ive just remembered that my primary school taught us all basket weaving as a regular activity/lesson.

[Pagwatch]

it wasnt just an occasional project. we each had terms of basket weaving in the library taught by the headmaster.

why did i need this skill? did your do any off lessons like that or just my village school

Country dancing
Pottery - the school actually got a kiln while I was there and I was terrified that I would get shut in it!
Handbell ringing - we came first in the regional championship where we were the only team competing

At senior school we did plastic work which was mainly filing down a piece of plastic for 8 weeks - like nails down a blackboard x 30 of us!
Hymn practice- hated it at the time, would love it now!

Did anyone else do mass poetry recitals? We'd have to learn a poem by heart, with some individual lines.
So the seagull poem started with two children :
First there were two of us
Then there were three of us (another child added)
Then there was one bird more (and another)
Four wild, white seagulls, (everyone together)
Something the ocean floor

...treading. I looked it up, but the rest was from memory from 50 years ago!it's The Storm by Walter de La Mare.

Similar treatment for The Rum Tum Tugger - my solo line was
'But he makes such a fuss if he can't get out.'

We did basket weaving and country dancing too!

DH has taught our sons to sew, knit, and a whole bunch of other creative and very fiddly tasks.

He's a surgeon and thinks that childhood and school in the uk doesn't give children enough dexterity for very fine work over long periods of time.

He wants them to have that skill just in case they want to follow in his footsteps. They probably won't, but they can at least sew their buttons back on!

I also had to do country dancing, on Thursday mornings...I absolutely hated it.

Basket-weaving
Knitting
Cross-stitch
Cycling proficiency - but not all of us did that, can't remember why
Making things from folded and cut paper
Pottery without a potter's wheel
Dippy pen and ink handwriting
Singing together once a week
Scottish country dancing - we were in Northumberland though
Peg dolls - we dressed a doll made from a wooden push-on peg for the Christmas tree. I have never seen a wooden push-on peg before or since
A felt rabbit
Pictures from rice/pasta/beans/anything you could stick onto paper

Our DC don't do anything as nice as this .

Potato printing
Dip dye

Small country infant school ex pupil here, we did country dancing and poetry recitals. Weirdly, once a fortnight we had a lady in to teach us about Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas. She used to play the LPs on her record player, the mikado and Pirates of Penzance. I can’t think how that fitted into the curriculum!
We were always playing rounders all afternoon in the summer as well on the school field.
Happy days !

Yes I remember basket weaving, cycling proficiency, writing with fountain pens in yr 6, binka that large cross stitch sewing to make a bookmark or a table mat, we also made PE bags, we did tile etching in y5 5 on leathery type stuff, pottery, and maypole dancing.

All that was a state primary.
Didn't do much of it at all at secondary but we had proper curriculum subjects of cookery and needlework until we were 14 . I did technical drawing instead of art which was very dull.
At 14 we only did academic subjects- no music, art, technology of any kind and no RE- our head disapproved of any of it for clever children and would only allow classes not predicted A-B grades to do any of it. We did 9 GCSEs, an A/S level and then 3 a levels. Our option was 3 sciences plus one language or 2 languages and 2 sciences at GCSE. We all did Classical Studies.

The irony with this thread is so many parents now call this 'busy work' and 'time filler' and complain about it.
A hands on and creative education is just as important as academic. If anything...more important. You need to know how to read, write and do maths etc but people also need to know how to 'do' things.
If that makes sense?
Bring on the basket weaving

Yup the baskets and scottish dancing.... Remember them fondly

Country dancing (including maypole for the appropriate time of year), choir, recorder, percussion, sewing, knitting, and quilling. CofE primary in the north east. Good times, all told.

I do remember being the only person in the entirety of year six (including the staff members) who could cast on and off when we did our knitting term, so I spent 12 weeks doing nothing but cast on and off for other people! :o

@Pagwatch

yes, they all got sold!

thats it isnt it. My headmaster was like a little etsy

im dim. we could buy the one we made for the cost of the materials or it went into the summer fair thing

Child labour .

Weirdly, once a fortnight we had a lady in to teach us about Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas. She used to play the LPs on her record player, the mikado and Pirates of Penzance. I can’t think how that fitted into the curriculum!

That's different! The secondary school used to do a G&S production when my older DBs were there, though not by the time I was. DF was a teacher and participated in the chorus. We had the LPs, and between listening to those and hearing him and DB practicing, I could sing a lot of Ruddigore and HMS Pinafore at a precociously young age.

@LubaLuca

I think we called the holey fabric Ada (Aida?).

probably Binca - the same as aida but with only 6 holes per inch.

You can still buy it...if you fancy having a bash

@Legoisthebest

The irony with this thread is so many parents now call this 'busy work' and 'time filler' and complain about it. A hands on and creative education is just as important as academic. If anything...more important. You need to know how to read, write and do maths etc but people also need to know how to 'do' things. If that makes sense? Bring on the basket weaving

It costs more than whiteboard or pencil and paper work.

DD did quite a lot at her (private) junior school, and then a good amount of tech as described upthread at her girls' GS. She was quite surprised during her engineering degree to find she was the only competent solderer in her group doing project work.

I still have my place mat and purse I made in circa 1981.
Well worth the money Errol

Wonderful for hand:eye coordination and fine motor skill development. And focus. Lots of great learning in there.

I loved primary school. the things I remember most were making smoke pictures - holding your paper over a flame and moving it around - probably because mine caught fire and caused an evacuation 😚 , skateboarding lessons, and lots and lots of singing.

At 14 we only did academic subjects- no music, art, technology of any kind and no RE- our head disapproved of any of it for clever children and would only allow classes not predicted A-B grades to do any of it. We did 9 GCSEs, an A/S level and then 3 a levels. Our option was 3 sciences plus one language or 2 languages and 2 sciences at GCSE. We all did Classical Studies.

Stupid head. Quite a lot of DDs peers did art, music and drama GCSEs. (This was pre-reform, they did 11 as standard, 12 or 13 if they added Latin and/or FM twilight classes.) . She did drama, electronic products and comp sci alongside a full range of 'academic' subjects. A GS, so all 'clever' girls. From the pov of getting a place at Cambridge, the 'non academic' subjects were extremely helpful!

Oh yes, basket weaving! I had completely forgotten! We also had to buy ours back if we wanted to keep them.

See also -

• Compulsory use of fountain pens (once you’d graduated from pencils, of course)
• Climbing to the dining hall ceiling on ropes during indoor PE (fear not, there was a 1” thick mat underneath in case we fell…)
• Country dancing
• Gathering around the piano in the music room to sing ‘traditional’ songs (I remember one that started my old man said follow the van, don’t dilly dally on the way, off went the cart with me home packed in it… )
• Library projects (left alone in the library for a blissful whole afternoon every week to work on our term-long independent project)
• Reading to the school dog - I’ve noticed this one is making a comeback now

1980s/90s rural state primary

My 1990s secondary school had fencing and golf (actual lessons at the golf club behind the school) as PE options. It was a state school, but with delusions of grandeur!

I still have my place mat and purse I made in circa 1981.

I've got the wooden fish I made ca 1972, and the little sewing kit made from binca with cross stitch made by DH at some point in the 60s

@sorryiasked

Country dancing Macrame But no basket weaving

We did country dance and basket weaving but I had to learn macramé at home with my Grandmother

I did lace-making in junior school. We got to choose an animal picture to make from a limited selection: I picked a diplodocus which I made in green thread.

We did basket weaving, dress making and cooking

The boys did woodwork, technical drawing and money management

🙄