Add a subject, bin a subject

Also I think a lot of maths taught is pointless. I struggle to defend it when my daughter asks me when she will need to use it in life. Maths like budgeting, and things you will actually use would be much better. If an adult needs to divide a large number by a smaller but still large one they use a calculator so why waste so much time teaching kids how to do maths manually.

To anyone who said get rid of music, have you not read about the thing where a school massively increased music in the curriculum and their maths levelz increased hugely.

It seems to me that the real risk with dropping any subject like music, art, drama or sport is that the only children with any chance of pursuing them will be those from families who can pay for private extracurricular classes.

It would be fantastic if schools could teach everything that young people need to know, but that would mean a wholesale reform of education. And how would we balance 'need to know' with 'increasing your general understanding of the world'? Would we get breadth and no depth?

I often wonder if the way we teach a lot of the traditional academic subjects is just because 'it's always been this way'. A previous poster pointed out that most of GCSE Biology isn't useful to most people and that's true. It's interesting for many people to learn about the glomerulus and the loop of Henlé but of little practical application to almost everyone. The same is true of most GCSE Chemistry and the vast majority of GCSE Maths. Many people go on to have successful lives never thinking again, or needing to know, about how attrition, erosion and abrasion carve out a river valley. We could apply the same argument to literature and languages and certainly classics and music and art.

It seems a bit harsh to pick drama out of all the things we learn that are genuinely useful for a minority of their students.

Oh yes and I would greatly reduce the emphasis in primary on handwriting and teach all to TouchType from reception. In almost every job you are more likely to type than handwrite.

So sad that so many people are saying drama and art are not important! Children can gain so many skills from drama such as confidence, public speaking etc.

Learning the rules of random sports eg rugby, cricket, netball etc seems pointless to me. If you're sporty you probably play outside of school and know more than you are being taught. And if you aren't it would be much better to be give back the chance to choose physical activity you enjoy. My daughter happily works up a sweat dancing for two hours but will be miserable playing ball sports and will do the minimum required.

I would get rid of RE and instead teach in a very focused way about the importance of tolerance, kindness, equality etc. Being able to get on with your fellow man is more important than knowing the parts of a church or mosque.

When I was at school we had 'electives' in (the equivalent of) year 8 and maybe year 9 (can't quite remember). Six months of each subject that you could then elect to do in following years.
Stuff like: economics, typing, metal work, wood work, art, home ec, technical drawing.
I would have that set up - and include RE in there - no need to do it every week for the whole year.
Flat pack furniture building and first aid would make great after school club activities.

Noblegiraffe - hmm! It's devil and deep blue sea - let young adults be educated about pensions by those selling them
Or those who don't understand them - it's a lose-lose!

Scrap about 90% of Biology. No one needs to know about how a kidney dialysis machine works unless you’re training to use one when you’re older. Biology should mainly concern sex education, and common symptoms of conditions such as cancers - and how to check your balls & boobs. No one should be allowed to miss sex education - it needs to be compulsory. How to avoid Diabetes & heart disease would do very well in this country.

Fuck Physics - that can come off 100%.

Maths - subtract about 70% of the curriculum and replace with budgeting and other financial matters.

History - remove everything that took place before WW1, and teach really recent historical events too, embracing popular culture, and not just King Dick blah blah blah.

Food & Nutrition should remain, but should also include lots of budgeting, and lots more time actually cooking.

I also think things like ironing, changing lightbulbs and fuses etc, how to feed a baby and toddler should be included. Everyone should have to look after one of those babies that usually only Child Development students get the experience of.

First aid & St John’s Ambulance training. National anthem should be taught.

Two foreign languages should be taught to all, and should be compulsory at GCSE.

Work DAY not work Sat!

I've only skim read the thread but I don't think anyone on here has mentioned careers?
I passionately believe that children should understand more about the world of work and all the millions of jobs they've never heard of and what it's really like to do a particular job day to day.
Even half an hour a week of showing a video of someone's typical work Sat might go some way towards it.
Also politics. This is not something that can be taught at home. Most people who are voting do not understand the systems properly or the parties.
Nothing could be more important.
I'm not in favour of ditching anything.
Certainly not art, drama or music.
And definitely not 'RE- so important for understanding the rest of the world's perspective.
I woyld like a more modular system where you study different subjects for a term, and take GCSES in the core subjects when you're ready for them.

