Year 7 (and older) Reference Books For Home?

[roses2]

My son is in Year 7 and his school don't provide reference material to take home which sometimes causes difficulty with homework.

The school say they use proprietary in house made materials and don't allow them out of school. Speaking to his primary friends at 2 other schools they are exactly the same. What has happened to text books? That's for another thread.

Since it's a UK state school I assume they follow the national government curriculum and so there should be generic off the shelf books I can buy when he gets stuck with homework.

Can anyone help with UK curriculum reference books for home that I can buy from Amazon for eg math, Science, geography etc?

Google is your best friend with any homework. Also teaches them how to search for reference material.

Even though they follow the National Curriculum, there is nothing so rigid as a standard textbook (thank goodness!).

Schools use textbooks (I did) but in a more ad hoc way. In any case schools cannot afford to supply them to individual students as many would never come back.

I typically had one set (so 20-30 copies) of each book in my MFL classroom.

I suggest two options; try using the internet to research a topic (this is harder than it seems for 11yo so you may wish to guide) or look at CGP KS3 study guides - the MFL ones are certainly good tho topics in science and geography will vary.

Does he not have access to online textbooks? My DC's school didn't allow books home either, but this was on the basis that they had access to lots of online material.

If they are struggling to manage homework, I would be asking the school what resource material they are expected to use.

Text books are £30 each, schools can't afford to give them out and have children forget them and keep more in school.

Any CGP books will be useful or just BBC Bitesize, take a trip to WHSMITH or Waterstones and have your child look at the layout of the study book to see which format they prefer.

When they are in GCSE years once you find out the exam board you can buy the matching text books.

When I taught science we used the Activate Series which has an accompanying workbook for home use but I wouldn't advise getting them if your school doesn't usually use them unless your child misses a substantial amount of time off school due to ill health and needs to teach themselves to keep up. He should be able to d his homework from what has been taught in class, it should be a review exercise.

My dd uses Bitesize for topping up school’s materials. In addition I hopped on Vinted and bought her a handful of KS3 guides and practice question books so she has some alternative resources.

There is mountains of information online so I agree having just a few trustworthy sources is handy.

Academies and private schools do not need to follow the national curriculum.

There aren't any standard textbooks.

Closest you'll get for years 7-9 is cgi revision guides.

I agree, CGP books cover the material they need to know. But it's not very exciting reading.
The school library should have books on most topics, as will your local library. BBC Bitesize is a useful resource online and there are videos on Youtube for just about anything you can think of. It's helpful to add "KS3" to the search bar to ensure it's relevant and appropriate.

I always wondered the same, why we don't use standardised textbooks that follow the national curriculum here.(and I did not grow up here) They're great for parents to keep track of progress, promote educational equality, handy for review or homework, and serve many other benefits.
I also find it shocking to hear that textbooks are too costly to distribute to every pupil.. in a country considered so much wealthier than many other countries who give out textbooks every year, every subject for everyone. And then people who could afford to, go to bookshops to buy additional materials and workbooks. It's really sad.

Thanks all, looking at my local library is a good idea (especially as I live 30 metres from it!!).

Seems as though not having text books at home is common place.

My classroom barely had enough books for 1 between 2 for classwork let alone anything else. And then you have the darlings that glue pages together, draw penises or rude words, fling them across the room and damage them, taking covers off them. You'll find in a lot of schools there is very little respect for school resources by pupils, many of whom don't even bother bringing their own stationery. I literally taught in the same school I attended, many of the same teachers were still there and behaviour had dropped off a cliff it was a totally 'chalk and cheese' experience than I had as a student where I had copies of text books given to me. @meuntilmarch2025

You can find all you need on the internet. Generally they won't work through a book now, they will use different sources for different areas within each subject, so "a book" will only give him a fraction of what he needs, and a lot he doesn't. Has he been given any interactive websites for homework? My son has an English, Maths and MFL one at least.

Geography teacher here. For my subject I would suggest having access to an Atlas but this could be online. Other than that I would use BBC Bitesize or Seneca for learning. Books cost too much nowdays.

You could hand out a set of numbered books and get them to write their names on the special glued-in table, and the books would still go missing. They usually claimed the missing books had been "stolen" or "lost", and the parents would back them up 100%. Even handing books out and taking them back in at the end of the lesson was a battle. Heaven knows what the little dears did with them.

