Things you wish they’d taught you in school

[IrishJP]

Inspired by a couple of threads, and recent things that have happened in my life,
What kinds of things do you wish school had taught you that they didn’t?
I feel I learnt a lot of things I’ve never needed, like algebra (although I appreciate that’s relevant in some careers)
But I feel there should’ve been more ‘life’ lessons, that would have been far more useful.

i finished school mid 2000s and don’t have DC so appreciate that schooling may have changed and perhaps some of these things are being taught now.

Heres what I think they should’ve taught.

1. Budgeting and money management
2. information on benefits, tax, NI Contributions, employment rights etc
3. Useful cookery (I learnt to make random fancy dishes but didn’t know how to scramble eggs)
4. Basic DIY (I did some woodwork/metalwork but again made random things like a jigsaw and metal jetting) but couldn’t have put s shelf up or wallpapered a room
5. Everyday sewing (again I did some textiles where we learnt how to tiedye but I couldn’t sew a button on)

The academic side of schooling is absolutely vital but I just feel like there’s some stuff that isn’t needed until you go in to more specialised subjects at a later age, and some very ‘basic’ life skills would be a lot more useful.

Have I missed anything? Or for anyone who does have school aged DC are they teaching these things now?

Budgeting properly

Healthy boundaries in all types of relationships

What this looks like

Healthy food on Budget,

I know there is on school curriculum Psche classes, this is to with life schools

More about women's health; I never learned about ovulation (outside of science), reproductive disorders, or the menopause. Boys were not taught anything about periods at all! And I'm in my early 20s so this is fairly recent!
IMO history should be compulsory up to year 11. I'm astonished by how many people in my age group do not know about things like the miners' strike, decolonisation, and the Soviet Union. I didn't just learn history, I learned about things like inflation, communism, capitalism, fascism, I learned so much. I think it's so important to learn about the past so that the same mistakes aren't repeated.
Also how to think critically and form your own opinions. Don't take things at face value.

In my school days (Girls grammar state school, 1958 to 1964) everybody was taught 1, 2.3 and 5 on your list.

For which I've been forever grateful.

Would have or definitely did? And no, of course the curriculum isn't different in the North, but both aspiration and parental support is completely different in somewhere like Hull to leafy Berkshire. Hopefully that's changing now down to the amount of renewables around here but certainly when I started teaching DT was seen as a course for lower ability boys. I did graphics myself in the late 80s when it was still technical drawing and was asked what I was doing there as I was a girl!

@TheSnootiestFox know I don't know specifically if they DT (or equivalent) for GCSE.
They come originally from various places - rural Cumbria, inner London (emigrated to London as a child from another country), Leicestershire, Germany (where they went to a 'technical' school)....all over the place.
I don't know anybody from "leafy Berkshire".

So your point is? Or are you just trying to bully me into having the same opinion as you? Because my 15 years in a classroom gave me experience just as valid as your friendship with a couple of architects. I think 14 is too young to make forever choices. You don't. End of conversation.

@TheSnootiestFox chill.... I did say we need to agree to disagree 🙂
We don't need to have the same opinions.
It's interesting to chat and hear different ideas and experiences.
Isn't that the point of this forum?
Anyway. Have a good evening 🙂

This!!!

im a teacher. There isn’t time on the curriculum for life skills. Parents should be taking some responsibility for teaching their young people these things. Or evening classes being available winks be good. I learned how to sew basic repairs from my mum, knitting too. Painting and decorating I’ve had a go at the basics and can do some things. Can’t wallpaper but would happily pay for a night class if I wanted to.

I’ve learned to budget as I earned and spent money. My basic mathematics at school has helped as we covered basic addition, subtraction and percentages.

I also think as adults now we have a very odd memory of what we remember being taught at school versus what we was actually on the curriculum.

I really don't think DT GCSEs are considered these days as only being done by the "thick" kids. A GCSE is a GCSE and better to have an 8 or a 9 in a practical useful subject than a 4 or a 5 in, for example, a language.
The grammar schools near me teach product design, students are encouraged to take a creative subject along with eBacc options. I don't see how this closes doors to any career options and it's a real shame that you think that it does.

Whilst I think a lot of this is life skills that parents should teach I was surprised to find that both my DS had learnt about credit, mortgages and budgeting as well as how to apply a condom (including a demo on a dildo) in their sex education.

I do think it's better than it used to be.

Another life lesson to learn is that life can be unfair and that is something we have to learn to deal with. Kids grow up to live in the real world and not an ideal one. Whilst we should strive to give everyone equal opportunities change comes gradually.

