Wot? No textbooks??!

[ampere]

DS1 has just started Y7 in a big comp.

He has brought home several exercise books to be decorated etc but it just occurred to me today (d'oh)- no textbooks at all! We were asked to pay £2.50 towards a Spanish book but it turns out to be a photocopied work book.

So..erm.. from where do they get their 'knowledge'? Worksheets in class? Big interactive whiteboards with internet text on it? (This is a non-tech school so no general use laptops!)

Curious to know!

i know what you mean. my daughter is now in 6th form and i have to buy all the text books.

when she was doing GCSE i had to buy copies of literature which i did not mind doing so much.

i resent having to buy the text books as they should get extra funding for kids staying on and it makes me mad. it works out at about £80 of books for lower sixth.

they will not get away with it when kids have to stay till 18. grrrr

I don't really use texbooks in my teaching other than the odd lesson so students would not need individual ones. I create a page from a text book on my IWB. Copies are often places on the school website if students need them.

Ours do get revision books which we make ourselves.

We give text books to our A Level students which they have to return when the leave

To be honest I find that teaching using textbooks is a little out of fashion...I tend to use a variety of sources of information so this doesn't surprise me

I never use textbooks, as I prefer to target my lessons directly at the precise needs of my pupils, rather than at the needs that a textbook identifies. Also, sadly, many textbooks in many subjects are still just not very good.

I tend to make all of my own resources, which would then usually be on the IWB.

Also, the new OFSTEd requirements want to see much more pupil-led learning - and textbooks don't really allow for this.

at my DSDs' school (now in yr8) they do not give out any textbooks. not for any ideological reason, but because they can't trust the students not to lose/deface/sell them :(

I liked having textbooks at my (grammar) school, they provided a useful link between home and school.

Textbooks date as well. It is much harder for students to graffiti my whiteboard with little penises as well.

lol, there's an image

I think the problem I have with DSDs' school in particular is that instead of textbooks they use random worksheets from goodness knows where, which are largely irrelevant, or they get the students to look up websites which are equally crap. If they actually used decent resources in that dump school I wouldn't mind!

Um....

I can see the rationale for not having textbooks - but as a reasonably able pupil, I too enjoyed 'owning' textbooks and reading them.

In fact I loved the poetry anthology we were issued, so much that I recently looked it up on Abebooks and bough another copy .

I'm sure we only studied half a dozen of the poems, so I must have read the others in my free time.

Though perhaps poetry isn't a particularly good example of a 'textbook'.

('bought' another copy)

We have textbooks in each subject, and each pupil is issued with their individual copy.

Personally, I really only use textbooks for homework. I very rarely use them for the whole class in lessons, although they can be handy for providing differentiated activities.

DD in yr9 at (slightly above average) comp.
Last week she brought a history text fbool home, which is the first text book since she has been at the school.
Some of the subjects ( food tech, MFL) had workbooks, but other than that has been all off the board or web-based homework.

My only 'objection' to the complete absence of textbooks is surely it yet further encourages the 'sound bite' grasp of the subject rather than breadth. Whilst of course I can see why a teacher might set a 'Learning Point' wot wiv OFSTED an' all, then finely, acutely focus the lesson on that point and that point alone, and the DCs will hopefully walk out of that lesson, LP learned; there's little encouragement or facility to 'read around' that point, especially if the DC comes from a home where the parents aren't interested or able to discourse further ON that LP.

At least with a textbook one can be fairly sure the content is relevant to the subject, set at the correct ability level AND verifiable and allows a DC to dip in and out, and around the subject better?

With the IWB option, good though I'm sure it is as a medium towards learning, surely it forms a distillation of the 'wheat' where the LP has already been 'dechaffed' by the teacher. Great for making a specific LP but it doesn't make the DC themselves any better at differentiating the necessary information from that less applicable, does it? Teacher's done it for them!

Oh my, this thread has made me really sad. I have fond memories of the 14, yes FOURTEEN textbooks I had for ONE PART of A-level history. And we learnt how to:

• read vast quantities of information relatively quickly and pick out the most useful/relevant bits
• consider different academic opinions of the same subject and learn to construct out own arguments
• research things further using indexes, footnotes and reading around the subject etc
• develop great biceps from lugging the damn things around.

Apart from the biceps, I certainly wouldn't have got into Oxford without those skills, and I very much doubt I could do the job I to today without them. A few worksheets and a bit of wikipedia isn't really the same is it?

I think we're making the same point, 30!

Indeed!

So does this mean that pupils learning is now focussed on what the teacher imparts during class?

Whilst I can see how some textbooks date, at least you have a good coverage of the curriculum in a format where you can usually find information in a logical format, and the book has the benefit of being correct. I struggled to see how my ds was meant to revise history from a whole load of photocopied worksheets which he had completed in a rather sloppy and brief way. At least if he had a textbook he would have had a chance to revise properly.

fantastic post at 8:25 ampere - that's what I was thinking, only I couldn't have put it so eloquently :o

lack of books must contribute to what IMO is a major over-reliance on the internet.

I can't help noticing that my DSDs, when being told to research something online, just flit around sites waiting for the answer to jump out at them - they don't seem to have the ability (or patience) to read a chunk of text and extract the info they need.

I can understand lack of textbooks for financial reasons etc but they could at least ask students to look at books for homework. Much as I love the internet and recognise its many beneits, I don't see why everything has to be done online.

I'm reading this book (won a signed copy on MN!) - quite relevant here I think.

Absolutely agree with last 4 posts .
Also ,if you've got an uncommunicative DC and a parent who has never heard of Learning Points ,the text book can help the parent support the DC .

yes, what is a learning point please?

ampere I'm sure we are... but 'Learning Point' is a whole new concept to me! Surely learning isn't 'points', but an ongoing process...?

maybe it just means "things you need to write out, parrot-fashion, in order to pass an exam"

It does seem a strange set-up.
Teachers seem to talk a lot about lesson planning and producing resources etc. You would think that, unless the syllabus changes, then lessons would be pretty much the same year-on-year. Why are there so many teachers across the land all re-inventing the wheel every year. What was wrong with the idea of textbooks?