re doing is right? How can exam results be comparable? Why are there exam boards for different subjects?

It's even more complicated than that unfortunately! In History GCSE last year at DD's school, different classes were studying different topics. One of DD's friend's did (I think) Victorian medicine whilst DD's class did Victorian crime. The crime question was apparently a nightmare for loads of the kids whilst the medicine one was considered really good.

Schools do not set their own curriculum. This is set nationally. However in some subjects, such as History and English Literature, a number of topics are specified, allowing schools and individual teachers to choose which topics to teach.

Academies don’t have to follow the National curriculum, it’s part of their ‘freedoms’ that Gove was so keen on.

However, at GCSE the exam boards set a syllabus for each exam so that’s Years 10 and 11 sorted.