What would you like to see studied at school?

[changedmyname24]

We have just been having an interesting chat as a family, about what we think should be taught at school.

I am in favour of a Life Skills subject for all students, incorporating:

• Growing fruit & veg in a garden, pots or an allotment
• Preparing said fruit & veg
• Cooking basic meals
• Basic car maintenance eg changing a tyre, checking oil etc
• Laundry - from sorting to ironing
• Mending clothes
• Budgeting
• Paying bills
• Basic first aid

I think that some of these would alleviate pressure on other services, such as the NHS, so would be of national benefit.

What would you add?

When I was at school (1977 born) we had visits from a dental nurse to help with that kind of thing.

Personal finance for sure

I would like them to get on with the Natural History GCSE and make it compulsory. People need to understand the impact of their actions on the environment.

Agree with pp about a foreign language to GCSE, too.

And I'd make Maths a double GCSE. So much time gets spent on it, you should get two GCSEs for your efforts like you do with science.

(this is rather England/Wales/NI focused, sorry, I don't know enough about what's compulsory and not in Scotland).

When you talk about teaching practical skills are they actually something that can be taught? I think you either have the manual dexterity to manage to do things or you don't. It's a bit like art although I suppose you can be taught certain techniques. But you can have levels of art whereas if you plumb in a washing machine it needs to work!

Debating so that people can see a different point of view to their own and learn to look at differing points of view constructively/critically

Debt and bill and credit management

How British Parliamentary democracy works.

It’s astonishing how many people, including the well educated, don’t understand why we don’t have a general election every time we get a new Prime Minister. This level of ignorance of the basics of how our system of government functions is bad for our democracy

No wonder,it's the poor kids that are put into school not able to use toilets and clean themselves.
Use of cutlery etc
It's not a teachers job to pick up this mantle
They've enough to do..IE teach.

No, school time should not be used for things that are common sense or can be very easily found online.
Paying bills?? All bills do come with v clear instructions on how to pay.
Personal finances - Don’t spend more than what you earn. Don’t use credit for daily expenses. Set money aside for pension and unexpected issues.
Food prep and car maintenance - easily found online
Laundry - sort white / colours / dark. Follow
instructions from detergent pack. Wash at 40 if really dirty / 30 if not too dirty.

The only thing I would keep from your list is basic first aid.

I studied Latin. It has really helped me not only with other languages but also with botany, biology as well as English. I think the discipline also helped with logic and structured thinking.

I agree with including financial management.

We also have to raise the status of teachers and respect their skills. Too often now they're stuck to a rigid curriculum. Energy goes on managing the one or two disruptive individuals in the class and the rest all suffer. They also tell me they're allocated to teach subjects they know very little about.

My kids do learn cooking, first aid, budgeting and basic mending of clothes. The rest is pretty hard to get wrong and should b picked up at home. Maybe a class for kids from dysfunctional homes who need extra support, but I'd find it ridiculous for my kids to learn about laundry at school when there are better things to do.

I'd like more current critical thinking, an exploration of online algorithms and the motives behind them. I'd love to see a generation more aware of their echo chambers and more cynical about everything they read on line.

Everyone always says gardening, but try dividing that into one hour slots once a week for 30 pupils, and finding everyone something to do

Agreed, but I'm a Classics graduate so I would say that, wouldn't I! I also think all children should learn a second language from a very young age so they aren't self-conscious about it when they start.

Lots of basic science, history and geography because this should be fundamental general knowledge.

Sign language I think would be good.

Basic maintenance type things such as changing a fuse etc

Latin was dropped in our school in the 70s because nobody wanted to do it and it's never returned.

Cooking is taught, isn’t it? I did it at school.
Basic car maintenance was taught by my driving instructor.

Sorting laundry?? That doesn’t need teaching. It’s very simple.
Mending clothes - I did “textiles” at my school for one term a year in years 7-9 (rotated with cooking, and wood work) and that taught basic sewing, using a sewing machine, don’t think we did clothes but we did cushion covers, that sort of thing. This was 20 years ago. Not sure how many schools do it but my next door neighbour now is a textiles teacher at the local secondary.

Budgeting - it’s just adding and subtracting!
First aid we definitely did.
We did how to change a fuse in science.

Good God. My mother did “subjects” like that in the 30s. And that was at a grammar school. Most of those are parental guidance!

This.

A lot of that list is taught in schools.
My daughter's (semi inner-city with no outside green space) primary school created an allotment and grows various plants and fruit/veg.
Cooking is taught from as early as Nursery class.
Sewing. First Aid. Financial stuff. Politics.
All taught in various ways at different ages.
These threads are always baffling.

Money management and budgeting.

Cooking.

Treatment of others and how to look after your mental health (Is that what they cover in PSHE?).

How to find a job and plan your career and how to do so in the age of AI (I think kids need to be told what jobs probably won’t be around or are likely to be gone eventually because of AI).

Critical thinking and appreciation that people can have different views on different things and that’s ok.

And self defence (especially for girls).

You want schools to teach all the day to day things parents should be teaching their kids?

Are you not teaching your own kids all this stuff?

A lot of parents don’t bother. They’re too busy with their noses in their phones to bother with their kids/ don’t have the skills.

Yes exactly. There's a lot of stuff that's quite tricky to actually teach to 30 children at once (and no they can't be split into groups because there is no additional adult). The current DT curriculum has cooking healthy foods as an objective for primary children but it's hard to actually cook in primaries, particularly ones with no kitchen so you end up with children making things like smoothies.

It's almost 35 years since I was last in school, so I imagine things have changed a bit, but our sex education covered the fundamentals but none of the emotional aspects. Perhaps this is taught now, but I think kids need to learn that not everyone will find it easy to date/get a partner (despite popular culture making it look easy) and also how to handle romantic rejection.

At my school it was compulsory for two years and then about half the year took it as an optional subject for O level. We were very lucky to have the chance to take Ancient Greek as well. As far as I know the school has taught Latin and Greek continuously ever since it was founded 150 years ago. (Now merged with the boys' school which I imagine taught Latin and Greek from its foundation, so that's nearly five hundreds of years of tradition.) I believe Latin and Greek are terrific subjects in their own right, but the influence of the Classical period on English and other literature, art and architecture, philosophy, science, engineering and through history has been enormous, so a knowledge of Classical Civilisation and literature is very beneficial all round.

Resilience. Relationships. Respect. Life skills. Contentment and how to achieve it. How to build confidence. The importance of kindness but also of avoiding toxic people.

As parents we do try but teens by nature often don’t listen to parents. Also needs to be across the board.