Booklets at KS3

 I have been asked to write a post about using booklets rather than textbooks. I have always used booklets, and it's interesting to think about how they have evolved (and continue to evolve). This post includes a video to show what one of our typical booklets contains now.

When I was an NQT in the 1990s, we worked from booklets. These had "yellow pages" at the front which contained the vocabulary and structures reference section. At the end of the unit, pupils would keep the yellow pages in their Spanish ring-binder. The other pages were activity pages to work through. They were usually the published worksheets that accompanied the various textbooks we had. For example listening or reading activities where the pupils could answer on the sheet. This was more practical than pupils answering in their exercise books or on paper. And often the texts and exercises on the worksheets were more substantial than what appeared in the textbooks. For younger viewers, I should also explain that access to photocopiers was new and expensive, so getting things printed in bulk was a good idea. The school had actual printing machines.

As I started to take over some responsibility for Spanish at KS3, I also started to put some of my own worksheets into the booklets. These were usually scaffolding for speaking lessons, along the lines of this lesson from 2002 that was videoed for the OUP PGCSE resources. Things like Keep Talking sheets (see "Why I don't call them sentence builders"). The idea was that a lesson wasn't something that happened on paper - it was mainly about practising communicating with other people in the classroom.

When I became head of department in my current school, I have to admit that bringing in booklets was in part to police what other teachers were doing. In the nicest possible way, by providing them with resources. Again, I wanted lessons to break free from the textbook, and make the steps beyond learning vocabulary, towards having a strong focus on modelling, practising and using language to communicate. I wanted to make sure that the curriculum was built around a growing core of language that pupils could use confidently and apply across topics.

Here's an example of what our booklets look like now. Click here if the embedded video doesn't load.

You can see it is still very much based on scaffolding and modelling. With some on-paper activities: coffee splat, link up maze, annotating and adapting model answers, logical/strange, verb tables, categorising, writing in different colours (which I have now seen called "rainbow writing", which I love)... And some Keep Talking activities which might only be a page in the booklet but which can take a whole series of lessons with activities like Being Ben or Speed Dating until pupils can speak fluently and become less and less dependent on the booklet.

We do also have exercise books where pupils do extended writing. They keep their exercise books from year to year, partly because much of their work is done in the booklets but also to keep the progression of their learning all in one place. They also keep their booklets in a folder so they can refer back to earlier units when they need to. They don't tend to take the booklets home anymore, as more and more homework is set online.

Rather than having differentiated versions of the booklet, we try to make sure that all activities are scaffolded, and pupils challenge themselves to reduce their dependence on scaffolding. If teachers do create a modified version of any activities, they go into a shared folder and may well end up in the booklet next year.

We do still use textbooks, and everyone in the department picks and chooses when to use the different resources. And most important of all, is that the lesson isn't something that happens on paper! Learning a language is about what happens when it is lifted off the page.