Subjects no longer taught at school

[adviceatthislatestage]

On the back of the what O Levels did you do, thread, it got me thinking of subjects that were available when I was at school, but aren't any more:

When choosing options you could do, at our south London bog standard comprehensive

British constitution
Government and Politics
Needlework - very different to the Textiles kids would do now
Typing- only the girls
Metal work- only the boys
Motor vehicle maintenance - again boys
Technical Drawing - think this was a mixed class
Home Economics- much more than the Food Tech kids do now though. I remember we had our own studio flat, between the two HE rooms. For end of year exams, students would have to cook a 3 course meal and serve to a number of teachers in the 'fiat' as if having a dinner party.

What subjects did you study, or remember that aren't being taught any more?

100% agree. It’s a shame too to limit their children’s horizons but not much anyone can do (especially as I’m definitely considered ‘posh’ and therefore wouldn’t understand).

Re-introduce. I ran oracy projects in our LA in the 90s. It then got absorbed into Speaking and Listening. Active listening is an important part.

Of all the things I did at my (all boys) school in the 70 the one that I hated most was "Technical Drawing" ("TD").

If that no longer on the list Thank God, say I!

TD had became Graphic Design in the mid 80s at my school.

Active listening is huge - as the best sales people will attest.
I listen in awe to how coherent and intelligent the public often were when Esther Rantzen did her vox pop filming for That's Life, well in living memory, but in some ways a world away.

No. The Sex Discrimination Act wasn't until 1975 so this would have been 77/78. Think Punk/Blondie/Sex Pistols and less academic girls having enforced lessons on how to dust. Every cookery room had an attached 'home' room (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom etc) where you'd be assessed on how well you could do set tasks. Obviously training you for your natural role in life!

Latin helps with the grammar for German I think and 75% of Spanish has Latin origins.

Although I liked Latin and continued it to A Level, as an MFL teacher I'd say its usefulness is exaggerated. I don't think Latin would help you any more with Spanish than learning another modern romance language would. It's true that the grammar training you get through doing Latin is helpful, but imo that's not really because of anything inherent about the Latin language, it's more the fact that you spend a lot more time on grammar in Latin lessons because you don't need to do all that pesky listening and speaking! It would be more useful to be given a really thorough grounding in English grammar.

I did Latin and French ti A-level and found Spanish quite easy when I later did it t evening classes. I can also read some Italian, without ever having studied it, and have an idea of the subject matter. The grammar,,particularly understanding of noun cases, was definitely helpful in German evening classes. It gives me a good understanding of botanical names too, in the garden. The logic of it is also meant to be an advantage in computing, though I am not certain I am convinced of this.

I remember a colleague commenting that he couldn't remember the difference between equinox and solstice, and I thought, it's obvious, equi-nox, nox noctis... didn't say it aloud though! Also, my abilities to quote Pliny and Catullus has a pretty limited audience.

It enhances my life rather than having been essential, but then I could say the same for other subjects.

Your A Level French would have been enough to make Spanish and Italian easy though, @EBearhug . I learned Spanish very easily as an adult, long after I'd forgotten almost all my Latin. The fact that I speak French made it very easy.

German cases etc are hard for a lot of people, and there's no doubt that having done Latin would help, but no more than learning the German cases would help iyswim. It seems bonkers to take the time (and use up the limited curriculum space) to study a whole separate dead language as training for cases etc, when you could just teach them fully as part of learning German.

I agree it's enhancing though. I'm kind of sad that not many kids get to do it, from an interest, culture and breadth of curriculum pov, but it's of limited appeal and use to most kids.

I did Latin and Greek to A level - I' not a natural linguist but found them much easier to get my head around than French. It was incredibly useful in my career which required extensive and in depth study of tax legislation around the world. It's the way you tackle a Latin sentence that helps with reading legalese. A surprising number of lawyers in the top City firms either read Classics or studied Latin or Greek to A level.

DF was an early expert in computerisation of government projects and said that those with a Classics background made excellent programmers.

HAving said all of that the main reason for studying Classical languages should be because they expose you to a whole civilisation on which much of modern Europe is founded. It is fascinating and the growing popularity of Class Civ as a degree course suggests that the younger generation agree....

My daughter's school have introduced Oracy and in year 5 and 6 they have a Debating club. I think it's a good skill to have.

It's a win-win, you can be a proud parent every time she negotiates her pocket money up!

