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Secondary education

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Original poster

Does your Yr 7 child bring textbooks home

28 replies

Patch66 · 14/10/2009 00:44

DD1 started secondary in September. I am rather surprised that she has not come home with any textbooks. Are they an endangered species these days?

A-M

OP posts:
roisin · 14/10/2009 03:07

ds1 is in yr8. He has never bought a textbook home for anything.

Homeworks are either:
explained in the class and students write it down
a handout is given out in class (and then explained)
or are online homeworks using one of the various platforms used by different subjects in school (Sam learning, moodle, linguascope, etc.)

bruffin · 14/10/2009 07:15

Yes DD has a science and french textbooks. Bit annoyed really as it just adds a lot of extra weight to the bag

serenity · 14/10/2009 07:47

No, no textbooks in our school either (I was rather surprised too, but quite glad as I still have bad memories of hauling ten ton physics text books over hill and dale...)

Metella · 14/10/2009 08:09

A bit different here - ds in Y8 brings home textbooks for every subject. Homework is usually from stuff in the textbook -I'm a bit confused how others can do their homework without their textbooks?

MrsMorgan · 14/10/2009 08:16

Dd1 has not yet come home with any text books.

The school have some web thingy where the students can access information from some of that days lessons.

TheFoosa · 14/10/2009 08:18

I used to work in a school and textbooks were guarded with our lives, they are very expensive and we didn't have enough for each child

webwiz · 14/10/2009 08:23

DS2 in year 8 has a random collection of textbooks - Latin, french and maths plus french dictionary, german dictionary and bible that he carts back and forth to school. We found DD1's german textbook from year 8 in a cupboard a few weeks ago and she has gone to university now

cat64 · 14/10/2009 08:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Metella · 14/10/2009 09:05

For languages surely they need books? How else do they do translations etc?

Ds has a huuuge Maths textbook and all his homework exercises are from it so he has to bring it home. Same for English - comprehensions and grammar exercises are in the textbook.

He needs his Science textbooks to find the answers to the questions he is set too!

He doesn't use his history textbook quite so much but for geography the homework again comes from the questions in the textbook.

I didn't realise this was so unusual!!

Pyrocanthus · 14/10/2009 09:53

Yes, my year 7 has textbooks for most subjects - mostly quite slim, so not too painful to carry; they were told that the chunky maths book stays at home at all times for homework.

The expectation is that school books are kept at home and taken into school when needed. This makes for a fair bit of carrying, but they only have 5 periods a day (including things like PE & art, with no books), so I guess that makes it easier than if the lessons were shorter and more numerous. This required a fair amount of reorganization of DD's tiny bedroom over the summer, but she does always know where everything is.

fircone · 14/10/2009 11:30

Ds has been given text books for maths and French.

Mind you, when I was at school (late 70s) we had very few textbooks. I remember the German one because it was from the 1930s and had pupils' names in all the way from then. It was all about going youth hostelling and playing guitars in dem Schwarzwald (???). Suddenly all the books were replaced with modern ones. The teacher nearly had a heart attack when the first chapter dealt with Kurt smoking and Sigrid having a boyfriend.

MrsBartlet · 14/10/2009 12:13

Dd is in Y8 and has had text books since the start of Y7. I am surprised that so many people's dc don't.

inthesticks · 14/10/2009 18:42

No text books here and DS1 in year 9. I was shocked about this and still am.
Those who do have text books , are they state schools?

eyetunes · 14/10/2009 18:43

No textbooks here and DD in yr 10. I thought it really strange as i remember heaving a great bag of books too and from school (which generally remained closed)

unfitmother · 14/10/2009 18:52

No text books here - state school yr 8.

TheFallenMadonna · 14/10/2009 19:01

I teach Science and we only have a couple of half class sets of textbooks per year group. So no, textbooks don't go home. We ask our A level students to buy them, and strongly suggest that our GCSE students buy a revision guide, which we will bulk order, but they must pay for.

