That glass ceiling! Part 2

[var123]

Continuing the discussion about artificial limits placed on G&T children, and the resulting impact on their health and happiness (not to mention futures).

Do they really matter less because they have a perceived "advantage"?!

original thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gifted_and_talented/2507232-The-glass-ceiling-for-very-able-children?

Schools don't provide textbooks because schools don't use textbooks regularly enough to warrant the kids schlepping them back and forth every day.

There was (and still is) huge snobbery about using textbooks to teach.

In maths I'm quite happy to use textbooks, but as I mentioned previously, modern maths textbooks are crap. So crap, in fact, that my department haven't even bought any for the new GCSE. The KS3 textbooks we do have have about 5 questions per topic, so I usually use worksheets or write questions on the board instead, and for GCSE I have a set of textbooks that were old when I started teaching ten years ago, which are brilliant. You wouldn't be able to buy them these days, and I think they are held together by penis pictures.

Textbooks may not be cheap, but even 20% of English lit books not being returned is a very worthwhile sacrifice of school funds imo.

Yy re the super slow reading and constant halts for ott analysis of every sentence. Absolutely destroys literature for all abilities.

I am amazed by this. All 5 of my children at private school have text books. Why would state schools be any different? The more I read on this thread re textbooks, home work, high expectations the more different I feel the private system is (and better for our particular needs)

"All 5 of my children at private school have text books. Why would state schools be any different?"

I have very rarely read a more ridiculous question.

I think there is a difference (which seems to have been lost here) between 'texts' - the books by particular authors that a child is studying for e.g. English Literature - and 'textbooks' - books that are designed to 'teach the syllabus' for a particular subject.

I think that all schools should provide texts, in a suitably protected form, perhaps with a small fine levied for non-return or damage.

I feel that 'textbooks' are only needed some of the time, for some subjects, and can lead to dreadful teaching if a single textbook is followed religiously. IME, schools have copies of several different textbooks within departments / classrooms, and specific parts of specific textbooks might be used in a particular lesson or series of lessons.

DD, at the moment, has a Maths 'textbook', which is sent home and used as a source of homework exercises. It isn't the same one as earlier in the year, and it isn't particularly used in lessons, where the resources used and supplied are varied according to the needs of the class. DS has a Science textbook that is only used for revision to ensure that pupils have access to a complete and accurate set of 'notes', never for teaching and never for homework. Following a single textbook, whether the school's own or bought by a parent, leads to a particularly rigid form of teaching that was old-fashioned when I was at private school 30 years ago.

Actually this is a good question DG2016.
If there are some good enough text books that teachers in private schools used, why aren't they used in state secondary?

I agree, teacher. A lot of what my ds needs is online now anyway. Texts are a different matter.

Wood, the other point is, though -all GCSE syllabuses are being revised. Tweaks to many to remove continuous assessment has already hapend, English and Maths are new this year, all others will follow.

This will require a totally new set of textbooks for all subjects...and if the secondary reforms are anything like the primary ones, there will still be uncertainty about the curriculum in detail so much of the content will be 'best guess'.

Should all state schools buy all new textbooks for all new syllabs chanegs, even when they KNOW they won't be very good at the beginning, and then have to buy another lot a couple of years down the track?

Also, teaching from textbooks does exactly what this thread has a problem with - narrow teaching of a single route through a subject, with very, very limited scope for differentiation. Why should we of all people be advocating it?

Why do private schools do it? A smaller range of abilities, a much more old-fashioned and didactic style of information transfer, and an ability to pass the full cost onto parents every year, for starters.

I haven't spent a lot of time studying the children's textbooks but they have them all - the set works for English (or did until the GCSEs ended - and all these schools have book return day and if you don't return them you pay and indeed as you pay a deposit to join the school they have the funds to deduct from not that we would ever not return one anyway) and I remember seeing one history iGCSE textbook which had lots of interesting stuff in it. I don't know if they have more than one. I was at one talk about GCSE and we were told what extra books a lot of children like to buy - revision guides and who preferred which of those and most parents then chose to buy some of those too.

There is not only one way to teach well though - I like the fact there is variety in English schools. Are people saying state schools cannot afford textbooks? Could they not then have the children take them out from local libraries or buy them for 10p on Amazon second hand?

It's Marie Antoinette, as I live and breathe!

My son has ended up with 3 copies of the Odyssey (in English) this term - one we were encouraged to buy over the summer for pre reading, one the school handed out and one he bought to read electronically when we were abroad at Christmas and then didn't use.

DG - could you clarify?

Your DCs had:

• All the texts for English literature
• A textbook for each subject

I am confused by your last sentence, which seems to confuse 'texts' and 'textbooks'. There are roughly 210 children in each year at my DC's school. I don't know of any library that contains 210 copies of 'Modern World History for OCR' or whatever?