But obviously I have no idea how this would work in practice.

Can we all stop binning drama please?

When this happens it ends up taught badly as part of English lessons (I'm shit at it) rather than properly by people like Evil who know how to teach it well.

Also, it rather underpins IB/A level studies in Literature.

I'd chuck PSHCE & replace with Current Affairs/Ethics taught by a specialist, to get rid of endless anti bullying projects taught badly by tutors who don't have time to plan properly as they understandably concentrate on their subject lessons.

Oh & ditch lengthy assemblies. Replace with 'optional studies' - sign up for cookery/a sport/an instrument/debating/robotics etc etc. These things are currently covered in after school which means same 20% of keenos turn up to everything.

After school can be subject support - again sign up but approved by tutor who is kept informed which subject(s) you are struggling in.

Now you see noble dance/theatre diploma students get tax & financial planning modules as part of their course.

dds secondary school didn't have KS3 drama. It was only taught as a separate subject from Y10 onwards. I didn't even notice it was missing.
I would be in favour of ditching PE in particular rugby and football as dcs who are interested would already be doing this outside school!
The creative arts need to be kept but could be more merged together as KS3 rather than being separate subjects.
dd could do the task you set noble even though she was in one of the lower maths sets. Makes me wonder about who designed the current curriculum!

I would not bin anything, but I can see that it would be useful to have practical applications of subjects to help in the "real world". However, it's great to learn how to learn and it's also great to build up knowledge and it's also great to do a range of things, some of which you'll be great at through aptitude and others which you find tough and have to work at.

I would like to add all aspects of managing finances

I'd do that as part of the Maths curriculum and remove all but the simplest/basic aspects of trig, algebra, circle theorums, etc. Maths needs to be "living" maths skills, including finance. Most people will never have to do trig or circle theorum and will only need the most basic of algebra. Maths is so far away from lifestyle needs, it's unreal. Those who need higher maths skills for future careers should be able to do it via a higher maths paper or via A level.

It's a bit like teaching the hell out of a shakespeare play in English - just why? For normal people, they need to learn basic literacy to a high level, not memorising MacBeth's quotes.

They are 40 mins at both my kids schools.

Lunch breaks at my DC's schools are an hour which is plenty long enough, esp with a 15min morning break.

When we lived in the US they did about an extra hour of school a day - started earlier, shorter lunch breaks to make up the time, but they also had a lot less wasted time - esp at primary level. They were at school to learn, not faff about! Of course they got much longer school holidays to make up for the extra hour a day.

Lunch breaks are way too short as it is.

I'd say keep everything and ditch tutor time, assembly and shorten lunch breaks. It was like that at my school, we had 6-7 (sometimes 8) periods a day and learned loads! We finished around 3.30 most days. But I'm foreign so I have no idea what's actually going on during assembly/tutor time, maybe it's very important after all??

But a high level of numeracy isn't required for what you proposed (it would be more for budgeting) - it's using your common sense to realise that banks aren't like Gringotts/that there is no never ending magic money pot.

Maths covers things like interest/compound interest - how they knowledge is then applied is up to the individual.

Tax and pensions could be picked up in PSHE or during form time - but again, maths is a good place to introduce the idea of taxation through the use of percentages etc. Simplified explanation but that's the gist of things.

Could equally argue that tax and pensions and other wider issues pertaining to the world of work are best left to employers who can provide tailored information on the schemes available. Today's digital generation are perfectly capable of googling taxation/using gov.uk to get the info they need. Gov.uk is aimed at a reading level of no more then 12 years and some Depts who use it, this is even lower (think a reading she of 8).

Application of knowledge is key ......maybe all subjects should focus on that rather than x fact and y fact (I appreciate that the current curriculum doesn't allow for this)

As long as you can type quickly does it matter how many fingers you use?

I only use 4 fingers on a keyboard and manage to type faster than most my own age, it just seems irrelevent to actually learn how to do it. Most kids use laptops at some point?