The best school notebook of 2019

The Oxford 1-Subject Poly Notebook College Ruled is durable enough to withstand some abuse, and has 100 pages of college-ruled paper to accommodate the additional writing often required by high school classes.

When you get to high school, this might be the first time you’ll have a teacher require a college-ruled notebook. The difference between college ruled and wide ruled is that the lines are closer together on college-ruled paper. When high school teachers assign a 1-page handwritten assignment, they might specify that it needs to be written on college-ruled paper.

Since this notebook is 1-subject and comes in multiple colors, you can easily organize your classes visually without carrying around extra papers or notebooks in the morning for a class you have in the afternoon. When my students buy 3- or 5- subject notebooks, they often end up carrying around notebooks they don’t need, so having 1-subject notebooks solves this problem.

I also like that this notebook has 100 sheets. When students buy notebooks that only have 70 sheets, they sometimes run out of room by the end of the school year.

The Oxford Poly Notebook has a tough cover that’s moisture- and tear-resistant. It also features a durable divider pocket inside, smear-resistant paper, and 3-hole-punched pages. As a teacher, I always prefer notebook pages that are perforated, which you’ll find in this notebook as well. When teachers ask for papers to be handed in, they prefer the clean edge of a perforated page.

Oxford does make a cheaper version of this notebook with a less durable cover and I almost recommended that one since the price point is a bit lower, but as a high school teacher, I’ve seen too many of those notebooks get destroyed by lockers and unorganized students.

The Oxford 1-Subject Poly Notebook is Amazon’s Choice for a 9-by-11-inch spiral notebook, ensuring it’s a highly rated, well-priced product that’s ready to ship out immediately. An Amazon shopper noted that these notebooks don’t seem to have the common problem of the spiral coil coming undone, “The first thing I noticed with these was how strong the spiral coils are! It would take tools to make these spirals bend.”

Pros: Durable cover and inside pocket, college-ruled lines, perforated pages

Cons: Price can add up if you have to buy multiple notebooks for various classes