@HPandthelastwish The textbooks I had where and when I grew up was for myself, not to be given back to the school. Each new academic year everyone would receive a new set of textbooks, for every subject. Of course children being children books get damaged but they are only supposed to last a year anyways. They were also partially workbooks with 'check' questions so expected to get scribbled on. Once the year passed, they get dumped for recycling.
For tests or exams, the scope is whatever the teacher told us to review (page a to page b) which was the same for the national exam (scope would be the entire curriculum) that would correspond to a-levels here. The system was a bit rigid and has its downsides, but it was fair for everyone. There was also room for further work should you wish to, like we'd buy CGP workbooks now. Maybe lacking in creativity and not utilising technology enough.. and the world has changed.
Also I agree the pupil behaviour is not the same as before!

Teaching them how to use Google properly is a valuable life skill. So many people can't do this.

What I would also suggest is that you contact the school and inform his teachers that he is struggling. My sons' school actually had year 7 parents in with their child and basically walked us all through how to research, what sites you couldn't trust like Wikipedia as anyone can change it for fun and you read it before it gets changed and what sites you could trust more like Smithsonian, National Geographic or BBC stuff.

Year 7 is them trying to find what amount of work is acceptable and how to navigate it all. As parents it is usually a supportive role too. They should be given clear instructions on what is needed homework wise but if you are unsure then contact the teachers to ask for guidance. We could contact their form teacher as a first port of call by simply ticking a "call home" box in their school planner.

We used oxfam books at times.

A ks3 science guide was helpful to get science at the right level.

I bought a Collins French book/set that had dictionary verbs and basic grammar.

An RE 'religions of the world' type book.

A 'school atlas' that wasn't just maps but had other relevant info too was helpful for geography.

Nothing for history, though we did have a 'timelines' book/poster to help see things in context.

If you need a maths reference I would just get a foundation tier gcse one.

Researching off the Internet was a nightmare unless the teacher directed to 2 or 3 websites. Took ages, DDs couldn't find relevant detail, and couldn't skim read. If it was needed 90% of the time I found suitable sites for them. (Both turned out to have SpLD).

https://usborne.com/gb/usborne-illustrated-dictionary-of-maths-9781409546962

I agree that it's an issue and that it gets a lot easier once they start GCSE.

My youngest in y7 only has one textbook, for French, she's quite behind in the subject and it has been really useful to have the textbook to get a feel for what they're meant to have covered/what they're meant to know. I'm not sure how I'd know whether they're behind in other subjects or not. There's some stuff on Google classroom maybe, but not loads.

My kids find CGP books great. BBC bite size is also really good. There is some good stuff on YouTube too especially for Science and English.

In private schools they often use Galore Park textbooks (now this publisher has a different name), and they are the closest to textbooks we had in other countries. You can find them on Amazon.
Why would anyone want to waste time browsing Internet when you can have everything in one place? That's what textbooks are for.

Galore Park (Hodor Education) also have plenty of textbooks for every exam board, but I would compare with CGP books.

In fact, I would just open a different thread asking people what textbooks for particular subjects their kids are using in grammar/private schools, maybe you'll get suggestions for pre-GCSE years.

This was 2010 - 2015 but nobody in my year, from year 7 to year 11 was given any textbooks to take home with us. Even the poetry book for English literature and gcse maths textbook that were 'mandatory' had to be paid for by parents but I think these had a slight discount.

CGP were the 'main' ones used for reference stuff, as well as BBC Bitesize.

@roses2 does your son have a laptop or desktop computer? If not, I recommend you buy him one and help him to learn how to use it. He will need it for secondary school and the skills he will learn will help to prepare him for university and/or working life.

Schools use very few text books now. The Key Stage 3 (year 7-9) National Curriculum is published online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-secondary-curriculum. It lists subjects and topics that needs to be covered but it is otherwise not prescriptive, so schools and teachers are free to teach it how they see fit. They produce their own resources (or buy in resources from other providers). For students, all the topics are very well covered online, for free, by BBC Bitesize and other providers. You need to help your son find and access these resources.

When he reaches key stage 4 (year 10/11) he will follow curricula set by exam boards for GCSE or vocational qualifications. They do tend to produce text books, but schools don't usually provide them because they're expensive and are updated whenever the exam boards review their curricula. That said, one of the biggest boards (Pearson) announced a move to online-only text books a few years ago so others may follow: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48998789.amp

p.s. here's an old (2021) thread about text books: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4292893-are-text-books-a-thing-of-the-past. Most people are used to it now as it has been the case for many years, so it only crops up very occasionally.