Managing and changing attitudes to the use of exercise books Ginny Kearton Court Moor School, Fleet, Hants

What was the problem? Book monitoring showed many notes being taken by students Money spent to guarantee that every student had a textbook suitable for revision Copying from the board voted most boring and least valued activity by students Numbers of middle and high ability students not progressing as they should

How to gain new ideas? Discussions with Advisors Viewing work of PGCE students from Reading University at ASE conference Interviewing students who were underachieving Discussions within the Department

Should we have a Book Policy? NO! A policy too far! Students need keywords, key diagrams, main ideas and worked examples in their books to revise from

What are exercise books for? Questionnaire to all members of the department Many expected responses Books show parents, SMT that you are covering the syllabus and setting homeworks Emphasise keywords, diagrams, etc Allow practise of explaining ideas, answering questions

What are exercise books for? Some new responses began to appear Could allow discussion to develop between student and teacher “I think I do make students make too many notes” A lot of work is not recorded in the books so they are not a good representation of what has been covered

Agreement No direct copying from books or the board More original work in books Use books to practise explanations, using keywords Comments on marked work to be more useful (two stars and a wish) After a time review the targets set and comment on them

Success? Reviewed books by collecting in books on two days Little change in some books, others contained much more original work Have to look at several books from a group to be sure what is original work and what is not

Student Voice Interviews with students of different ability showed that they hated copying and they never used their books for revision anyway Higher ability students wanted to have more ownership of their work and record it in more imaginative ways Lower ability students wanted to practise explanations and liked clear comments on how to improve

New policy At start of next year told the Department my expectations of original work in books and no direct copying Set up monitoring in a Department meeting, so all involved and all see what each has done Definite improvement initially, but monitoring needed to be regular

Now – 2 years on Collect in books for monitoring and give written feedback on agreed criteria and get teachers to do peer monitoring in 1 or 2 department meetings each year New GCSEs require a greater variety of work and they will not fit a book, decided to use folders that do not go home. This makes copied notes irrelevant.

Results? Books are more untidy than before, some comments from parents as a result Some students have used books as a means of dialogue with teachers Each set contains some books that look very different from others – lots of colour, extra comments, etc used – showing student ownership