Is it normal not to bring any text or exercise books home?

[katalex]

Dd started year 7 in September and she has not brought home one exercise or text book. All homework is issued on Show My Homework and she normally has to print out a worksheet or write answers on a piece of lined paper. She has to either answer the questions from memory or look up the answers on the Internet. It has started to become a problem with her science homework because often the information on web sites either vary or they may be too simple or too in-depth and not suitable for year 7. I have emailed dd's science teacher to ask which resources she can use to find the answers to her homework questions but she hasn't replied. When dd handed in her homework only partially completed, the teacher told her it was ok. She also suggested using BBC Bitesize. We have tried that and can find some of the information she needs but not all of it.

Last term she was given science homework which was 'revise all topics on sound'. That was all it said. There was no list of topics to revise, no text book, no exercise book to refer back to and no documents attached containing all the information they needed to revise.

Is it normal for schools not to allow students to take text books home? If so, where does your dc normally get the information they need for homework and revision?

many schools nowadays just don't have enough in their budgets for textbooks

Not always the case. Our son has his own text books (with his name in the front etc), but just isn't allowed to bring them home. He says that there are several piles of them in the classrooms, so they don't just have the one set for everyone, they do have "one per pupil". Presumably they don't allow them to leave the school to preserve them from damage in rucksacks or risk of getting lost.

DS1's textbook have a label stuck on the first page of the book, you supposed to put your name on it, and the book is returned to school at the end of year for another student, if any book is missing, you have to pay for it.It is interesting to read the label to see who had the book before you.

I would prefer to have a copy of text book myself, as I always highlighted my textbook when I was at school. I would highlight the part I feel important, and write notes beside. I still remember the first days of the school year, we went to the school just doing registration, and brought back lots of textbook, and then make cover for each book using used magzines. And you can read the text book in advance if you are interested, and then compare your understanding with the teacher's opinion.

My DD1 has been all the way through secondary, the only text books I ever saw were MFL ones. Exercise books also stayed at school and brought home very rarely. For GCSEs we bought relevant revision guides.

My DD2 in in y7.

OP
I recommend you definitely purchase the CGP KS3 Science book, very clear and at the right level.

Other things we have found useful

• French Grammar book and French verb book published by Collins
• a general 'world religions' book
• children's encyclopaedia

You can probably get a CGP book for maths too (but I don't need one so have never looked)

Haven't bothered with books for History & Geog as what they cover is so wide ranging it hasn't somehow seemed necessary.

English is hit and miss too, never found anything much useful for that.

School budgets are hugely tight. I'm a secondary teacher and we don't have enough textbooks for y7-9 pupils to take them home, they have to be shared between classes and we have a range of books that we use in class rather than one specific textbook but we do let them take exercise books home. At GCSE and A Level our students all have a textbook for each unit to take home and use for the full two year course. It's so important if you want them to really excel that they have good quality resources to use at home and buying those books is the school's number one budget priority after employing people to teach and run the school. I'm convinced that it's one of the reasons why we're one of a very small number of schools where disadvantaged pupils make more rather than less progress than the rest of our pupils.

Also OP - if you go into Waterstones they can order you any book, including text books. Sometimes the ones on Amazon are old and out of date. CGP books are particularly good and every waterstones should have a guide to show you which CGP books are available.

I wouldn't bother with buying your own text books. They aren't used massively in keys stage 3 science as teaching and learning has moved away from 'book work'. But it could be useful to get some cheaper CGP style revision guides.
It is poor form for a teacher just to say 'revise sound'. I would ask for a list of objectives and if you get no response then go to the HOD. They should be able to provide you with a list of objectives for all topics and suitable websites for home study.

"Not always the case."

Lucky you. The schools in our LA are massively underfunded. In fact the funding formula review has been found in favour of the schools our LA so that they will benefit from more funding. I used to be a governor, and none of the secondary schools could balance their books in spite of making cut after cut after cut. In my school it was very obvious there wasn't enough cash for extras