Education publishers in limbo as DoE consults on assessment

Publishers have reported a slowdown in sales in the secondary schools market while teachers lack clarity on how GCSE, AS and A-Level students will be assessed this year.

However with schools closed, demand for home-learning resources for pre-school and primary schoolchildren is soaring once again—though not to the same heights as the first lockdown in 2020.

After the Secretary of State for Education confirmed students will not be asked to sit GCSE, AS and A-Level exams this summer, the Department for Education asked Ofqual to consider a teacher-assessed system as a replacement for those exams. A consultation as to how grades should be awarded was launched this month and will run until 29th January. With the expectation that tens of thousands of replies will be submitted, it is unclear when the outcome will be shared, leaving teachers hesitant to make buying decisions and publishers in limbo as to what demand will look like.

Alex Beecroft, m.d. of Collins Learning, said: “Effectively [the unconfirmed proposals for replacing cancelled exams] is feeding through to an uncertainty around what resources teachers want to buy. We’re not seeing huge responsiveness from secondary school teachers; they are probably trying to gain clarity on what examination arrangements will be, and, in light of that, it’s probably stalled the demand for resources, because they don’t necessarily yet know what they are responding to.

“In terms of revision resources, we are seeing a level of sales to schools, but it is lower than we would anticipate at this time of year. Similarly we’re seeing a slowdown in our secondary and revision sales in the trade as well. There is that uncertainty over what arrangements will be, resulting in a mixed picture for us. Home-learning, particularly at primary level, is performing strongly in the trade, through Amazon and supermarkets. There is strong demand for digital resources in primary, for example our Big Cat readers. But at secondary [level] we’re seeing an uncertainty around exam arrangements, and that is suppressing demand in the market.”

A spokesperson for Pearson said the company has been pivoting its offer and support of teachers, parents and students learning at home and "stands ready to adapt to changing requirements and regulatory framework once confirmed".

Leila Miller, commercial director at CGP Books, also said the publisher is waiting on the outcome of the consultation before being able “to finalise next steps” for its GCSE and A-Level publishing, though it likewise is experiencing renewed interest in its home-learning resources.

“The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the educational publishing landscape over the past year, but overall CGP has been well placed to respond to the changes,” she said. “With the recent school closures, cancellation of exams and increased focus on home learning, we’ve seen demand shift away from revision products and towards books parents can use with their children on a day-to-day basis."

But despite the shift away from revision products observed by Miller and Beecroft, cancelling exams may not have the impact one might expect, argued Lis Tribe, group m.d. at Hodder Education. "Last year we found that our key revision series performed pretty strongly, as the resources are designed for use at home by students on their own, so are still entirely relevant for home-learning,” she said.

“Given the policy is to continue assessing students for as long as possible during the academic year before making a grade decision, there will still be pressure on students to keep studying, and using revision resources to do so."

Both retailers and publishers have reacted swiftly to the closure of schools, playing to the increased appetite for home-learning. Andrea Bennett, trading director at The Works, spoke about the success of the chain’s ‘HomeWorks’ campaign, which has seen its overall educational book range up almost triple digits year-on-year.

Crediting the chain’s strong product offering, as well as having a brand that resonates with home-schooling, she described how reacting quickly to the changes in the market by launching the campaign had paid off: “We saw tremendous sales pick-up on traditional home-schooling books, such as Letts workbooks and Bond SAT study guides,” she said. “In addition, we also experienced strong pre-school sales with Peppa Pig-branded wipe-clean books. Our inspirational and carefully curated range of mindfulness titles, aimed at ages seven to 11 years, saw significant uptake too.

“All of this meant that our already popular children’s pages saw an even bigger uplift in page views with the most popular pages being Children’s Book Collections, Primary School Books and Activity Books. To further articulate the strong performance in these categories, conversion grew year-on-year within our children’s book’s category page which was significantly higher than the overall site conversion.”

