Is it time for maths textbooks in primary?

[PastSellByDate]

Just saw this today: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30129639

As a parent - I would like text books (for one thing that's how I was taught) but with solutions to problems available, I can help my DDs understand their mistakes at the time (rather than feel I have to check problems without confirmation I have the correct solution, which I know puts many parents off interfering with maths homework) & I can also understand what's coming next (and support that at home - rather than vaguely understanding this term they'll be covering shape/ measurement/ calculation skills/ number facts - which says NOT A LOT).

One thing that did interest me about the BBC article was the fact that the government (?OFSTED) don't comment on/ validate quality of text books - it does seem rather a free-for-all and I'm not terribly convinced that most ordinary primary Heads of Maths are really qualified to make that judgement (yes as a teacher they can see what works best pedagogically/ structurally for their school - but I suspect assessing which mathematical approach is best would be problematic and I also wonder whether school budgets don't influence resource decisions).

Why exactly is it that the government - who seem very kind to prescribe elements of the national curriculum are less than keen to evaluate resources available to teachers/ parents? Should educational resources be entirely unregulated?

Parents have always had the option to buy a text book to use at home.

I don't like text books for given school years because:

1. only the minimum syllabus for the entire year is there for all to see/but not always understand
2. Calculation methods would be explained to pupils & parents - with worked examples (which aren't always the same calculation methods used by individual schools).
3. limited opportunities to review/ practice are there - once you've completed all the examples you still have to look elsewhere
4. answers are there - so when it's a tricky problem a child can check and write in the answer with no understanding of how to work out the calculation.
5. most importantly - as a teacher it can give parents the wrong idea about what the school should be doing unless we believe that every child should be doing the same thing at the same time

Moreover, if that text book was 'vetted' by school boards (maybe too much of a US thing - I don't really think they exist in England)/ OFSTED/ etc... - you would know it was a reliable learning resource. now that I find totally laughable! You have much more faith in OFSTED's expertise than anyone who has ever spent time with them.

I too would welcome textbooks as a parent - I think they make things easier. They also provide a useful benchmark - you know where your child is and whether they have mastered what they have to for that school year. You can do that in other ways, of course, but I find what they are doing now a bit too vague and not particularly helpful.

Textbooks can also be useful for going back and revising if you need to.
They will not, of course, be a magic cure for parental disengagement, but may help a bit - if only because parents may take a book more seriously than random pieces of paper.
I would be happy to pay for a textbook, personally.

Oh, and another thing - I'd much rather they had textbooks than tablets!

I think the point is that a textbook doesn't and can't tell you where your child is or what he has mastered.

I'm not sure why those saying they would find text books useful aren't using them??

So parents want text books so they can assess where their child is compared to the national expectation for that particular year group - ?

What do the want if their child's educational needs don't fit their given year group?

Parents do not want to do the job of teachers. What parents are saying is that they would like help from schools to be more involved when it comes to supporting their children, and perhaps textbooks could help with this. When DD1 started primary school I was bewildered by the termly list of topics with vague descriptions of what was being covered. This was written as if it was being presented to a head teacher as a lesson plan rather than as a guide for parents.

We are asked to read with our children every night, so they get to practice this skill and as parents we are involved, aware and engaged. I wish there was the same focus on maths practice from an early age and this is where text books could help.

What I would like is a textbook/ workbook and accompanying parent guide. The workbook could be used for homework, consolidating what is being covered at school, with the parent guide providing examples of problems and solutions. This way the parent can see the child in action and if they are finding something difficult, the parent is aware immediately rather than months or years later.

Yes of course parents can trawl through whsmiths for workbooks or spend hours on the web researching educational websites, but the amount of stuff out there is overwhelming and not everyone can be bothered. However if this workbook was used for regular homework, in the same way as reading, there is a better chance of child and parent cooperation.Surely schools could either use a current series of workbooks or come up with something themselves that could fit this bill.

Of course you can do it all without a textbook - it is just a helpful tool for learning, not an answer to every problem. For me personally, and for a lot of parents, it would be a good thing.

Are any of those saying they would find a text book useful using one at the moment?

Most schools do not use a single published scheme because they don't find it works. As a number of people have said already teachers use a variety of sources and just like parent have to trawl the Internet and search through a variety of available resources in order to find suitable material for every child.

I can see that teachers would find it restrictive to follow a textbook page by page in the classroom. Surely something suitable could be produced for home learning that would support the curriculum.

I know that other countries use text/workbooks and my personal experience of this is very positive. It would be interesting to know if they are widely used in other countries and what the impact is on children's learning.

At my Ds s old school they used Abacus textbooks.I thought they were so good I bought them to use at home when we moved house and started at a different school

Having maths textbooks in primary would certainly help a great deal. I've lost count of the number of times friends have posted their DCs' maths homework on Facebook because there is no textbook and they are hoping another parent has covered it with their DCs and can tell them how to help their DCs.

