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

My DD is in the equivalent of year 8 (1st year) in Ireland. She does all of these.

Oh she does! It just came to me the other night that I had never heard her mention things like cookery and woodworking

Grammar school - Seventies. We did cookery every week. And we learned all the basics. I can make every type of pastry (not that I do, of course). I learned all the cake making methods, sauces. desserts, ways of preparing and cooking vegetables, meat fish etc. Everything I know I learned then. I particularly remember making puff pastry, then wrapping strips of it around those conical metal things to make cream horns. And also, on one occasion, a proper Christmas cake, iced and decorated (must have cost a fortune)! It was a most excellent grounding. My daughter’s more recent experience of “Food Technology” was way inferior.

Perhaps an oddly specific one: writing a children's story? I remember doing this in year 8. We were given children's stories to look at, such as Six Dinner Sid, to look at the language used, and then told to invent one.

@FirstCuppa We were never taught to use fire extinguishers, but I remember reading the instructions on them with fascination. We watched lots of videos about fire safety, but the emphasis was always get the hell out of there, rather than trying to tackle the fire yourself. The lovely book from the 1970s "Phoebe and the Hot Water Bottles" was discredited, because she uses her hot water bottles to put out a fire.

I very vaguely remember that it was because of some terrible incident that had happened where children died in a fire (we were about 11 so around 1990-3) so maybe it wasn't strictly part of the curriculum, but I certainly think it should be.

as said earlier, I was at school in the 1970s, and they set their own curriculum. some lessons do not seem to be done now or are under new names. The ones I remember are;
Music and Movement
commerce
typing
home entertainment where we cooked lunch for teachers, cleaned and kept a place tidy, had a room put by for this with full furniture, sofa, chairs, table etc
home economics
needlework, remember some girls making wedding dresses!
rural science was a very rural school lots of farmers kids so most of them knew all about country life
child care

When I was at school girls food Home Economics (cookery and sewing) and boys did woodwork and metalwork and technical drawing. I’m 55 so that’s probably why!

I wanted to do home economics because I was interested in cooking.
Nope you can't it's only for girls.
I hated woodwork,tech drawing.
I'm slightly older thankfully times have changed

Same age and same situation.

My dc are at different secondary schools and both schools do food tech, DT and textiles

My kids’ schools don’t teach cookery, DT or sewing (neither primary nor secondary). To be honest I don’t think I got much benefit from any of my own lessons in those subjects. I bought a mini sewing machine from hobbycraft a couple of years ago. I couldn’t get the thread at the proper tension and then couldn’t sew a straight line.
I wonder if there’s any evidence for cookery lessons in school actually helping reduce the amount of people who have no clue how to cook healthy food for themselves. Genuinely curious about that.
On a tangent I read recently that over 40% of secondary schools didn’t enter anyone for music GCSE which did shock me.

Nope - big comprehensive and then smaller school on remote Scottish island.

A lot depended on the type of school. I went to a comprehensive but it had been a secondary modern so had equipment like typewriters (they folded in to the desk so you could write as well as type).

We also had loads of domestic science rooms, three sewing rooms. There was even a 'flat' where you could learn to clean a bath and toilet, make a bed etc.

Lessons I did that don't exist, I'm fairly sure, hymns, we had a class where we learned and sang hymns.

Actually the curriculum for computer science is very similar. There are different peripherals and programming languages but binary has not changed.

Lessons I did that I don't think anyone does any more

Hymns. Yep we had hymn singing on the timetable.

The school did teach typing but it was 'only' CSE and was an option from fourth year.

One thing they stopped doing in biology is testing your blood to find out your blood group.

We had three years of compulsory cooking and needle work. If you took 'Domestic Science' for CSE / O Level then you learned to iron, use starch, clean a bath and toilet (I never saw it but there was a studio flat to teach cleaning).

My daughter does those lessons still DT and Food Tech

I’m late 50s. Did classics and Latin. And learnt how to touch type on a manual typewriter. Both these things have been remarkably useful.

elocution classes.

some seriously weird stuff in chemistry with mercury.

testing your blood group in biology.

My youngest hasn’t done any cooking (year 8, the school is struggling to provide it to all students for various reasons. Since we’ve started at the school cooking has nearly disappeared, Spanish gone (recruitment issues), music, dance both gone. Drama is now being taught within English. I think it’s such a shame for the curriculum to be narrowed to such a degree from such a young age.

Too much focus on maths, English and science I think, when I was growing up we were taught these to a good level (I came out with top grades) while still having lots of other subjects year 7-9.

Just wondered was it a private - fee paying school? sounds a good one

Classical Studies.

My youngest learnt to weave at primary school and he's only 16 🤣 Only the kids who didn't take French had the option of cooking at secondary though, I'm not sure what that's implying...

I did a year of Latin but the teacher left and wasn't replaced. I was much better at Latin than French so might have kept it up, but didn't have the chance.

Shorthand,bet nobody uses it now.

Typewriting
Commerce
Motor mechanics (rebuilding the engine of a moped)
Workshop electrics (wiring a plug, using a soldering iron, etc)
Sewing (making things with a sewing machine)
Technical drawing
Shorthand

typing - which is still useful - I am quick on the computer keyboard.
I taught needlework in the 80's - school skirt (year 9), blouses/simple dress year 10/11. Clothes for children - little dresses with smocking across the top - feeling old.😊

Spelling . Just one period per week. Occasional competitions with a small prize. I won a few bob.