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?

That a pay rise is not always a good thing due to how much more tax you have to pay or it could push you into the next tax bracket

Sad how so many of us regard learning languages as a useful practical skill when there's so little emphasis now. Learning French was probably the thing that had most impact on my life.

We really didn’t learn anything practical, or if we did it was lost on me!

Unfortunately nothing that useful. That said my dad taught me to wire a plug and my mum and grandmother taught me to cook, my parents were excellent financial role models, budgeting etc.

Reading, writing, basic arithmetic and domestic science. I couldn't have gone on to do my profession without the first three.

Went to a pretty dreadful school. However, a couple of useful and enduring skills for cooking and saving time: clean up as you go along and always measure dry ingredients first. Seems obvious, but the number of times I’ve stared in wonder at a kitchen in which it appears war has broken out but in which someone has merely coddled an egg…

To stand up for yourself and if someone hits you always make sure you hit them back.

Mental arithmetic, especially calculating percentages and working with fractions.

Sewing, knitting - we had knitting class as part of the school schedule around age 10/11, and Home Ec in secondary for sewing and basic cookery and baking.

Reading comprehension. We did the Wide Range Readers series and had to answer the comprehension questions after each passage or poem nightly for homework.

Speaking in front of a group, and also singing. We had Elocution and Deportment as part of the curriculum in primary school from about age 7, with annual exams / performances assessed by examiners from a London speech and drama school.

French and German.

Love of art - I was lucky enough to go to a school where art was really encouraged.

All girls primary school - this was an invaluable experience because of the confidence it nurtured.

How to project my voice in acting and poetry recitation, which I never used for reciting poetry but was useful when giving presentations to large groups of people and talking over the pest of a colleague who always tried to talk over me.

How do you do this, @DemonicCaveMaggot?

I loved home economics
I learned all the fabric advice on clothes labels from home economics classes .
So the circle with the cross means do not tumble dry etc.

I went to an all girls boarding school. in the sixth form we had a subject called 'General studies'. We learned about the internal combustion engine, some politics, how to change a washer in a tap and, most usefully at the time, how to wire up a plug. Everything nowadays comes with plugs attached but it was an essential skill back then and has proved extremely useful.

We also did sewing and cookery, both useful.

Ooh, really? I must start looking at them!