We can't expect teachers to be the only people responsible for creating a level playing field between those who have involved parents and those who don't. They have enough to do already.

As parents we should teach our kids how to find out information/experience needed to deal with what life throws at them as we can't possibly cater for every issue they may come up against. With the internet this is far easier than it used to be.

It doesn't if it's part of a balanced suite of qualifications! That's my whole point. My own son does GCSE food, along with history and drama. It's when kids focus on one thing at 14 such as doing GCSEs in DT, Graphics and Engineering, or double award Engineering and nothing else, or go to a UTC at 14 and do nothing but Engineering that I think it's restrictive later in life. I have been quite clear about that!

A lot of suggested things are skills parents should be teaching. Maybe there should be a list of things parents should have taught their child by the time they're 12/14/16/18?

I do think typing should be taught alongside handwriting though. I learned to type at school during a lunch club - the less able were able to do it instead of a GCSE, but still gained a qualification. I doubt that's a thing now.

Has no one mentioned knitting? Having a jumper is more useful than knowing what a fronted adverbial is, IMO

I wish we'd be taught how breastfeeding works in biology. I had to do a lot of learning to understand it to make it work and I think to have studied it as a teenager would have made a big difference. It was the fact that I did so much work to understand it that I finally cracked it.

@pieceofpasta my NCT classes went into breast feeding in great detail (which I thought was unnecessary). Maybe this should be included in NHS antenatal classes? There could be many years in between biology classes and having a baby.

Trigonometry can also easily be found online, so why do schools teach that?

I did NHS antenatal classes including an utterly rubbish 3 hour one about BFing where we were told all women can EBF and formula is 'unnecessary' . There was plenty about the mechanism of how it works but nothing about causes of milk delay, low supply, how to supplement safely, what to expect in the first few weeks etc. Just loads of inaccurate information - there were women leaving the class who thought they'd be guaranteed not to get breast cancer if they BF .

I don't think it would work for in a school apart from the very basics in biology, but I'd also include better information about menstruation (I thought I was the only woman to have irregular cycles as our biology lessons told us they were 28 days!) so my knowledge of fertility didn't make sense as I ovulated at a different time every cycle.

Surely everything's online, so why have schools teach anything?

I think what's clear from this thread is the frequently unrealistic ideas about what can be taught and by whom.
Parents bear a great deal of responsibility here.

@Badbadbunny

Trigonometry is a concept in maths.

The stock market is a career.

I was thinking about this only yesterday! Absolutely agree on all your points, especially sewing. My DS's school trousers need re-hemming and I don't have a bloody clue so will be handing them to my DM to do. Being a Boomer, she DID of course get taught sewing! Have I ever used trigonometry though?? F*ck no!!

Some of the things in your OP & responses I was taught at home, others weren't.

I really think pre-GCSE (This could be the opportunity to delve deeper- can't help but think more pupils would engage in things of left until then) were about English, maths, a foreign language, life skills.

The only thing I would have liked my school to do extra was better career advice. Or, in fact, any. I come from a deprived background and the only time I heard of many careers was when posh middle class kids announced they were doing vocational courses for them. A bit late then.

That is what could really have made a difference, and the only thing that could have done.

@RosaGallica yes that was what we were missing in my school days.
We were taught lots and lots of things including several suggested on this thread but careers advice was either non existent or very very poor.
When I look back I wish someone had just talked to me about what jobs/careers certain subjects can lead too and how to get there. What the post 16/post 18 options could be to follow on.
I am of the era where both university or polytechnic existed. To this day I don't really know what the difference is. It was like the school just assumed you knew.
(School was a fairly ordinary comp in a mostly industrial midlands town)

I agree that good quality careers advice needs to be available far earlier, and needs to be outsourced to specifically qualified professionals, not left to the head of RE.

Kids need to build up a realistic understanding of how and where they are best placed to earn a proper living, and avoid being conned into ‘following their dream’ in the sort of sectors where wages are seen as an optional extra. (Arts and entertainment I’m looking at you).

But if school taught basic parenting, then when would people learn actual stuff? Then where would the engineers, doctors etc be? Everything would essentially be dumbed down for those behind and you wouldn't really learn anything valid until you were a teen?

@Nicecow I'm not suggesting we do away with all the usual lessons and replace them with parenting skills. That would be madness 😂

I'd have loved a GCSE option though, that taught 'practical management' like pensions, money management, interest rates, mortgages etc. Would have been sooooo much more valuable to me in my life than a GCSE in geography or RE.