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?

Economics should really be taught alongside maths. Students should learn how government spending operates, how to invest their money, how pensions work, mortgages, and so on.

Carpentry, woodwork, sewing and dressmaking - all incredibly important especially if we want to move away from consumerism and fast fashion.

I believe Romanian belongs to that group too. I learnt Romanian ( fluently) and Spanish ( adequately) very quickly and I'm sure that's because I learnt Latin at school.

I reckon basic good manners would be worthwhile then school children might end up being decent citizens!

I agree. A teacher friend of mine does a breakfast club for her kids at school. Some of them don't even know how to use a knife and fork.

Now that's interesting.
I didn't know that Romanian was a Latin-based language.
Well, "every day's a school day", as they say !

But if they don't know they need to know, they can't look it up, can they?

Agree with others that basic personal finance would be a good one, particularly about things like mortgages, interest on loans and how credit cards work. How not to get into debt would be useful, as would the difficulties that can be caused by such things as online gambling.

Maybe your rights as an employee, how tax codes work, workplace pensions etc. And how to put a proper cv together.

A lot of young people don't necessarily have parents at home who would know and understand all this, including those in homes where English is not their parents' first language.

Latin

How to use English pronouns

Times in everyday life where basic arithmetic is needed

Food values

How to darn a hole in a sock

Finances mortgage rates and percentages
Tyre checks & oil checks
How to make soup pasta dishes a roast dinner and bread
Laundry labels
How to sew on a button and darn socks
Cardiac resus and how to manage choking .

Respect
manners
punctuality
the way government and banking works
helping older people.
consequences of drink and drugs

I teach in an SLD special school. We teach many of these practical life skills:
gardening (at least twice a week)
preparing basic fruit and veg
basic hygiene and cooking
personal care- menstruation, teeth, hair etc
laundry and house care (cleaning up after lunch and snack, sorting, washing and caring for clothes, deciding what to wear)
shopping with money
road safety
swimming and keeping ourselves fit

The young people I teach don’t have the capacity for personal budgeting or understanding of political structures. We learn about jobs around us, safe people who can help us and appreciating arts. I love teaching our young people!

Espionage tradecraft

Common sense.
Courtesy - well maybe not taught, but seriously encouraged/reinforced.

Perhaps it would be more effective to have compulsory parenting classes and what you as a parent should be making sure you cover for the child you brought into this world.

Our teens know how to repair clothes because they saw me do it, they know how to open a bonnet and put in oil and screen wash, blow up a bike/car tyre/most importantly a football because they did it with us.

They are taught cooking at school but are much better cooks because they helped me when they were young and school cooking was easy (their kitchen skills were more advanced) and how they improve is practise, they regularly make weekend breakfast/dinner.

We give them money education but honestly what 16 year old needs to understand current mortgage terms and conditions it’s likely it will be 15 years before it’s applicable. And we

I think our schools already have a great balance, they teach all the academic stuff, before they chose GCSE subjects they had lessons or clubs (before school, lunchtime and after) for a huge range of topics and skills

in personal development they cover being a decent human
there is a make do and mend club
they have had first aid courses
Cycling proficiency (on real roads)
RE - is now REP - religious ethics and philosophy
debate and critical thinking

Means little if it isn’t developed at home

Philosophy and Ethics (A Level) was treated as the continuation of Religious Studies (GCSE) at my school- I think both are important! I'd be happy to see more philosophy woven into the RS curriculum, along with the debate, discussion and critical thinking skills that accompany it. I've seen people from the US properly jealous about our RS lessons in the UK, how our kids are provided a balanced education on world religion and culture.

I do agree about more financial literacy being included in the curriculum; we didn't cover nearly enough when I was in school and I've never heard my younger family members mention it today either! I appreciate some element of personal finance seems to be compulsory, but I think it should be woven into more subjects than just PSCHE and maths. I'd love to see these skills become part of the background knowledge you gain through learning other subjects, actually, rather than taking time away from them to sit through a finance lesson I can't imagine anyone would be paying much attention to.

I don't know if Latin should be more widespread, though I'd love it to be! It was the only thing that almost swayed me from my choice of secondary school, that one of the other schools taught Latin. I agree with PPs that one modern foreign language should be compulsory, though, and I'd love to see options widened from French, German, and Spanish where we can.

My grammar school DID teach personal finance and basic economics in sixth form - we had a double lesson once a week for a term as part of PHSE. I remember we covered something school called “civics and citizenship” which included things like voting, how constitutional democracy works, and the national Budget.

We learned about types of debt eg student loan, mortgages, credit card, personal loan, hire purchase, “buy now pay later.” And how to understand Ts and Cs / calculate interest.

We also learned how to compile a basic student personal budget in excel. We had pop quizzes on what it costs to buy a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk and so on.

It was really useful and I’ve always been surprised other schools don’t do it.

We do a lot of personal finance in Maths (in my 20 years as a Maths teacher!)

Compound interest is on the curriculum and we compare banks for mortgages and loans (state school).

Media studies
Financial literacy
Creativity
Critical thinking

These are parental jobs to teach! Teachers educate!

I think life skills - cooking, cleaning, budgeting, first aid etc should be taught in school because not all parents teach those things. I’d like to see more vocational options such as engineering/ beauty/ plumbing/ electrics/ mechanics/

Home Economics and Nutrition, from primary age. But they won't because Starbucks, KFC et al, the fast food economy, was worth +£40 billion a year in 2025.

The farmers' market economy was only £4 billion in the same period.

Critical Thinking.

I was going to say Media Studies but I was scared!

“Why don’t parents teach these things?” the Mumsnetters are screaming.

Probably because in many cases, both parents are having to work very long hours to make ends meet, as a result of the bills which we must teach our children about growing bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And the super-rich get richer. And richer. And richer. It’s much harder for parents to have the time to be teachers as well as everything else.

I think they should take off cookery/ food technology, that’s a parents job and it’s always such basic stuff. Switch it out for mechanics / car maintenance.
I’d also like to see Latin and Theology but not sure what should go to allow it.