Is it time for maths textbooks in primary?

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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?

Rafal, you say

"But the reason the Finnish out perform us has very little to do with the text book"

But how do you know that? When all the best-performing countries use textbooks, it would clearly be wrong to rule that out as potentially a significant contributor to their success.

This is a quote from the blog of a teacher talking to a Finnish teacher about textbooks:

"Her take on it was that her job as a teacher was to know and support the needs of the children in her class, not to spend large amounts of time generating resources such as Maths questions for lessons. She spoke of the efficiency of a group of people creating all the questions needed to teach the curriculum and then distributing it to an entire principality, rather than what she saw as the English way of doing things which was for individual teachers to devise and create lesson resources. She was also quick to point out that there is no requirement for teachers to use any textbooks, and they can pick and choose which parts they do use. In practice though, she said many teachers do use text books a lot in their teaching and use the time and mental space created by this to engage with children and support their individual needs."

Perhaps because of the evidence from the Finnish education minister?

Finland is just one country and there are lots of things going on there. However, the fact that basically ALL the high performing maths countries make lots of use of textbooks should give us pause.

I think if teachers were not feeling the pressure to spend so much time basically reinventing the wheel for every damn lesson, they would have more to spend on stuff that actually does to boost performance, like extra/remedial teaching for students who are behind, or setting and marking more homework. I think the anti textbook trend really makes life harder for teachers and reduces the amount of time and energy they could potentially be spending on other things.

Because England is an outlier. It is one of the only countries that doesn't use textbooks. Yes the higher performing countries use text books but so do the lowest performing ones because pretty much every country uses text books.

There is no correlation between the use of textbooks and attainment or whether those textbooks are government approved or not.

But according to the teacher I quoted, not having to create her own resources is a big reason why she has time and energy to provide support to strugglers. Obviously I am not saying that textbooks would be the only reason for Finland's success; just that we can't rule them out as a contributing factor. It is important to remember that textbook quality will vary; Finland has put a lot of energy and resources into theirs. The fact that some countries use textbooks and aren't doing well is not evidence that Finnish textbooks have no effect on what is happening there.

New Statesman, you said earlier

"What I think is weird is that the anti-textbook people tend to be the same people who are always going on and on about "independent student-centered learning" and how teachers shouldn't be the fount of all knowledge and how students should develop their own strategies for this and that and so on."

What you have to understand is that "independent learning" is often code for "learning in groups". So children are supposed to learn from each other rather than from the teacher. This comes from a long-held misunderstanding by education academics of the psychological concept of the "social construction of learning". They decided arbitrarily that reading the words of another person in a textbook is not sufficiently "social" - yet in reality, "social" is exactly what it is - the interaction of one mind with the words of another.

I think "creating" teaching resources is the least of most teachers worries

I hope more textbooks doesn't mean going back to the standard talk and chalk followed by repetitive practice questions. I like how maths has become more hands on and promoting real understanding rather than step-by-step methods (often without true understanding).

Bad news for you: messing around with manipulatives and a million different methods for calculations has led to kids who can't remember any written method by the time they get to secondary school. Favour is definitely swinging back in the direction of getting the kids to do loads of practice so that the methods become muscle memory and they can remember number facts off by heart.

Mrz, I suspect the Finnish education minister has his own agenda, from everything I have read. That is what led me to do research by looking at blogs of people who have visited schools in Finland, or are Finnish themselves.

I would just add, re textbooks: I believe you are using the Soundswrite scheme with great success in your school to teach reading and writing, am I correct? I would argue that a good maths textbook scheme has the same advantages; learning is presented in a carefully sequenced logical order, with lots of ready-made resources, and problems/exercises that have been carefully checked for clarity and comprehensibility. For older children, there is also the advantage of being able to look back at previous work if they get stuck. Obviously, teachers should still have flexibility to adapt and add to what is there if they feel it is appropriate.

Isnt his agenda is to "sell" Finnish education methods?

Isn't his agenda is to "sell" Finnish education methods?

Apparently. But in the articles I've read, he seems to be putting across a rather selective view of what Finnish education methods consist of. (I intend to buy his book, but am waiting because there is a new edition out soon.) He is keen on Dewey and "child-centred" methods, which I distrust because that was the kind of thinking that led to Whole Language methods of reading instruction. We know there is a big group of "progressive" education academics who tend to like Whole Language and who put ideology above what actually works; there may well be people with similar views in Finland.

And from what I've read on the blogs, lessons in Finland are actually on the whole what we would view as rather traditional, with textbooks, quiet classrooms, desks facing the front, lots of teacher talk, regular testing - oh and I believe around 6% of children are educated in separate special needs classrooms and schools. This doesn't seem to match the picture being painted by those who base their information on what Sahlberg writes/says.

I'm not sure it was the messing about with manipulatives per se was it noble? It was messing about with manipulative instead of rather than as well as practice that stuffed it up. That and eleventy billion slightly pointless informal written methods as stepping stones to the formal ones. All of which add up to not enough practice to learn skills to automaticity.

Sadly I suspect that there are plenty of primary teachers out there that still won't see the point in doing 20 questions because if you can do 5 you don't need the other 15.

He seems to be saying that "culture" is an important factor

Mrz, I'm sure that culture is a factor. But in my opinion we don't really know how important a factor it is. Certainly, saying as some people do in this country, that changing the culture is the only thing we can do to improve educational outcomes is a counsel of despair. It's what Whole Language people will tell you about why disadvantaged kids don't learn to read - and we know that they are wrong about that.

From what I've read he is saying that in Finland there is a culture where education is highly valued by all and that the same cannot be said about the UK

I agree that that is true. But then, many of the people who don't value education are the same ones who didn't learn to read very well, in part because of the teaching methods, and who felt humiliated at school because of it. For them, not valuing education can be a defense mechanism. Certainly, historically the Labour movement put a high value on education.

And you think giving every child a text book will solve the problem?

I don't think you will find that I said anything so absurdly simplistic anywhere.

I don't think you will find I gave said you did ... but thanks for agreeing that text books alone aren't the solution.

Maths teaching does not happen in a vortex! It is within the set up of an educational system and a cultural approach. It is naïve to think introducing a single standardised text book in England would automatically produce the same results as some of the high performing countries which use text books have. Before people say they are the solution here they should look more closely at the other differences we have; inclusion or not; attitudes and approaches to children with additional needs (remedial classes / schools!); parental rights on school choices; expectation that children pass an annual test or retake the year; are ALL children counted in the nations statistics; what is the parental involvement across the board; children's well-being (and even suicide rates) in "successful" countries.
I can see why the "yes" voices here would like text books, but we must not forget MN is not typical of the whole country and all parents. I agree text books have a place, but there is no way a Year 2 text book would meet the huge diversity of needs in my classroom and I would be failing my children if I used it as a single, or even main, approach.