My old school issued a textbook to every child in KS3, but it was suffiently unusual to warrant a mention in the TES...

robino · 14/10/2009 19:17

As a languages teacher up until 2 years ago we were VERY lucky to have a text book and a CD per pupil from y7 onwards. In theory, this was to enable all pupils to have access to a text book for homework and reference.

Unfortunately, it was the type of school that after the first half term of trying this we stopped sending them home with all but some very trusted top sets in Y10 and 11. Incredibly sad for those trustworthy children in lower sets but the amount of damage done to the majority of books that were returned and the sheer amount of losses of books per class was enormous.

In theory, we sent out a letter at the beginning of the year explaining that loss or major damage would have to be covered by the pupil/ parents but this was mainly before admin tasks were taken away from teaching staff and as it was a department initiative it fell to the teaching staff to follow up - it was a nightmare. The losses and the workload were unsustainable . Ended up setting homework from specially made homework books with a bit of reference in them, didn't get most of that back either.

Best system I ever heard of was a school where the pupils checked out the text books from the library at the beginning of the year and checked them back in at the end. Losses and damage were then followed up by admin staff.

Hmm, I appear to have written an essay on text books

wicked · 14/10/2009 19:28

My DD is in Year 8 and she has text books. She did in Year 7 too. They get allocated at the first lesson of the year and the students write their names in.

Most of her teachers seem to do a variety of activities in their lessons and keep the text books just for homework. I don't think they use the text books in lessons very often, although have to take them just in case.

Housemum · 14/10/2009 20:09

DD1 has finished secondary - no textbooks at all from years 7 to 11. She is now at 6th form college and has had to buy a textbook for each of her subjects.

MrsBartlet · 14/10/2009 21:44

inthesticks - dd is at a state school (a grammar) and has textbooks. I remember when I was in sixth form sharing textbooks and my dad having to drive me across town to collect a text book from a friend as it was my turn to use it. This was at that the end of the eighties - I didn't realise things were still as bad as that.

smugmumofboys · 14/10/2009 21:52

In my dept (MFL in state school) we are no longer giving out textbooks to KS3 pupils as they were just not being looked after and we can't afford to replace them. This is a very nice school btw.

Tbh it's a pita for homework setting but I just have to be resourceful.

Metella · 15/10/2009 08:30

To answer inthesticks - dc is in an independent school. I did have to sign a form agreeing to pay for any damaged books so I'm making sure they are treated with care!!

We did have to buy an atlas, a dictionary (for English and French) and a Bible but the school provides textbooks for every other subject (sometimes more than one book for each subject depending on the topics being covered).

Pyrocanthus · 15/10/2009 09:58

inthesticks - my betextbooked DD is at a state grammar, like MrsBartlet's. The annual intake is relatively small - perhaps the school feels it stands a chance of hunting down the books at the end of the year?

notagrannyyet · 15/10/2009 10:59

16 year old (A1s) has had 1 chemistry text book from school. The rest we have had to buy.

14 year old(GCSE) School have asked us to buy for physics, chemistry, biology......DS still hasn't managed to find out if older brother's book are OK. I will buy new if needed but at the moment he's using the old ones. English dept do send reading and poetry
books home. Maths send work sheets for homework but do use books in class.

12 year old has french and science text books from school. A class reader from english. Maths department only send work sheets for homework. Some work is on school web site.

I always buy any book recomended by school.
I don't really want mine bringing loads of stuff home from school. A bag full of books is far too heavy to cart around school and on and off the bus.

inthesticks · 15/10/2009 13:20

Good state comp here.
I would happily buy the appropriate books for my children. I can't believe there is no way round this. Perhaps schools could "sell" the text books and buy them back at the year end, price depeding on condition. It's perfectly possible to grade the condition of books, I often buy second hand books on line and the sellers are usually able to give accurate descriptions of quality.