Add a subject, bin a subject

But Maisey, surely if you've trained to be a cookery teacher then you'd be quite happy teaching the kids to cook something a bit more appropriate to feeding themselves later in life. You can say it's the parents responsibility to teach kids to cook, but in that case I've failed in my parental duty because I can't cook, therefore I can't teach dd to cook. Our whole family would have benefited from her being taught how to cook, much as I would have benefited from being taught to cook when I was at school.

Interpersonal/communication skills should be embedded in pretty much everything anyway. Back to drama...

I agree with Maisy - so much of this is parenting. Should we just pick the babies up from the maternity ward and return them to their parents at 18?

I would add Interpersonal/Communication Skills and drop RE....

DD's school does CPR but not First Aid.

It's interesting how if school was redesigned what seems to be going in on this thread is all the preparation for life stuff which I would say is the responsibility of parents.

I trained to teach my subject and do some pastoral care, not do endless 'get ready for life' stuff. Don't get me wrong I enjoy pastoral stuff but i wouldn't be happy with a timetable of 'here's all the stuff 80% of you will do at home with a bit of English reduced down to functional literacy'.

I would introduce first aid too. Some schools do cover it, mine does, as part of citizenship/activities day/week. All of our year 11s do a half term of first aid as part of their pshe/re/citizenship lessons (they only have one lesson a week to cover all 3 of those subjects, I think we're running with the legal minimum).

Bin SPAG, replace with creative writing & critical thinking.

Everyone advocating binning drama, you're going with binning a massive number of useful life skills. Public speaking, presenting, working in teams, faking confidence even if you're not feeling it, empathy, speaking loudly enough so that people can hear you - all come out of drama if taught properly (ie not as part of English)

The poster wanting to bin PE and add physical activity in to other subjects because children learn better if they're moving about is talking nonsense BTW - that's been disproved on so many levels.

Also interesting that even though there aren't many posts on this yet, there are those wanting to ditch PE and at the same time those wanting schools to cover healthy living

Bin drama. Replace it with politics and sociology subjects so people are really aware of how societies work.
Art should stay but be more about expression and creativity.

Bin Citizenship.

Absolute waste of time to be doing at gcse level but compulsory at our school.

Definitely add budgeting and running a home and shopping and cooking.

Also bin PE if not done for gcse and do first aid.

Bin Drama and add DIY.

Drop cubism in place of how not to be a knobhead or date a knobhead.

Bin RE at secondary school level (they should know the basics of the different religions by then, any actual religious practice should take place outside schools) and replace with proper work skills training / careers advice.

At this stage I would add more time for maths/English/ languages - DS is struggling because Secondary school has been quite a stretch. The amount of new concepts introduced in maths in the first 3 months has been way more than he can cope with.

I'd scrap Study Work Skills and replace it with Life Skills - budgeting, mortgages/rent, living independently, first aid etc etc.

I'd also combine Computing & ICT and integrate Drama into English. With the extra teaching time (this would free up 2 periods a week, (out of a total of 30) I would separate out the Social Subjects and teach History & Geography separately. (Really don't give a damn what happens to Modern Studies)

Ditch the Tudors in favour of some proper disability awareness, and ditch poetry in favour of life basics like how to look up on YouTube how fix a leaky tap.

Finance is already taught, it's a requirement of the citizenship curriculum.

I would add First Aid and basic life support with a recognised qualification. (An essential life skill)

Remove Dance/Drama (should be extracurricular activities)

I'd bin PE, or rather make it optional for those interested in sports and spend the extra time on other subjects but introduce more physical activity into all other subjects, children learn better getting up and about every now and then.

Bin endless repeats of the Tudors and WW2 and replace it with some other bits of history. Preferably one of those other bits should be the teacher's special subject from uni, the thing they're really excited about. Then they will all come out of school knowing different interesting things about history. One kid knows all about Charlemagne. The next is an expert on the Spanish Civil War. It would be fantastic.

Also, bin cross country running and replace it with politics from year 7 up, so that they understand what's going on in the world and why voting matters.

No, no, no! You're cutting all the good stuff. Loved art and poetry. You could make it optional for the kids whose parents don't teach them that stuff. Every penny counted in my house. We learned cooking, budgeting and politics from an early age. Art and poetry, not so much.

Scrap pshe (most is covered in English and 're) and do it then. I remember doing mortgages in maths.

Bin one science and one English for those who are not going to get a decent grade and replace with a more basic English practical life skills like work on reading, spelling and basic letter writing.

Replace half dual science for those who are unlikely to achieve higher grades with more practical life skills like extended maths for the real world, budgeting etc.

Bin- Drama, Art

Add- Finance, Health & Nutrition

MsAwesomeDragon

or bake bread rolls (most adults I know don't bake their own bread, it's only 50p to buy a pack of them in the shop!)

Unless they make pizza from scratch, then its a handy thing to know.

I would add CPR (including how to use an AED) and first aid.

Bin trigonometry.

Or building on ms idea - more time actually cooking and the opportunity to do more advanced stuff if you can cook.

I remember having to spend 6 weeks planning to cook a pizza at ks3. 6 weeks! And even then when i wanted to be a bit more creative because i already did that at home and had for years, my 'extension' tasks was to fold it into a calzone and think about what might happen to the cooking time?

Could you imagine if an English teacher said 'now then everyone i know you're 13 but you are all going to have the same reading book: biff and chip so I caj cater for the lowest common denominator. Oh and you guys who are more advanced, you can do thr extension task... read a different biff and chip book'.