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The biggest changes to the National Curriculum in a decade and a half present a “huge opportunity”, with British education publishers poised to capitalise on increased competition, schools’ ramped-up digital spend and burgeoning sales abroad.
The first full phase of the new curriculum begins this autumn, largely affecting primary grades, with changes rolling out until 2016 for all levels. Robin Hunt, Scholastic Education’s publishing director, called the new curriculum “a huge opportunity for us, and for all publishers”.
He added that the somewhat controversial timetable of changes—when the curriculum was announced in 2013, many teachers’ unions suggested it was unrealistic to implement by 2014—has been beneficial. Hunt said: “It’s been a race to get materials out. We target individual teachers as well as schools, and curriculum change can be a time of anxiety for many teachers. It’s a case of getting materials out as soon as possible. So, a good year in terms of sales, but a busy one.”
A cornerstone of the new education policy is less standardised assessment; a knock-on effect is that schools and teachers have more freedom to choose from a wider array of resources. This is a good thing, said Hodder Education m.d. Lis Tribe. She added: “The market is far more open and competitive than it has been for some time.”
Andrew Thraves, director of education at assessment specialist GL Education, has also seen a “democratisation” of competition under current government policy—not just in terms of curriculum changes. “For us, the influx of academies, which don’t have to follow the curriculum, has meant schools are looking for broader, more comprehensive ways of assessing pupils’ progress.”
Physical book sales are still holding up in the classroom (see right), yet digital is a growth area. Tribe said that this year, for the first time in its history, more than 50% of Hodder Education’s revenue will come from digital. Yet somewhat counter-intuitively, this is driven by teachers, not necessarily their digital-native students. “In our research we find that students like a blend of digital and print— and students do like a physical textbook, with its linear progression.”
This is a view seconded by Collins Education associate publisher Andrew Freeman. He said: “There is an evolution happening digitally, but it varies from school to school. We have some schools that are very print-dominated and others that have moved completely to digital. What that means is that we have to produce materials that will suit everyone.”
The huge growth area in education is international sales. The Publishers Association Statistics Yearbook 2013 reported an 11.2% year-on-year jump in UK exports of physical schoolbooks in 2013, driven by a massive 95.8% increase from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Oxford Education, for example, sells schoolbooks in 150 countries, and has offices in 50. M.d. Kate Harris said she expected international sales growth to continue, and the key was savvy publishing: “We’re increasingly working with our international branches to provide the right resources for an international audience, whether those are [from the] UK, or produced locally.”
Caroline Wright, director of the British Education Suppliers Association, is not surprised by the export success story, given the esteem in which British education is held abroad. She said: “I’ve seen the growth, particularly in MENA and Southeast Asia. Historically, the UK has been very strong in education. There’s a reason so many countries follow our curriculum, which often gets lost domestically when we debate education policy. We should shout about our strengths more.”
Physical bookshops enjoy 'positive impact'
Of those who are angry at the recent Department for Education-led policy changes, the estate of John Steinbeck may feel the most aggrieved. Of Mice and Men, a mainstay on the GCSE exam board OCR tests for years, will not be on the 2015 reading list. It is one of the more prominent casualties (along with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird) on the back of the DfE’s instruction for more “traditional and British”-set texts.
This will certainly put a crimp in Steinbeck’s UK earnings. Pearson-owned Longman’s Of Mice and Men schools edition has been the bestselling book in BookScan’s School Textbooks and Study Guides category thus far in 2014, selling 22,000 units; it is the category’s third-bestselling title of all time (340,000 copies). All told, the GCSE-boosted Of Mice and Men cottage industry—including various study guides and the edition published by Longman’s half-sister company Penguin Classics—has contributed £10.9m to UK booksellers’ coffers since BookScan records began in 1998.
As discussed on the previous page, with digital, direct-to-school and international sales, there are many avenues for publisher revenue streams outside of BookScan. According to The Publishers Association Statistics Yearbook 2013, UK publishers’ school books revenues were £296m in 2013, £16m of which was digital and £117m export. Overall, that was 1.8% up on the previous year, and publishers’ education-based revenues have jumped 9.5% in the past five years.
The UK physical market—in-store and direct fulfilment—actually dropped 5.3% in 2013. This was largely due, the PA said, to a significant drop-off (of more than £5m) in reading materials, which was “the result of the reduction in sales of match-funded phonics material”.
Still, education remains a vital sector for bricks and mortar retailers. BookScan’s School Textbooks and Study Guides records the bulk of schoolbook sales (but not nearly all, as many titles will fall into other children’s categories, Adult Fiction or Specialist Non-Fiction). The category rose marginally in 2013—up 0.1% to £39.4m, against BookScan’s overall market decline of 6.5%—and it has grown by almost 10% since 2008.
For the first half of 2014, School Textbooks revenues are up 5.1%, a figure that will undoubtedly continue to rise given the curriculum changes for the new school year—and bricks and mortar shops are keen to exploit it.
James Daunt, Waterstones m.d., said: “Historically you have seen a lot of attention in windows with posters, but you still had to go to the second floor to find the study guides. That is changing this year. We are dedicating more space to it at the front of stores. The new curriculum changes should be an opportunity [for stores to get more sales]. I think, in general, education means more and more to the demographic of Waterstones all year round—and especially in this academic year.”
It is important for indies, too. Vanessa Lewis of The Book Nook in Hove, said curriculum changes had “undoubtedly” had a “positive impact” on its business in 2014. She added: “There has been a lot of demand for new history topics such as Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and the Stone Age. Schools are also replenishing their library stock, which has really boosted orders. The school business is really important to us—about 50% of our overall business and growing.”
Natasha Radford, owner of Chicken & Frog Bookshop in Brentwood, said that if booksellers find out about curriculum changes, there was an opportunity to increase schools business: “You cannot assume that the school will come to you. But once you have that relationship it’s valuable, and they will come to you when something like the new curriculum comes in.”