Lessons you had in school that you’re not sure still happens

[Soubriquet]

I remember doing cookery, woodworking and something with a solder iron. I can still remember the smell of the solder burning.

I did those in year 7. I also remember having to rush to local supermarket with my parents cos I needed last minute ingredients for my cookery lessons

My dd is in year 8 but she doesn’t do any of these lessons

hymn practice. music lessons now seem much more fun and contemporary music but then they don't sing a hymn every assembly so I guess they don't need it.

Yeah, my DDs still do the experiments themselves. My year 7 dissected a lamb’s lungs before Christmas. What’s the point in a practical lesson if you’re just watching someone else do it?!

We had typing and sewing machine lessons. I’m 42. The older girls had deportment lessons though- things like getting in and out of a car like a lady and how to set a table for a fancy dinner party. That teacher retired before it was our turn and those lessons were discontinued.

Yes we had Classical Background as a subject learning about the Greeks. It was really easy and enjoyable.

Yes I was taught a few life skills too like buttons and plug wiring. Also how to read a meter, write a cheque and correctly address a letter (the actual physical layout). Strange! Lots of the boys did gardening 😳

I moved schools a lot and remember people saying blithely 'oh yes, you lose a subject with every move' because of the different pace subjects were being taught.

We also did discus throwing, shotput and javelin in PE. Also can anyone remember the really heavy medicine ball used in PE?

Oh i have no.idea i am old but not "jane Austen" old 😉😀

Typing!!

It's just one of those things I've always wondered about.
In that era the boys were usually sent of to boarding school but the girls educated at home (sometimes several families sharing a governess).
I assume they all had dance lessons.
It's the side we never see on Bridgerton (which isn't exactly historically accurate 😂)

They probably had dance lessons and such with just girls and if men were involved there would be chaparones.

I'm really curious now.
Did the boys learn at school?
Did younger pupils have to do the girls parts?
I really want to know now 😂

I love this thread! It's bringing back so many memories. I left school in 1979. In middle school, Friday afternoon was 'Craft' across all 4 sessions. It was a 6 week rotation of different crafts - woodwork, pottery, basket making, pewter work and art. It was the only lesson I enjoyed. We had an outdoor swimming pool there - unheated - and we had to get in and get our shoulders under. Shudder. We also did cross country running - I'm not sure if schools still do that (my DC's schools didnt).

High school; home economics was basically dressmaking. I'm surprised at so many PPs saying they hated the sewing machines. I loved sewing and rattled through projects at such a pace that the teacher had to find me extra projects.

My kids both did/are doing a term of food tech in years 7 and 8. Interestingly my dd at a girls' school also did textiles (and is taking a gcse in it) whereas my ds at a boys' school doesn't get to do any textiles.

Me neither ,Northern soul was my chosen medium of dance.

I hope nowadays year 9 girls don't do a "sexy dancing" module in PE! It was made extra awful by the fact that the hall was overlooked by a small classroom and there were a load of sixth form boys presumably on a free period who were watching 🤢🤢🤢

Classical Studies.

Hated sewing! my mum used to have to finish garments for me 😑

We had this, i.saw a few other posters did too, it was taught by the teacher i mentioned who taught Scripture so once she retired, it was dropped as a subject.

Private school ?

I went to an ordinary secondary nothing posh or private.

Edited i think i used the wrong phrase !

Something I remembered when the sad news in Switzerland broke; we learned all about what to do in different types of fire. Which extinguishers to use for electrical fires etc - even feeling the weight of them and having to pull the pin out and smash an alarm glass with enough pressure. I do think this seems to be being missed.

Classics was taught at my very ordinary comprehensive school too in the 1970s. I recall having to take the part of Ariadne in our class presentation of Theseus and the Minotaur.

The school also put on a production of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde. I was a cow, marching onto the ark singing Kyrie Eleison. The boy who liked me said I should have been a lovely deer 😄.

I'll get flamed, but I think standards of teaching and expectations of what children could and should be taught were generally higher then in the state system. Probably a hangover from the grammar school system which had just been abolished.

We did cooking, really basic stuff

Woodwork - oh the smell of the glue gun

I do remember some eyes being dissected in biology

From reading some horror posts on here, I think our PE department was actually fairly tame.

We had to wear the awful knicker shorts in year 7, but the two ladies who taught us were actually fairly cool about lessons: you could just sit on the side and do nothing, no showers, etc.

Ds is in y7 and did textiles last term and is now doing cooking. He has woodwork next term and cant remember what the last one is but his school does have an area for blacksmithing when he's older.