It’s the time of year when the book publishers start to ply their latest school books to the teachers and schools of Ireland.

The latest rep to call was from Fallons.

He had new Irish and new English publications.

The Irish books include Bun go Barr and Ceartlitriú. The Ceartlitriú (spellings) scheme covers second to sixth class and merit further investigation.

The Bung go Barr is available for third to fifth classes initially. Sixth and the other classes to be published next year.

This piecemeal introduction of a scheme drives me mad …. introducing a new scheme into a school costs money …. if a publisher doesn’t have a full scheme in place the school and the teachers can’t make a full evaluation of how good, bad or indifferent a scheme may be.

Getting a flyer in the door about new books that are available to find out that they’re unavailable for another month or two is a ridiculous practise too.

The other book by fallons are the junior and senior infant books of an English grammar scheme introduced last year. That’s more of it!

Fallons have a new book called ‘My First Schoolbook’ …. at first glance it just looks like another gimmick …. a chance to cash in ….

The Revised Curriculum is great but demands a lot of thought and preparation …. school books help in that respect but are a mighty cross to carry for a school year if the wrong scheme is chosen.

I have a lot of different schemes in my classroom …. we dip in and out of a lot of books to get the information we want. I try not to have my class slaves to publishers …. difficult to do but I’m doing my bit.

Keep watching …. cos I’ll be evaluating and changing some books again this year …. change is good but change has to be meaningful.

I’ll be mulling over the merits and demerits of the different schemes over the next few week.

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