Why don’t they teach things like taxes, budgeting etc in school?

[Soubriquet]

Don’t say it’s because it’s the parents job because my parents were terrible and are in a lot of debt, so is dh’s so we haven’t learnt from them at all and because of that, we are mildly in debt but no where near as much

Why don’t schools teach these sort of things?

@MrsRobbieHart

Totally agree OP. It should be on the curriculum. I hear everyone who says “the curriculum is full” but lots of things are on the curriculum now that never used to be and children aren’t spending any more time in school.

Because everything is half arsed and taught in less time 🙄. They also have shorter breaks, or breaks are removed. In my school the kids used to have an afternoon break. Now they work straight through.

I have taught it. Kids are just not interested as they think it is going to happen in a million years from now. I can't even get my 40 something year old family members interested when I try to explain about pensions, so no chance with a 14 year old.

Even sixth formers who were about to uni were not interested in how to apply for student finance and manage food shopping in a budget. We even tried getting in outside speakers. I'm afraid many kids really do believe in a magic money tree. Those sixth formers who had evening and weekend jobs were quite happy to blow their hard earned wages on cars and car insurance that they struggled to afford. They also wasted so much money on after exam holiday breaks with their mates - they could have got massive savings if they shopped around, but they are just not interested in the main.

Some schools do teach this through the PSHE curriculum, but it is non-statutory. The DfE have just made Relationships, Sex and Health education statutory for all pupils, but not the Living in the Wider World, the third aspect of PSHE, which covers citizenship, human rights, careers and financial education. I have no idea why as this all seems like pretty crucial knowledge.

Algebra - I use it when shopping and want to find out if an offer is really an offer compared to buying a different size pack.

Trigonomitry - calculating how to re-do the garden

Citizenship - you will most likely use it in everyday life without knowing. You will just know how election works, how the parliament is set up, what rights you have as a British citizen. It's just there but at one point you will have learned about it.

DD does/did a decent amount of topics in PSHCE, it's just not an extra subject. But she came home with ideas about how the monetary system works and how tax is calculated.

DD is in Y10 and to my dismay had to loose subjects like Geography, RS and art. There is just no space for non-exam subjects.

We had maths and arithmetic lessons. Arithmetic covered interest rates, % and most things I use in everyday life
I loved it, hated maths lessons as I was in the lowest set and the teacher seemed to resent us
Arithmetic teacher was brilliant, made it relevant and fun

@SylvanasWindrunner

And I think the maths stuff is missing the point. It's not about having the maths skills to calculate things; it's about learning practical finance skills to be able apply that to daily life and understand how to manage money.

Personally speaking I learned a load of shite in maths classes that I've never used. Practical finances affect everyone.

Same could be said for science, languages, English literature, drama, art.

I don't use physics formulae, act, draw or give a shot about Shakespeare.

Does it mean things like this shouldn't be taught?

Or is it actually part of a general education allowing people to discover and persue their interests etc

So, like if Chris had never studied advanced maths, because they stopped teaching at addition, division, multiplication, subtraction netc...he would be er have gone on to study maths and computing at university, and we wouldn't have things like...online banking, Laptops, mobile phones, sat nav etc

Personally speaking I learned a load of shite in maths classes that I've never used. Practical finances affect everyone.

I learned loads of stuff I never used, but that isn't a reason to stop teaching those subjects. If we limit the national curriculum to "things which all adults need to know" we set the standard far too low. Insist that children have a broad knowledge by the age of 16 and then let them drop anything they don't think will be useful or interesting. If you've never been taught algebra then how would you possibly know that you are good at it and enjoy it? Same goes for analysis of poetry or Shakespeare.

That said, I do think that the government should have made the "living in the wider world" stuff (eg budgeting, politics) a required element of PSHE teaching.

I used to come in as an external speaker and run sessions on budgeting and the real cost of credit for soon-to-be school leavers as part of the PSHE programme. It was an eye opener for some, we got calculators out and made it very concrete - comparing what you would pay for trainers using a store card to what the normal store price was. I really enjoyed delivering that.

If we only taught stuff at school that adults used "in real life" then you could stop educating people after year 6 as by that age they can do stuff up to decimals and percentages plus they can read. Most people would be on minimum wage with the highest wages going to people educated overseas in law, engineering, medicine etc

In reality most of us go through learning stuff that we never use because until we try and learn it, we don't know what will interest us or what we might fancy learning at higher levels or careers. Nobody can predict what a new GCSE student might want to learn at A-level so how would you design a syllabus anyway ? Most people will use an accountant or have their employer work out what they earn so is a knowledge of how taxes work apart from a basic explanation even necessary ? We have online calculators that will work out take home pay of a wage.

In my experience people usually want to learn more when it affects their life. So a death in the family might trigger research into wills, divorce might trigger research into benefits and child maintenance. Thanks to the Internet it's never been easier to find out more.

What did you pick as your GCSE options OP?

Our schools do. I am not in UK.

The dc have a choice of which math to take when they do their subject choices going into senior phase. There are two Math options, Pure covers trig/algrebra etc. The other option is there for those who are not math orientated and are not looking to require math to get into university. My dd take the 2nd option (for various reasons) which is called Math Literacy. They cover all of this sort of stuff, taxes, vat, budgeting, obviously along with general maths as well. Lots of people turn their noses down to this subject, but for my dd it is far more useful than trig/geometry/quadratics etc.

I didn't realise it wasn't offered everywhere tbh.

@reluctantbrit

Algebra - I use it when shopping and want to find out if an offer is really an offer compared to buying a different size pack.

Trigonomitry - calculating how to re-do the garden

Citizenship - you will most likely use it in everyday life without knowing. You will just know how election works, how the parliament is set up, what rights you have as a British citizen. It's just there but at one point you will have learned about it.

DD does/did a decent amount of topics in PSHCE, it's just not an extra subject. But she came home with ideas about how the monetary system works and how tax is calculated.

DD is in Y10 and to my dismay had to loose subjects like Geography, RS and art. There is just no space for non-exam subjects.

Relucantbrit What is RS?

We have taught this regularly in our school since I've worked there. Honestly most of the kids couldn't care less, don't see it as important and aren't engaged with it as a topic.

What is RS?

Religious studies. I hated it at school (too many essays) but as an adult I'm really glad I have a working understanding of major world religions.

@ChloeCrocodile

What is RS?

Religious studies. I hated it at school (too many essays) but as an adult I'm really glad I have a working understanding of major world religions.

Ooh, yes of course. Sorry, I did not link the two. It has not been an actual subject here for a very long time. I was trying to think of every other subject it could be though

We have a different subject (Life Orientation) where religion and other general life stuff gets taught.

@AmanitaRubescens

The curriculum is full to bursting already.

With tangents, cosines, refraction and other things I've never used again since sitting GCSEs

@ChloeCrocodile yes, Religious Studies. It’s not religious education in a way that they only teach Christianity, they went really out with all major religions and also how different religion see life choices like being gay or how they treat females differently. I found discussions with DD on her RS days really interesting.

Apart from that, it is a brilliant subject to learn to discuss and argue.

The subjects are getting far too narrow in my view as soon as they hit Y9 in some cases, my friend has a DD in a school where they stopped history innY9 unless it was chosen for GCSE.