Mark Enser is correct; the use of booklets in secondary schools is becoming more popular.
I was introduced to booklets three years ago, when I was part of a Department for Education project that looked at their use, and I, too, have had conversations with primary school leaders and teachers about their use in classrooms.
I agree with Enser’s definition of a booklet - “these are a cross between a textbook and a workbook” - but I disagree with his conclusion about their worth. I believe that booklets are more than just a replacement for a quality textbook. Why? Because they rely on teacher expertise.
More:
The curriculum drives everything. A healthy curriculum is a live document that can be adapted for a variety of reasons: after reflective critique of the inclusivity and representation it is built upon; to take into account the latest advances in science or world events that change the geopolitical landscape; or to provide real-time examples of phenomena being explored.
Like the curriculum, a good booklet is a live document. It must not define the curriculum but should be a tool used to deliver it. A great deal of work goes into producing a booklet that fits within a scheme of work.
Enser speaks of the need to interweave within a curriculum - the weft flows through like golden threads of knowledge, while our warp is there to tie all the knowledge together. At my school, our booklets are designed to do just this, tying in knowledge across scientific disciplines to build a scheme of interlinking concepts.
I agree that there needs to be a cautious approach to using booklets; like so many excellent things in teaching, there’s a risk they’ll mutate into something they were never meant to be. I have witnessed this for myself and, without the understanding of how to use a booklet, these can easily become a textbook/workbook hybrid.
There are, therefore, some key concepts that educators should keep at the forefront of their minds when designing booklets and using them in their classrooms.
Booklets: how to make them work in your classroom
1. Don’t print months in advance
Booklets should be printed just in time, rather than months in advance, and there should be space built in to allow for fresh knowledge to be introduced “live”, as examples.
We meet officially each month to discuss any changes to the booklets we have taught but, often, conversations in the staff base inform adaptations or up-to-date scientific examples that can be incorporated before our next print run. Our booklets are constantly evolving throughout the year so, during the summer term, we ensure there aren’t any loose threads in our curriculum’s weft and warp.
2. Focus on the scheme of work
Before the booklets are created, the whole department meets to discuss the curriculum model. After this meeting, subject specialists create the first draft of the booklets and ensure they specifically meet the scheme of work. Golden threads are mapped out to ensure these are explicitly linked across disciplines.
Plans for common misconceptions are also included in the booklets, too, and we meet as a department to discuss the best way to explain these concepts.
3. Build the booklets around Rosenshine’s principles
Mutation can happen during delivery so we structure the booklets around Rosenshine’s principles to tackle this.
Each lesson starts with a knowledge-recall task, in which students self-test their prior learning. This is followed by the teaching of lesson content in an “explanation” phase, where the teacher reads a piece of text from the booklet while students follow along. The teacher models the highlighting of key information, adds annotations around the text and encourages students to do so in their own booklets.
Discussions are developed around the content, with planned questioning of students at this point. Once the teacher is happy that most of the class are ready, we move on to “I do”, in which they complete one of the learning activities, often located in the booklet, where there is a teacher model of at least one worked example, explaining their thought process.
This is followed by a “we do” phase, where students will be invited to talk the class through a similar question, affording the teacher the opportunity to probe deeper understanding.
Last, students are set off on the “you do” phase, where they work with confidence on increasingly challenging tasks, some located in the booklet, others not, with the teacher circulating the room to support and address any misconceptions that have crept in.
4. Use mini-whiteboards to support learning
I use mini-whiteboards alongside booklets. If students need more modelling of a concept in the “I do” phase, or scaffolding in the “we do” phase, whiteboards prove invaluable. These also afford the opportunity to practise in the “you do” phase by adapting pre-planned exercises (eg, calculations) to really imbed the learning before moving on.
A booklet should have its own opportunities for assessment for learning but, again, mini-whiteboards offer an easy solution for getting whole-class feedback.
Be ready to adapt teaching practice
Just as with any scheme of work, there is the danger for inexperienced teachers to fly through and assume that learning has happened because the plan says the knowledge has been delivered.
This is why it is important that all members of my team know how to teach using the booklets effectively, and can very much respond and adapt their teaching practice as highly skilled professionals.
Just as in lessons without booklets, planned hinge-point questions, cold-call questioning or realising that the group needs more support to access the wider content mean that practice is adapted to suit the needs of the group. This might lead to recapping some of the “golden thread” content before pushing forward. Much of this is dealt with in the planning by knowing the class.
5. Evaluate their use
To avoid educational fads, we need to continually go through Kolb’s four stages when learning from experience: beginning with the theory of what booklets are and how they should be delivered, followed by a plan for how they will be used in the school’s context, experience of the delivery of booklets with reflection on their efficacy, and then returning to the theory and making any necessary adjustments as a faculty.
Therefore, teachers need to put time aside to evaluate the booklets, reflect on changes needed and then make the necessary improvements. This is something we carried out at the end of last year, resulting in a change in the curriculum design and improving the content of the plant-based aspects of the curriculum, where I used my degree specialism to add depth to this often underwhelming aspect of science in schools.
Like everything in education, context provides nuance. For me, booklets - unmutated ones at least - add to my teaching and the offer provided by our science department to the students. At the end of the day, the impact on their outcomes and learning is what matters.
Clive Hill is the lead teacher of science at Alvaston Moor Academy, and founder of a teacher-led CPD network across the East Midlands (@NetworkEDEM). He tweets @Clive_Hill