However Beecroft noted the uptick in home learning is “not to the same scale” as the first lockdown, most likely because schools are “better prepared”, having put in place good remote learning solutions when schools closed in 2020.

This observation was echoed by Blackwell’s chief online bookseller Euan Hirst: “As expected we have seen an uplift in sales of books for homeschooling. However it has not been as big as the tsunami we saw in the first lockdown! Another trend that we have noticed this time is more examples of schools buying in bulk, forwarding onward distribution to students and parents.”

After speaking with schools, including through a number of teacher surveys, Tribe agreed there “isn’t the wholesale need for resources that there was last spring”. Hodder Education is therefore supporting schools by measures such as extending subscription periods, rather than providing large ranges of content for free.

Targeted resources supporting those who are falling behind is in greatest demand, said Tribe. “We’re seeing this with the number of subscriptions to Shine, our remediation service combining assessment feedback with catch up resources for Reading and Maths,” she said.

“There’s also a demand for resources that support the whole child, and that are easily transferable between home and classroom. This is related to the shift we see that we think will last beyond the pandemic, to learning outside the classroom being expected and supported across all age groups. We’re seeing this in the interest in our eduu.school service.”

CGP's new range of Primary Activity Books have proven "particularly popular" and thus has become "a major focus" of its publishing over the past year, according to Miller, commercial director. The publisher's new Daily Practice Books for Primary Maths and English have also been "a big success" alongside a second wave of activity books and flashcards it will be adding to in the months ahead.

"We’ve learned a huge amount from weathering the challenges of the last year," said Miller, "and we’re confident the experience will help CGP go from strength to strength as life gradually returns to normal."

At the start of this year’s lockdown, Scholastic UK experienced a fourfold increase in home learning sales compared to the same week last year, Catherine Bell, co-group m.d. said.

“As with the last lockdown there is increased demand for parents to buy and access for free home learning materials,” she said, adding: “We are supporting parents and teachers with access to the Scholastic Resource bank of searchable resources with lots of free stuff to explore. Our free-to-access bank of author readings at Chapter One includes the likes of Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler, Lisa Thompson, Bali Rai, Leila Rasheed and Sufiya Ahmed as well as many more to keep children engaged with reading. Next month will also see the launch of our new school Book Club virtual events programme, launching with Liz Pichon and offering online events throughout the year from a wide variety of authors and illustrators.”

She continued: “11+ exams took place in 2020 and as they are scheduled in the autumn, we are planning for the exams to continue this year supported by more titles in the Scholastic 11+ range. SATS have been cancelled but teachers and parents are still keen to support children’s learning in these areas with good quality home learning. As our publishing programme supports parents at home, we are focussing on areas where students may need to catch up. There is yet little clarity on what will replace GCSE examinations, however the Scholastic Study Guides and our new Great Answers series will continue to be published to support the English literature exam work over coming years. It’s a challenging time for teachers and pupils and our job is to provide support, encouragement and motivation.”

Tribe said a “major concern” arising out of the lockdown is what this second period of school closure will do to further increase the differences in outcomes for disadvantaged groups versus those who are better off. Although taking pupils out of school was “the right decision”, she also acknowledged “it simply changes rather than removes pressures on the teaching profession”.

“The huge cost for schools in providing supply cover for those staff off with the virus or in self-isolation hasn’t really been addressed by the government; and that cost continues even while most children are at home, because of course teaching goes on,” said Tribe.

During 2020, reporting for non-lockdown weeks, Nielsen BookScan data showed the School Textbooks and Study Guides category was up by 7.2% in volume and 5.8% in value versus the same weeks in 2019. But it was sales of books aimed at pre-schoolers that really spiked in 2020 and are returning now. Demonstrably, Nielsen BookScan’s Reference and Learning sub-category, where these books reside, rose 30% in volume and 27% in value for 2020’s non-lockdown weeks versus the same weeks in 2019, suggesting even more impressive sales during the lockdown period.