Nick Gibb calls for a teacher-led return to textbooks

[noblegiraffe]

Nick Gibb, Schools Minister said a couple of days ago at a panel discussion led by think tank Policy Exchange that 'The teacher-led move back to textbooks will be integral to ensuring that the national curriculum is as effective as we’d hoped.'

Nick Gibb needs to explain where the money for these textbooks will be coming from, because my department certainly hasn't got any.

Nick Gibb also needs to explain how schools can be certain that any textbooks published won't be a waste of money because they will be obsolete within a year due to another set of curriculum changes.

In addition, Nick Gibb needs to explain how we can purchase quality textbooks when all the textbook currently available are crap because they have been rushed out to the timeline of incredibly rapid curriculum change.

Nick Gibb finally needs to explain why we've been told for years by organisations such as Ofsted that textbooks are lazy teaching, have no place in the classroom and so on.

But sure, it's down to teachers to make textbooks a thing again.

kazzy I did mention above that maths textbooks, in particular , have recently been found to be riddled with errors and the I have found many mistakes in the GCSE Film textbook!

Indeed, but "MyMaths" online system also had errors and so do some of the worksheets my son has brought home which were made by the teachers. My point was that text books aren't the only materials that contain errors.

Yes, but they are the only things containing errors which cost £30 - £40!

In most countries in the world, textbooks are written by a team of experts, and there is a team of editors and proof-readers as well. This is because a large enough proportion of schools in those countries use them, so that it becomes cost-effective to provide that level of quality.

The reason this is less likely to be the case in England is because demand was sharply reduced during the last 50 years, making such a level of commitment to quality not cost-effective.

If textbooks are so bad, why aren't schools sending them back for refunds - that's the only way to make the publishers take notice and improve their offerings?

I bought a text book for my son last year - the Edexcel Physics GCSE text book. It was rubbish - I sent it back and got a refund and bought the AQA one instead. 5 minutes to compare syllabi to see the few fundamental differences, a few post-it notes to tell him which bits not to do and a couple of post it notes at the front to say what isn't included, and hey presto.

Because mistakes aren't always noticed immediately. Especially in maths I would have thought.

The Film GCSE textbook is 400 pages along. I couldn't pore over every page to look for every error!

With the best will in the world, no teacher has time to do this. The proof reading stage is flawed because the new specs were ratified so late everything in the end had to be rushed out to appease expectant schools.

On a related note, a lot of A Level textbooks STILL aren't out. It really is no wonder teachers rely on networks of resources.

Exactly. And it's not always a case of simple "mistakes"--it's also things like textbooks being written in styles that aren't great, or having an emphasis that might not be exactly what you want.

In England, the lack of a detailed content-based curriculum tends to lead to a situation where the exams/tests effectively "become" the curriculum. So textbooks end up being about cramming your way through a particular exam, rather than being about developing an excellent knowledge base of the subject.

I have tried UK textbooks in the past and I just gave up. Galore Park were the only ones that appeared to be decent quality. I use those, plus Singaporean textbooks and (for maths) the American series Singapore Math which is American but is based closely on the Singaporean curriculum and teaching styles.

Just going back to historyI would have thought that the fact that education is devolved between English, Scotland, NI and Wales (well.... I think Wales has its own curriculum proper from 2019, if I remember rightly) would make it easier to have standardized history curriculaeach country can just do its own curriculum for history, and there is no need for one curriculum which has to stand for all of them. I actually teach my child both world and British history in roughly chronological order--believe me, it is perfectly possible.

I think topics like "chocolate" are OK as extras or a bit of fun (the sort of thing I'd like to see being done in after school activities or summer enrichment programs), but if history as a whole is mostly handled like this, you are going to end up with kids who have absolutely no coherent knowledge of what happened and when in the world. My nephews' lack of knowledge of the most basic history stuff horrifies me --and they go to a relatively "good" school.

Exactly. And it's not always a case of simple "mistakes"--it's also things like textbooks being written in styles that aren't great, or having an emphasis that might not be exactly what you want.

So you buy one for a trial. If you don't like it, don't buy it and buy something else instead. Publishers are only getting away with publishing crap because people are buying it. They'd soon improve their offerings if they didn't sell any!

Schools get sent sample copies. But you can't trial one textbook with a class!

Last time we bought GCSE Maths textbooks they were so bad that the publishers sent us a free revised set once all the corrections had been made - and we got to keep the old ones!

Kokeshi we can agree to disagree - I like topics in primary and think my kids (and I) benefitted. I also see the benefit of both chronological study and topics at secondary. So far at secondary, DS2 (age 12) has studied ancient Britain, medieval England, Tudors as a dynasty compared to the Mughal dynasty. He is now studying the English civil war and the Stuarts. Normal state comprehensive. Sounds fine to me. If you put him on the spot and quizzed him He'd tell you that in his opinion history so far has been people chopping other people's heads off! However, the evidence of his school work is that his historical understanding is pretty good. Still has those dratted worksheets, though!
Why were you crossing out your comments?

But if you are teaching exactly the same objectives and doing the same activities, what difference does it make if it comes under the umbrella of ‘chocolate’ and you link it to other objectives you would also be teaching in that year group or whether you teach those objectives in isolation and call them history, geography and science?

And you could still use a textbook within that topic. If one existed.

I agree with proper textbooks for the various topics - enhanced by teachers and adapted as needed. I think as pp mentioned using a textbook is a skill in itself. I also strongly dislike the sort of homework that was given at primary to vaguely use the internet to do 'research'. KS2 children need to directed to specific websites aimed at their age group and shown how to present information in their own words. Otherwise they think it's ok to cut and paste information.

Totally with you on the ‘research’ homeework. Unless the skills of how to research have been explicitly taught before. Or it’s a very specific set of instructions.

The issue with e readers as far as English goes is annotation and , for other subjects, loss of key diagrams and pictures . Then there's the fact that schools don't have e Readers!

You can 'highlight' on a kindle and as for diagram - there should be an A4 sized colour kindle for schools.

Corrections could be made and sent to schools, teachers should be able to add worksheets etc etc.

For English Lit many of the texts studied are already available as free downloads.

Saw this on Twitter and thought of this thread. Edexcel having to reprint and replace for free AS level revision guides because they have a big pink badge on the front saying ‘for the 9-1 exams’
That’s the level of quality being produced at the moment!

I love my kindle and I’m happy to read stuff on it, but I can’t get on with it for studying textbooks etc.

I suspect from a getting things into your long term memory point of view it would have the same limitations as using computers over paper and pen.

It would probably work if the kids were only using the kindle to access the text though.

They don't like e readers. Society doesn't like them. They haven't taken off to anything like the extent that was predicted.