Choking on costs fo sxith form education

[Piggywaspushed]

So DS1 has come home from college today with a book list. Books are marked essential or recommended.

The essential books alone amount to £150 just for year 1!!

I teach English and we do always ask students to buy set texts so they can annotate them - but his list includes £35 text books. This is in addition to the £180 per term bus fares.

Is this in line with everyone's experiences of a 21st century education?

That's a shame. Ds only did A2 in 2016 so I managed to acquire the books second hand then

Re the birthday presents. My DS wouldn't actually mind that but I think a lot of kids might not like the idea of school books a s a present! I am firmly of the opinion that this is one thing bank of Mum and Dad / parent/ carer/ grandparents should fund (where wealth allows) and not the students themselves...

However... my DS1's birthday was late July! So.. .I missed that boat!

Oddly, he asked for a politics textbook as a present odd child but it hasn't actually made it off the presses yet, in common with a lot of these invaluable (apparently) textbooks. The film A level one is due April 2018!

Even new books are often available from these online suppliers. Books which sell in large quantities are sometimes sold on quickly too - already there will be people who bought them over the summer and have dropped the subject and are off loading the books. There will be slightly damaged books on those sites too. Yes, new specifications and new books to go with them mean less secondhand books, but not zero.

And incidentally, many subjects are now into their third year of AS and second time through of the second year of A Level. I think 13 key subjects are in that position. There will be second hand available of those books.

I believe that young person's rail card is only good for single journeys, not for season tickets. It means no real discount for ordinary commuting distances.

Our council provides subsidised bus fares for kids in 6th forms. Not for 16yos already yr11, NEETs or kids on apprenticeships, though :(.

Many courses will need different books for L6th and U6th. Even if a birthday has been recent or isn't for ages, book tokens can be collected ready for U6th books.
And these are young adults. Yes, book tokens might not be their top choice of gift but they are of an age to recognise the costs involved in their education and that covering the costs like this might be a good idea and necessary. It's still possible to have other gifts too or not buy all of the books in this way.

Our council provides subsidised bus fares for kids in 6th forms.
You are lucky.

My nearest train station is 4 miles away (£5 daily bus fare to get there)
the bus to college for DS takes an hour
over two hours on Wednesday

I was intending on using online wombat because otherwise It would cost money to get to a poorly stocked bookshop but as I said, once you start messing with second hand and 'other sellers' it costs more as you pay separate delivery for each item!

... lucky... . DS was 16 early in yr11 but we did manage to get his discount season ticket to last until Feb, after that he paid adult season rate to go to school.

Since DS did not go to 6th form, I usually had to pay full adult price for DS to go swimming (6th form kids get a discount).

Other DC, if they do go to 6th form, can walk there.

Umbrella Education is often cheaper .

Abe Books has copies of the textbooks that we give students and many copies are £10 more than I paid. One copy is £70 more

ljkkAm imagining you making them walk about 15 miles ! [grin}

oops bracket fail

It's cost me £300 in clothes and £150 in bus per term so far.

It might be worth researching whether there are any local charities which make grants for education. A couple of the parishes I care for have small charitable trusts and we are delighted to receive applications. The amounts won't be huge but certainly help

yeah the student rail card doesn't apply to season tickets nor to on peak travel on her line.

The grants are great for any under 18s in care or who are carers for disabled parents for example. It must be nearly impossible for them to afford to stay in education.

I have been putting some money away for all my dc to pay for driving lessons so that will have to be used.
I'm honestly shocked that 16-18 compulsory state education is costing us hundreds of pounds.

Ta1kinPeece No-one's paying any attention.

All of DD's subjects are new spec subjects so we couldn't consider second hand books.

So, people DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON SECOND HAND BIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY OR GEOGRAPHY TEXTS BOOKS

ha! @ Piggy. No worries, 6th form is < 1 mile away. We lucked out there.

Get together with fellow student(s) and buy one set for both/all? With social media he should be able to find somebody on his course and they can link up via Whatsapp to organise handover of books.

Are they available as ebooks? Academic books are moving towards having the online version too, so that means two copies already.

As a teacher, I loathe and despise e books. You can't highlight them, turn pages over etc. Most students don't like them. That aside, generally e books aren't free. They come as a supplement to a v expensive textbook!

To contextualise , my DS is going to a brand new setting. I have said I can afford the books : I am choking on principle really, rather than my individual circumstances.

A couple of people have suggested sharing books. My DS doesn't know anyone at his new place! But, anyway, I don't see how sharing a textbook works?? They are for school and home work? Are they meant to have a rota?
Not meant to sound snippy . I just think some of these suggestions are a bit strange.

Before anyone gets pedantic on me, I know you can 'e highlight' books but it's still not a hard copy.

It is illegal to torrent books but if you have a kindle app...

If you are struggling then places like rotary, round table, St Vincent de paul etc might be able to help. They might buy the books for the school rather than an individual.

I think with new specs for A Level and GCSE schools are struggling to provide books.

For those who are struggling with costs I too would recommend researching local charities who may help fund some of the costs. There are definitely some in the area where I live who offer such funding to individual students.

I agree, an ebook isn't a hard copy but it's a good solution on the go/in a crisis.

Is your DC sure there's no Facebook/ Twitter/ Institute social network group for his course? Knowing 6th formers some bright spark has probably done it already.

There might well be but he wouldn't know yet. I doubt they have set it up to swap books. Mine usually discuss essay deadlines!

If he is able to sell his books on, this will not be until two years from now as the courses are two year courses. But obviously, this may be at least getting some of the outlay back. However, that means it is very unlikely there are many students in the year above selling books.

Certainly second hand bookshops in schools and colleges would be a very good idea.

I do repeat : I can afford this. It's the principle of state educated students so lavishly funding their own education that sticks in my throat! I did know his new institution was like this a little bit.

For those who are interested, I have done some costing research,

I obediently costed all the books on his list which are 'essential' for the first year.

On Amazon , with my Prime, I can buy all of these books for just over £170 (and get most of them today). Three of them are not actually in print yet so, I have actually spent £105.

I could not buy all the books form Amazon marketplace. If I had had a mixed economy of Amazon and marketplace, spending a little less on the selling price of some of the books,the actual overall cost went UP by over a tenner. This was because of delivery! And they would have all come at different times.

I also looked at Abe books. This cost a lot more and I couldn't get quite a few of the books.

Wordery came out at about the same price but they did not have as many of the books listed.