What useful practical things did you learn at school?

[Yourinmyspot]

I remember in cooking or home economics as it was called then, things like always using the back rings on the cooker and leaving pan handles turned inwards. I still do this and only use the front rings if more than two pans.

Also always remember being taught things like storing cooked meat above raw in the fridge and coming up with my own rhyme to remember ‘cooked above raw, or your bum will be sore’.

We were also taught how to wire a plug and I remember how pleased I was when I did my own plug at home, my Dad was impressed.

What are yours?

Nothing like that, my mum and dad taught us that kind of thing, though we did do domestic science.

Percentages are quite useful when shopping or looking up mortgages, and ratios for doubling up baking recipes.

We spent a lot of time thinking about 'sources' in GCSE history, and its useful now when I'm reading news.

We did do DT at school but sewing and cooking I learnt at home, and wood/metal work I was always frightened of the saws and a bit rubbish at.

Free music lessons and loan of instruments. Presumably we could just learn one (I can't remember) so I got to grade 7 for free.

Circuitry, wiring and plugs.

DT - saws, pillar drills, bending perspex etc. Using a sewing machine and a paper pattern. Cooking.

Art - pottery mainly.

We had 2 extra GCSEs you could take at lunchtimes so I did those. Weirdly, those are the subjects I remember the most detail from!

Orchestra and choir if you fancied it plus associated trips.

Duke of Edinburgh award (I didn't do this).

Just an ordinary comp.

I remember being told never to put a sponge in the fridge as it absorbed smells and not to bang an oven door.

Touch-typing is the most useful thing I learned at school.

I did woodwork and it's come in surprisingly useful through my life, mostly in DIY,

How to avoid the smoke alarms in the loo.
How to lock toilet cubicle doors from the inside and get out without unlocking them.
How much vodka to add to a coke bottle of orange squash.
Exactly which hedge to crawl under during cross country.
Some interesting new words.
And how to see a hem. The former were a lot more fun but the last one is what I've had the most use out of so it all worked out.

Sewing and letter writing. You'd think I went to school with Jane Austen.

I’d forgotten about letter writing. I do remember that you couldn’t have to S’s together so if you started a letter Dear Sir or Madam it ended with your’s Faithfully not Sincerely.

Can't say I learned anything practical in school lessons at all. We didn't do any proper cooking, it was all baking (scones, rock buns, cakes etc). All I remember from woodwork was making a wooden fish and strangely enough I've never had to make a wooden fish in real life. Can't recall anything at all about art. Our school didn't offer touch typing nor computing.

What I found most useful is actually from doing stage lighting for school productions, so not lessons at all, but from other older pupils, which included wiring a plug, changing light bulbs, how to safely climb and foot ladders, using ropes/pulleys to lift things instead of trying to carry them up the ladder with you, what fuses to use with different wattages of lights both on their own or where they're in pairs/groups, etc, using different colour filters, etc. Funny how all that useful real life stuff was learned from other pupils rather than formal lessons!

I was in the bottom set for maths so they figured that we weren’t going to be working as scientists or engineers so they taught us maths for use in life.
In those days VAT was 17.5% so we learned how to work that out in your head.
How to take off % discounts.
How to roughly add up a trolly of shopping on the go.
How to work out change.
What compound interest is and how it works.
Working out the amount of paint, tiles or carpet you would need.

That sounds awesome and very useful indeed - probably better real life skills than pupils with good GCSE grades in Maths!

German and French.

And stats and probability too. I used it a lot
In my work.

Which order to wash dishes and to check the contents of a flour dredger before rolling out pastry. I had increasingly sticky puff pastry during an exam only to find out icing sugar was in the flour dredger from the previous class lesson!

Touch typing at lunch time for DoE

Cooking, sewing - I already did those at home. Same with wiring a plug.

DT was a bit helpful but not much.

@ChompandaGrazia I wish I had learned those things . Actually useful life skills. Went to convent school on 70s . Home Economics was like something from the 30s . Roast stuff heart anyone ? Boiled onions in white sauce ? Bleuh . Meanwhile at home we were making curries and macaroni cheese . They also attempted to make me learn to darn socks . Just why ? Useless as only thing I do find useful is a smattering of French .

Sewing I learnt at home. Cooking - how to weigh/measure ounces of sugar and flour without scales, just with tablespoons, and to wash up as I went along.

Home economics was indeed an invaluable lesson, not just for cooking but also for things like household budgeting, utility bills, mortgages and nutrition what the vitamins and minerals are, their function and what foods they are in, how to prepare healthy meals for a family, using leftovers and cooking on a budget. I think we also learned how heating, water and electric systems work in the home - unsure if that was something on the curriculum or specific to the teacher but I could change a fuse or rewire a plug when I left school thanks to this.

You don't need to follow every fashion trend, most are short lived ( non uniform school). Female sexuality is powerful. Friendships are important. Being the first year of a major change is shit.

Cycling proficiency

I learn home economics from my parents

Maths and physics have both served me well - be it for work or working out shelving or paint volumes

Physical geography has been great to help me understand landscape - I love being ouside

History is useful but depressing

French and German were probably the only things I learned that were of any practical use but I think there's more to education than that. I don't like a reductionist, Gradgrindian utilitarian approach to education.

There are subjects I studied which sparked an interest in various topics which as an adult, I've followed up through reading, listening to podcasts or watching tv programs and YouTube videos.

Even if you take a practical approach to education, it's impossible to know which subjects will be of practical use to which students because teachers wouldn't know which career any given pupil will choose to follow in the future.

Maths and French mainly.
Also, our headteacher who took us for scripture for a term in the upper fifth explained about letter writing and showed us to fold the letter paper and put it in the envelope double sides up rather than folded. This was so you didn't cut the letterbin half when you opened the envelope with your silver letter knife!

She also told us about a girl from her missionary days. Every month they had to wash the rags they used as sanitary towels and hang them on washing lines. She told us how it was noticed a friend hadn't had any and that was how they guessed she was pregnant. This led to a discussion about how hard being a single parent/giving away a baby was and dealing with the judgement.

Using a computer.
Food hygiene.
Washing up.
Reading plans, maps and diagrams.
Playing musical instruments.
Dancing.
Gymnastics.
Embroidery.
Nutrition.
Hygiene.
Economics.
Banking.
Useful mathematical concepts, such as percentages, compound interest, area, volume, geometry, calculating dimensions and angles.
Using tools.
Painting.
Drawing.
Reading wiring diagrams.
Computer programming.

When to use "your's" and when to use "Yours".

😁

I went to a rural all girls grammar school so -
Sewing/embroidery (my DD asked me the other day to show her)
Painting with watercolours (actually really useful in my chosen career)
Baking
Wiring a plug and basic circuitry (this was in primary)
Academically I didn't feel like I did very well at all in comparison to some girls, but when I got to uni I found writing essays and my dissertation a LOT more straightforward than my peers. To the point where I felt I wasn't working hard enough, but my marks were good, so on reflection I'd been taught quite an efficient way of studying. Purely by osmosis!