What would you like to see school's teach?

I mean, how many people know about the Lancashire cotton workers supporting the slaves it the US, to the point of starvation?

I would like children to be taught about the history of democracy and civil rights. They need to know that people fought and died for the right to vote and that you have to work for a decent society, it isn't a given. Right from Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution and the struggle for universal suffrage in the 19th/20th centuries and beyond.

Help them to appreciate that what they have didn't come easy and if they want to have a stake in society, they need to carry on the fight.

and who's going to ensure they do this? the whole point of drives like these are that some parents, even many in some areas, aren't doing it.

see my post of 17th April 13.55 and twinset's of 13.57

I would like teachers to be able to teach English and maths and not keep being loaded down with all sorts of other things from budgeting to how to handle a baby for a day.

All the other things are good and could be taught at youth club or somewhere else on that level. Or perhaps even parents could tach there dc how to budget or how to cook. If they cant already do those things then get them to learn together in a community center.

I would like to see some parents taught how to interact with teachers. Mainly because I'm sick of trying to help students only to be called a 'c-nt' by the parents.

senua - yourself!
You should aim your comment at the Headteacher and the school's curriculum manager. It's not strictly the class teachers' job. Ask about it- I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you.

Those posters that worry about the time needed to do all this - well, some skills are 'built in' to good teaching and others are taught in the citizenship and/or phse lessons that are timetabled each week. We also do a lot of work via the tutor time at the beginning of the day (team-building, organisational skills, brain-training, buddying, etc)

Sign language. From infants. Even to a basic communication level. I think it would open up the world completely

Not sure which ingredients you're 'pre-preparing', Welshwoman, but I should think it's because there's hardly any time in the lesson to do it all. Practical lessons are a nightmare of not enough time in most schools.

Why is your son not doing the preparing? It should be regarded as part of his homework - planning,shopping, being organised as well as the physical skills. Often more demanding than sitting down to a Maths exercise.

Budgeting, meal planning, cookery, wiring a plug, doing the washing, understanding domestic equipment,kitchen plannng, safety and more used to be embraced in Home Economics. Unfortunately the subject was cancelled by the stroke of a ministerial pen and cobbled into Food Technology ( if you were lucky).

I agree about touch typing. It should be compulsory.

jemart - I find the ' school is for getting enough skills to get a job' argument deeply depressing. Education is not about weighing how many facts you can stuff into a child (IMO)

correct use of grammar ...

Parents are saying, "we would like x,y & z taught" and the teachers are saying, "but we already do that".
So what would I like to see schools teach? - how about 'training teachers how to communicate with parents'.

yes most of ours have already done 6/7 by the time they are in year 10.

Latin.
Sequential history, ie, not just jumping from the Tudors to the Nazis to the Romans back to the Nazis, etc.

yikes, I sat 10 gcses and that was loads....

13/14 GCSE's.....??!!!

There really isn't that much time in the curriculum at secondary (even lower) as most of ours sit about 13/14 GCSE's and start prep for them in year 8/9

At my GS next year we are introducing 'food technology'. Also in PSHE lessons many many financial things are covered as well as sex ed, moral and social issues.

Agree that academic stuff comes first - but there is still time in curriculum in early secondary for all this (different at GCSE though)

I went to a grammar where such skills were frowned on and not taught at all (Presumably our academic merits were supposed to get us either a career or rich husband to pay for staff to do this kind of thing). I think that was very wrong.

'school's' ? pardon?

It is sad that some parents are unable or unwilling to teach their children basic stuff like cooking and managing money but there is only so much that can be taught in the school day, if we fill up lesson times with life skills, when are our children going to learn maths, reading, science, etc?

I really don't care if my sons never bake a cake.

So who do we expect to teach them maths, English literature, science, geography, foreign languages and history and when do we expect them to do it?
All the other 'skills' people are listing here can be learned or picked up at any time in life or through life experience.

Yes Itchy we have to work with the society we have not the one we wish we had.