Should my child have learnt what I refer to as essential life skills at school?

I think this kind of stuff comes through life experience rather than being taught. Some people learn early, others never seem to.

Should school's insist that they won't take on a child if the parent hasn't completed their foundational input into a child's upbringing

Schools can insist on very little these days. I think smart phones and instant gratification have a lot to answer for. You only have to look at the number of toddlers plonked in a high chair or buggy with a screen, and I regularly hear parents using highly inappropriate language and insults to discipline their children in public. Personally I think a parent shouting "stop being a little shit" to one sibling hitting another sibling has done very little to rectify that child's behaviour, they've just taught that child that they are a little shit, so they might as well act like one and that it's ok to call people names. For every great parent out there trying to so a good job is another one doing a really shit job, and they exist in an echo chamber of tik tok posts telling them it's fine to let their kids game all night and that kids need to learn to deal with the Internet so why filter it etc. I'm ranting now but honestly, as a teacher the things I see and hear about kids homelives are astonishing.

Parents need to start parenting.

No this is a parents job.
What's really frustrating (as a teacher) is we see a lot of parents now that can see their children have no resilience, and complain to us.
Whenever a change happens in my classroom (think a substitute teacher for the day or an assembly on a different day ect) I have parents that will pull me and say "but you know XX won't cope with change"
Sometimes they use the word can't instead of won't.

Really frustrating that these parents are speaking that over their children. So I gently correct. "XX isn't coping well with change yet". We then discuss how we can support that child to take small steps to building some resilience.
It doesn't matter how small the steps are. A parent who works to build resilience in steps is completely different to a parent who tells everybody the child just won't cope, and then (usually) later blames the school when they don't have the correct skills.

Parents (me included, this is huge in my home) need to be building these skills from the get go.

Off on a slight tangent but these skills are often stolen from children from an early age by plugging them straight into screens at the wrong times or places.

Im not a perfect parent by any means, but my children understand that by not having screens in the car/at the dinner table/waiting rooms ect helps them to build resilience and social skills for other times they are going to be bored and waiting.

I think parents should think about the culture we build within our home and how that makes life easier for our children as they grow.
I'd rather my children found life less challenging because they had a foundation of solid skills, than they had no resilience or general life skills and found everything overwhelming. We need to be supporting children to build these skills from the early years.

On a 5 period day, I see 150 children, plus 2 x form times, another 30 children, managing behaviour in the corridors in between classes or as I’m walking to briefings/the canteen/the photocopy room. Obviously I model behaviour I expect from the children, but I absolutely think parents are at the forefront of teaching resilience, good behaviour, implementing sanctions if something goes wrong with their child’s behaviour.

It's very difficult to teach these skills to children when their parents run into school at the least little negative comment or disappointment their child experiences. I could look through this site and provide you with 100 examples.

I taught my three children all that.

Hear hear.

You have plenty of tie with your child @SunriseSunsetFullMoon - any gaps you feel are essential life skills for your child that their school doesn’t cover is for you and the other parent to teach. It’s called parenting.

And if you do it you know it’s been done correctly to your standards and you can give your child bespoke individual tuition.

So get on with it and stop expecting school to teach your child everything you think they should.

Our children (now teens) have learnt “essential life skills” up to their age by experience in school and advice, guidance, love and oh my lord much patience from us.

Did you get taught how to deal with anti-social behaviour when you were 14? I didn’t

What helps at that age in school is having a group of solid, got your back friends, you can tell bullies and arsehole kids to fuck right off then.

Schools cover quite a lot actually but you need to parent as well the shock the horror!

Can teachers make schools the perfect environment for your child? God no
Can schools make kids like other kids? God no

And sometimes yes, for some situations, for your child at school you are on your own. So you step up as a parent because what other choice do you have?

Schools really are trying their best but with the amount of content that the curriculum demands, there is little time for much else! We're trying to cram in as much fun & enrichment as possible but there's so little 'free' time to do it - we already have to deal with children not being toilet trained, unable to dress themselves, tie shoelaces, use cutlery, etc etc - the list of things that are becoming a school expectation instead of a parental responsibility is growing by the day! 🤦‍♀️

I work in yr6 & the amount of children we have, every year, who can't tie laces, tell the time or eat with anything other than their hands or just a fork, is truly staggering!!

And, maybe most importantly, everything the school does, needs to be supported & supplemented by the parents at home.....which, in a LOT of cases, it simply isn't.

As teachers kids only really listen to our message if parents back it up at home. If I am telling a 6ft year 11 boy that it is upsetting to be called a cunt and his alcoholic father is ringing the school telling us that there's no way he agrees to his son having a detention then it doesn't work, the boy learns nothing about respect.

Or if I suggest to a delicate y8 girl that it's ok to go to French and that her teacher isn't picking on her when she asks questions, she is just trying to do her job but her parent is always on the phone demanding she has a reduced timetable because of her mental health...then my gentle encouragement won't help this child step out of her comfort zone and overcome her fears.

Or if when I talk to my tutee with adhd about how it's not really the being distracted or calling out that's the issue it's the rudeness and answering back a teacher reminds them to try not to which is actually disrupting the lesson but their parents just say oh it's their adhd with no acknowledgment that there is also a huge degree of disrespect going on in some lessons. That child just heard I can do what I want and it's not my fault.

A lot of teachers are sadly lacking all these skills themselves, so I wouldn’t want them ‘teaching’ my children to be as ineffective in these areas as they are.

No. Parents should teach their kids that and support the learning that school offers academically. “Life skills” - that’s just another word for “upbringing” and that’s on parents & family

Watch the everyday hero's ted talk by Jaz from the apprentice

Disagree so hard - I work with schools and this is the bred and butter of what I support schools to help their students with any many of them do a fantastic job!

Which includes pshe

Absolutely untrue.
Schools have do to personal social and health education and sex and relationship education.
If a child needs extra support with these, they should be offered mentoring, counselling, social skills groups etc.

Resilience and emotional intelligence in my mind naturally come (or not) from parents, and are not subjects you can sit children down and teach.
Best thing parents can do is give a child a stable happy home with lots of love and care. This builds emotional intelligence, and resilience as children will face the world more confidently with a secure safety net at home.
Teachers do need to provide a certain level of pastoral care but ultimately are there for children to read and write and learn maths etc..

This is actually why I get annoyed at homework, by the same token. It's not my job to sit my child down and force him do worksheets or read when he doesn't want to. I'm his mother, not his school teacher. And I don't expect the teacher to do my job either.

Schools do a huge amount of emotional literacy, resilience work etc however it’s only a small part overall because those skills really are learned at home. School can give your child tools but if home life doesn’t support kids growing, taking risks, being able to function in relationships then there’s no much school can do about it. It’s for parents to make sure they teach their children the life skills they need.

OP, you are confusing formal education with parenting. HTH

It never ceases to amaze me how little parents seem to know or care about what schools actually do (and yet often feel very qualified to complain about them). These comments about school being only about 'book smarts' (silly phrase anyway) are very wide of the mark. Are people honestly not aware of the huge amount of pastoral care schools do? Or the many ways in which schools try to enrich their students lives through things that aren't in the curriculum?

How to "deal with real world problems, how to deal with anti-social behaviour, how to deal with the emotions they feel when coming across certain situations, or even what their feelings mean" are all the things parents should be teaching their children! It's shouldn't be up to schools to teach these things