My DS is taught history by a teacher, who uses resources - pictures, sources, films, sample essays, questions, debate cards, whatever - to support his teaching in any particular lesson. DS is set homework in any or all of these forms. I am slightly struggling to understand why DS should have a 'single book of a single route through the history syllabus' instead of a teacher who knows the class intimately and uses and chooses resources to teach them? The sschool can - and does - buy textbooks in some subjects, either where a 'full set of notes for the syllabus' is deemed useful, or where structured exercises are useful for homework or rehearsal of key skills. But to have a full set of textbooks for every subject isn't value for money, in simple 'return on investment' terms.

If there are some good enough text books that teachers in private schools used, why aren't they used in state secondary?

My DC's private school uses textbooks as noblegiraffe and teacher describe above: several textbooks are used for each subject, with no one textbook being followed rigidly. Frequently other resources are used and sent home with homework instead of textbooks. I think the only textbooks they do use continually are for latin and greek (very closely related to the books I used years ago) but even for those subjects they shift to other sources once in a while. The school has enough copies of all textbooks for children to be able to bring them home when they need to for homework, but this would be unrealistically expensive for state schools.

I agree with teacher that there is a great deal of difference between texts and textbooks.

And our school seems to agree with noble about modern maths books: the books they are using are quite old but the head of maths told us that he can't find anything better to replace them with.

DG, you still have 'texts' and 'textbooks' confused.

The Odyssey is a TEXT- in the same way that I had Ovid's Metamorphoses, La Neige en Deuil and The Golden Treasury of Longer Verse as texts when I was at school, and DS has Jekyll and Hyde, Blood Brothers etc

A textBOOK is something like 'GCSE Maths Higher Student Book' or 'Modern World History for OCR'

Atm the system at dc1 school is the following.
No textbooks
Very rare notebook makes it home
Most homework done through the ipad

Apparently there is possibility to access some of the notes from the teacher on the ipad (I'm assuming what was on the whiteboard).

Now how on earth are these children supposed to revise, learn vocabulary in MFL or anything else?

"teaching from textbooks does exactly what this thread has a problem with"

I think that depends on the textbook. I'm happy with the prospect of using good ones as opposed to the slim teach-to-specific-exam-board test type.

Oh and of course no text/books etc for english literature.

"Now how on earth are these children supposed to revise, learn vocabulary in MFL or anything else?"
Does the school website not have sections for different subjects?

I know the difference. As far as I know they seem to have a textbook for most subjects may be more than one (some quite heavy to cart around) and also they had the texts for the play or whatever they were studying in English lit. The science textbooks were good too. However I don't have a complete list or memory of what they had in every iGCSE subject. Not sure if there is a GCSE and iGCSE difference. It would certainly help reduce muscle strain if fewer large books had to be carted home night after night although I suppose little does any of us more good than lifting weights.

I appreciate the issue with the new curriculum etc... but what we are talking about isn't just happening now. It was like this before and doesn't look like it's going to change (or rather probably more going towards what we have, ie ipad all the way).

Pique,

I agree. At the back of my classroom I have a shelf devoted to a variety of textbooks which have used - usually with bookmarks marking 'the good bit of this one'.

Equally my computer bookmarks are a set of links to a variety of good quality web resources - most often for Maths, where the ability to fine-tune question sheets through interactive sites allows me to differentiate at a significantly 'finer' level than would otherwise be possible, or where nrich can instantly show me ways to really get the class thinking.

Then each week I sit down to my planning (weekly planning from the termly scheme of work, as the weekly level is where the main 'planning for differentiation' happens for most primary teachers of my acquaintance) and go 'right - where do i get the materials that will really bring this alive'? From a good textbook, from a website, from a colleague, from a tfilm or TV programme....whatever will make the best lesson.

Really? No text books?

My younger child attends a really very, very deprived state middle (Y7-10) school. They zmanage to give out text books for every subject at the start of each year - each student has to check the condition of each book they've been assigned, sign for it, then return all the books in good condition at the end of the year (or the parents get a bill). The average text book seems to last for about 5-6 years. Of course most teachers use other resources too.

At high school you have to buy the textbooks and set texts yourself (there is a grant for less well off parents, and the parents associations organise second hand book sales).

I'm also astonished at the idea of a maths textbook with hardly any exercises - my children's maths textbooks have tens if not hundreds of graded exercises per topic!

Bet, nope. I've just checked with dc1.
There MIGHT be something on the ipad but they haven't been shown where.
Notebook MIGHT go back home only with the permission of the teacher. Notebook is used for doing exercises so very little notes anyway.

That's it.
If a child is struggling with something and wants to work on it, there is very little available. As parents we were told, the children would have access to xx website for revisions (or rather they were encourage to go on these websites).

I am not quite sure about the iGCSE / GCSE difference.

summary ghere

I suspect that the content has remained more stable, because it is free from Government diktat, and therefore perhaps remains a more stable proposition - and more lucrative, given that state schools don't generally do iGCSE because it isn't recognised for e.g. league table purposes and so it is restricted to the private schools.

Sorry, didn't end that sentence:

• for text book publishers.