Add a subject, bin a subject

(am secretly glad no-one's ditched ox-bow lakes yet)

My son loves Shakespeare due to a drama teacher at his previous school (& Something Rotten) & that means he will now study the text academically without resistance.

Kids don’t study playtexts as performance pieces anywhere else. And let’s face it, Shakespeare wasn’t writing so that people could write analytical essays. It’s a disappointingly snobbish attitude.

... I would ditch RE and replace with extra PE... But PE with plenty of options to include those kids that don't like team sports.

I always thought a better use of the DT lesson would be to learn how to assemble / customise flat pack furniture, unless someone really shows an aptitude to make things from scratch.

Very sad about those saying bin drama. Itvwas the one subject that kept Ds going through difficult times at his previous school. It's not on offer atvhis current school which is very sad for him but at least he has music.

My solution would be to have partial options in Year 8 so kids could choose 2-3 out of all the arts/technology/language subjects & use the extra time for philosophy and finances.

What have poor art and drama done to deserve the dislike on this thread?

Can we get rid of PSHE in ot’s current form and maybe combine it with RE to have a ‘social studies’ kind of topic. A bit of economics, finance, government and politics, philosophy and ethics (could include aspects of RE here).

Agree the DT curriculum could be rejigged with more focus on specific skills and getting rid of a lot of the designing/evaluating stuff.

Maisypops is that how it works in the us? From what age do you pick your classes and how wide is the age range in any particular class?

Or pink have pathways within subjects.

E.g. top set students do trig (i wasn't great at maths but managed fine through trig) and other pathways exist.
Then we could have gcse tiers again in subjects instead of single tier english like we have now.

The off the wall part of me would like a bit of the US system of students taking classes rather than being stuck in year groups so if a 13 year old musician was ready for gcse level music, they could take a y10/11 course in music. But if a y11 student was still struggling with basic literacy then instead of analyising Bronte they could do a functional writing class.

Then students get some sort of transcript for every year other than y7. None of the wasted years crap and no shoving kids onto edcl because it gets extra points.

Admittedly that is probably a bit of a bigger shift than the OP was suggesting.

I’d also combine geography and history in KS3, only separating them out at GCSE, and use the spare time for politics and economics (which could include citizenship and personal finance)

noble I usually agree with most things you post but am disappointed at your attitude to drama. It is as worthwhile, for its own sake, as music and art and requires no further justification IMO. In the country that produced Shakespeare, Coward, Stoppard, Ayckbourn, Pinter & scores of other brilliant playwrights, of course drama deserves a place in the school curriculum. Take it out of KS3 and it dwindles and dies at KS4.

Why drama rather than music? Or Art?

I would take out bits of subjects rather than whole ones. For example, geometry and trig etc out of maths lessons and replace that time with maths that is more useful for the stage they’re at. The stuff taken out could be introduced at A-level.

It's been cut in most schools i know at ks3 and only left as an option at ks4/5. RE seems to be heading the same way.

Yes, obviously I know that noble.

Ditching drama is already happening, and I think it’s a great shame. When done well, drama teaches more life skills than most other subjects. Before we know it, it’ll be gone completely from the state system and all those skills it teaches will be the preserve of the independent sector.

I agree evil.
To ke at least thr point of education is to develop rounded knowledge of a range of subjects (as wrll as some life stuff).

If people didn't do STEM subjects in detail just in case someone doesn't jse them then it closes doors to children. Same for studying great literature or a modern foreign language.

A life skills focus would only widen inequality and prevent (or at the very least limit) children developung social and cultural capital.

In that case I completely agree with you Maisey. I don't want kids to be limited by what some adults have never needed. I certainly wouldn't want to drop something like trigonometry as was suggested earlier, as that would mean kids wouldn't have the knowledge to become engineers, architects, etc. We do want a wide and varied curriculum for as many pupils at possible.

I would also like them to understand the world and how it works. I'm not sure what to drop in order to cover the understanding the world stuff though.

How depressing that it’s all coming down to preparation for being an adult. What about the joy of learning and the intrinsic value of knowledge?

Bin triple science replace with single
Bin RE (piss easy to pass at gcse but frankly pointless) replace with life skills, budgeting, ironing, how to keep a home clean, nutritious meals
Make food tech compulsory ditch DT

noble my DTDs covered adding up at primary school but I don’t believe schools should ditch maths.

MsAwesomeDragon
Oh yes. If i was a cookery teacher I would be thrilled to offer the students more than the 6 weeks to cook a pizza'.
Tailoring something like cookery to include more cooking and healthy eating makes sense.

Or even woodwork/electonics etc to have more DIY to them rather than 'make a money box'.

What I was meaning is that there is a danger in a push for a 'life skills' curriculum, instead of a general broad and balanced education which gives them enough subject knowledge to take specific subjects to a higher level, what some students would probably end up with is some sort of utilitarian 'basic numeracy, basic literacy, basic IT and some skills on how not to suck at life' because i never needed algebra in life/never looked at shakespeare again which actually would only widen educational inequality.