Did you have to pay for revision guides?

Spendless

The price includes 3 workbooks too, though I don't even know what that is.

peachyprice

I have them at home, there's a separate one each for chemistry, biology and physics.

motoe

Should be optional, not required to buy them. Personally as a Science tutor, I can honestly say that a lot of the study guides are terrible! They are good for someone who just wants to pass, but for anyone looking to gain an A*, A or B - they don't go into nearly enough detail and over simplify things. Don't feel obliged to buy them unless the school are doing certain exercises from them or basing their homework on them.

Obviously this depends what exam board you are doing, there are some good study guides I have used for our local exam board, CCEA but in general I think they're a waste of money. Best printing out the past papers for free, attempting the questions and if you can't answer them or aren't gaining very high marks - go back over the areas you need to revise.

Savvy_Sue

peachyprice wrote: »

Somewhere in the back of my mind there's a distant memory of some legal ruling that says schools can't charge pupils to rent/loan anything, it came to light at our school when they wanted to charge an annual rental fee for lockers, which they then had to abolish because it was illegal.

Schools can't insist on charging for anything which pupils are required to have or do, I believe. (obviously uniform is an exception, although there are now limitations on that.)

So anything 'required' for the curriculum ought to be FOC.

But by wording it as a voluntary contribution, they get round it. Whether or not you'd get the guides if you didn't pay, and whether or not every pupil at the boys' old school gets the planner regardless of whether or not they pay £3, I'm not sure.