Definitely by the 1980s both sexes did all subjects, I did metalwork, woodwork and technical drawing. There was still a lot of sexism but I remember a number of boys really enjoyed cookery.

I went to a private school in Scotland and honestly the choices were so similar to what my DC have been offered at comps in England.

I did maths, English (it was only one subject), history geography physics chemistry and French. Other subjects offered - modern studies which is basically government and modern history, music, art, economics, Latin, German (we had to chose at least one language). I did religious studies at Sunday school as my school didn’t offer (despite having a Christian ethos).

DD did maths, English x 2, French, RS, history, food tech and double science

DS did maths English x 2, french RS, geog, computer science physics chemistry and biology.

So they both got to do all three sciences and RS in school but other than that it’s the same. They could have done history and geog if they wanted.

Well technical drawing is no longer a necessary skill so it would be ridiculous to teach it in school. My DH is an engineer and even when he was at university in the 80s they all knew that technical drawing was an obsolete skill even though they were still being taught it. (Not sure why we still have his drawing table and hundreds of rolls of the paper in our loft mind you! 😂) But the equivalent would be learning to use one of the common CAD systems which is definitely covered in computer science and probably within other technical subjects too. A lot of the subjects from the past are similar. Like shorthand - the dictaphone more or less ended the need to learn that. We don't do maths with log tables and slide rules now either!
On the other hand there will be things that are taught now that weren't offered in the past, either because they weren't thought to be relevant or simply didn't exist. Other subjects have changed and developed too. In my day, PE was no more than an hour a week of humiliation on the sports field, but my DS is currently doing A level and it's a very challenging course. I think we'd have laughed at my school if anyone had suggested that PE had any academic component. Things change.

Oh god - is there an opposite to "every cloud has a silver lining?"

I did Arithmetic in addition to maths at O Grade too, much more useful longer term!

I also did 'Secretarial Studies' despite being fairly academic - I figured typing would be a useful skill and I could always temp if I needed to. I've fortunately never been unemployed or needed to temp, but my typing skills have always been useful!

At my school, they purposely put Secretarial Studies in the same column as Maths, so that more academic girls couldn't take it when we were choosing our O Grades!

So on the one hand, we all learned to cook, clean, sew, iron, darn our husband's socks, lay a formal table and hold enchanting small talk for when his boss came to dinner. On the other, if you were a bit more able, you were basically excluded from that traditionally female employment route. Mixed messages all the way.

It was ridiculous @Lessstressedhemum wasn't it? I think I got away with it because I desperately didn't want to do a language, and even though that was generally compulsory in my school, they let me opt out so it gave me a spare choice.

Same in my mixed grammar school in NI (late 70s/early 80s). Domestic Science was covered in the local tech too - heaven forbid a grammar school would have kitchens then!!! Did my RSA I & II in Typing over in the tech as well. Much later I did another course and got my RSA III.

Can't touch type nearly as fast now but still faster than most, so was able to type my MSc dissertation straight off the top of my head, which was so much easier than the earlier handwritten ones!

I was chucked out of my RSA III Typing class when I was 24 - for laughing!! Auld bag wouldn't let me back either! Luckily it was close to exams (I mean, what a cow!) - still must've stuck in her craw when I got a Distinction 😅

The top set could not do typing, I really wish I could have taken typing. As a young child both boys and girls were taught needlework, cookery, metalwork and woodwork. Then at senior school only girls could do dressmaking and cookery. Boys could do metalwork, woodwork and car maintenance.

I'm an MFL graduate (though not a teacher) and have always felt that Latin was useful to me for languages, but English too. Eldest DC is an MFL teacher but never got the chance to study Latin. Has some Mandarin though.

I found the Romance languages the easiest though, and one day when I have some leisure time, I will learn Italian! I can understand a bit plus a bit of Portuguese from Spanish and French. While I did O level German, I didn't enjoy it as much. I remember revising for the exam (not). We had a horrid brown/cream textbook called 'Aufenthalt in Deutschland'. I opened the front page and thought, "nah!" Managed to get a wholly undeserved B!

I did A levels in English, History, French and Spanish (graduated in Eng/Fr). Weird thing is, I can still communicate in both languages but blow me down if I can remember a lot about English or History (small bit still stuck from the special paper we did on the French Revolution 1789-1799, but that's IT!!

we did Deportment which to be honest a lot of us needed! and typing but only in transition year; incredibly useful, and I’ll say again I use something from Home Ec every single day 🇮🇪