Today DS came back with maths that he couldn't do (and to be fair to him I thought looked like it shouldn't have been set before they'd covered a basic topic first) and asked for help. I asked, did they cover method A? "No". Have they taught you how to do method B? "No". Hmm, I thought - surely it couldn't be method C which uses algebra which I was told they haven't started yet. So I said, could it be method C? "What's that?" In the end, because he didn't want to hand in a blank worksheet, I taught him method A there and then (he'll be learning it later anyway). I've written a note to the teacher asking what method he should have used. I'm curious to know what the answer is going to be.....

I now spend at least 2 hours a week helping with maths homework (and no, it's not GCSE or A level, it's just primary!) because there are no textbooks and I'm now expected to be the human textbook for homework. In my day, my parents spent the sum total of 1 minute a week with maths homework from school: meaning they took 10 seconds to say "Go and start your homework now" and give us The Look Which Meant Business. We sat down with textbooks - all the answers, methods and teaching were in there. We could even jump to the next topic and start reading it for ourselves if we'd finished homework early. My parents could also keep an eye on what we'd done so far by checking which topics in the textbooks had been highlighted or ticked by us. Nowadays my fellow parents and I haven't a clue - until we see the workbooks at the end of term. It wouldn't hurt to go back to that system - our year did pretty well in the maths exams on that method, and even produced quite a few maths and science graduates.

PS just to clarify about answers: it wasn't enough to write the answer down, our teachers always wanted to see your method or "working" - how you arrived at the answer. The mantra was always, "you can have the right answer but if the working/method is wrong or there is no method written, you'll get zero". So the children can't "cheat" by having answers in the text books.

mrz:

I do take your point - and yes I totally agree there will be some who just copy the answers (but I was always taught to show all work - and that was what the teacher marked/ commented on - not the answers).

St. Mediocre refused to recommend text books or workbooks when we raised our concern about DD1 being totally unable to take 1 from 10 in May of Y2. We were told 'Children learn maths at their own speed'.

Although not untrue - slightly disingenuous in my opinion - as the pace of learning set by the school was obviously slower than other local schools; there was a total lack of communication to us that DD1 was seriously behind where she should be by that point and information on calculation methods were nonexistent.

Our solution was mathsfactor - working through calculation skills step by step - with information on what homework was being done/ what problems went wrong, and what we would be doing next. For us it solved the problem of clear explanation of method (which DD1 wasn't getting for whatever reason) and opportunity at practise.

It wasn't perfect - I doubt there is a perfect solution - which is why I do take your point that a skilled teacher using a variety of resources well (as I do believe would be your case mrz) is understandable....

but...

I don't understand why parents are excluded from that information? How that is beneficial?

One thing that I do want to make clear mrz is that I'm not necessarily advocating limiting it to a single maths text book in the traditional style - I think it is more than possible to have a package with worksheets (pitched at major ability levels) and interactive resources (including review of methods) which parents/ pupils can access at home to support understanding/ homework. I think most parents will more than understand that in places/ at points supplementary materials (for seasonal holidays/ because teachers know of a better or more easily understandable resource/ for variety) could and should be used.

I think the frustration 'dailygrowl' expressed above sums it up beautifully - parents expected to be 'human textbooks' is the problem in a 'text book free' school system. Because we're not informed about what you're doing/ don't understand what method is preferred/ often are so aged (or maybe that's just me) that explaining how to do something is tricky, because we've internalised the method & learned it so long ago we no longer think it through, but instead just know how to do it. Of course this is all the more complicated because for most parents our terminology is way out of date (and at least our school was totally unwilling to provide translation/ explanation - so we were left searching the internet/ posting on MN).

I empathise totally with that maths homework scenario Dailygrowl. It is so frustrating trying to help when a child is not able to explain so you are left trying figure it out by process of elimination and Google.

But, mrz, I want to see what they have done at school - in the last few lessons, the last week/month/term. I want to do something that ties with the current school work, to reinforce things if needs be. My kids are not mad keen on extension work at home, surprise surprise, so a quick 10 min recap of work done at school sounds much better than buying learning materials and going through them.

So you want the text book sent home?

Well I am an ancient primary teacher and I use a mixture of text books, worksheets, real games (as in on the table) and electronic games as well as modelling, question and answer, etc, etc.

Text books definitely have their place, but there is often not enough opportunities for practice in them - particularly important for those children who find it difficult to retain and recall bonds/tables facts, etc. And those who are just not very confident.

Practice makes Perfect

Do other schools not send books home? Ours sends all exercise books home fortnightly.

I sent home exercise books on the second week of term so far three have returned despite repeated requests to parents. So no I don't send home anything that I need returned.

I have no idea what my daughter does in maths at school. Absolutely none other than what she tells me.... no work books or anything.

I can see that if my second one appeared to be progressing slowly Id want to know why/what they are doing so I could help. Do the "slow" ones just end up not accessing all the curriculum?

No the "slow" ones access the curriculum but they may need longer to consolidate certain aspects.

Should add that taking longer in one aspect of maths doesn't mean you will find other aspects difficult.

But if you're given "book 1" as you're considered slow - but most of the class have "book 2" then you're not going to get the same access are you? (regarding textbooks)