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?

@Needmorelego In my system they would fill at least 60% of their timetable with electives, so I don't think they would be bored at all. :-)

Yes I was just thinking about this the other day. Almost everything that had been mentioned in this thread so far was taught when I was in high school in the mid 1990s in New Zealand, even the more random things like Latin and driving theory (including how to change a tyre). My DD coming along 31 years later has done some of the things mentioned, but there are certainly a number of them that have been stopped now so she hasn’t done them.

Yes but the "electives" you listed schools do already.
How is a primary age child meant to choose an elective anyway?
They need to experience a bit of everything in order to know what interests them and where their strengths are.

Eh? All of those are basic parenting. Perhaps apart from basic car maintenance. My parents taught me all of the others. Schools aren't there to do your parenting for you. FFS. It didn't used to be like this. What has happened?

Yay I'm sure the last thing teachers need is more work let alone the basics that parents should be teaching kids themselves but I suppose it's easier to blame school and the teachers that your kid is useless everything on your list I was taught by my parents school have enough on their plates

Nature. The natural world and how incredible it is (bird migration, for example). What bees do and why they're so important. Farming and where our food comes from. We are part of nature and it's good for our wellbeing to feel connected to it. Also, we won't value and protect it if we don't know about it.
I was so depressed on Saturday when people on the Picture Slam didn't recognise a sparrow.

I'm in Australia and here it's compulsory to learn a second language from prep to the end of high school I learnt Italian 😊

@Needmorelego They do very little of them, maybe once a week or on a carousel if you are lucky. This is why anyone who wants to pursue drama, sport, music, choir or chess does it out of school or in specialist schools. I think electives should have the same number of hours as core subjects, so that pupils could really get into things they love. (I think that you can learn how to learn in any subject if you pursue it to some depth, this is why the selection of subjects doesn't really matter to me below Y9 beyond English and maths.) I agree with you though that young pupils should try different types of electives until they find three or four they really like. They could do that in my system as well though.

Given the way the world is going at the moment, with anti-vaxxers and people determined to repeat the recent fascist past, this seems like a wildly and dangerously bad idea.

History and science taught well are fascinating for children!

Why on earth would you teach (and therefore have to find teachers for) languages, music, sport, choir etc, but not subjects that give everyone a good basic general knowledge of the world around them and are also the basis of many jobs. By Year 9 many children have disengaged from school and learning, it's better to get them interested in primary school when most are still enthusiastic.

Also, good luck teaching all the history and science on the curriculum in two years...

Parents are lazy and expect teachers to do everything and if it's not done good enough well they'll Come on here and rant about the teacher because it will be their fault ☹️ there's a post going at the moment from someone moaning that they have to potty train their 4yo because the school said they won't be changing her nappies all day as they don't have the time or staff

Sociology.

I think there have been so many changes in just the last 80-100 years and I think it’s as an important subject as RE.

Id like to see a curriculum that’s RE, philosophy and Sociology and a term is dedicated to each module each academic year.

@BelleEpoque27 You are quite right - but it is not working. Science is compulsory yet you still got anti-vaxxers. You also said why: "By Year 9 many children have disengaged from school and learning" - why do they disengage? Because they have to memorise a load of boring shit, which often they are too young to understand, anyway.

I would use the years up to year 8 to teach children to love learning by exploring subjects they love in depth. And then, when they are ready, teach them science and history really well.

I'm reminded of this great post by the biologist Bruce Alberts (a name every biologist will know) - I think you will like it: https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1873-3468.14272

‘A cell is a boring box full of named parts’ - indeed.

How to research and evaluate sources properly. The amount of people who think AI or newspapers can't possibly be wrong. I asked someone on X for a source last week...they asked Grok!

I think we may have covered this a bit in GCSE History

How and why emotions work.

@SoftIce sounds like you or your children just went to bad schools because the primary school I attended (80s) and the one my daughter attended (less than a decade ago) did absolutely loads of non-academic subjects (ie art, music, drama, dance, DT, cooking, crafts, gardening etc).
At my daughter's primary they were always doing some kind of creative projects.
(ordinary state LA semi inner city primary)

@Needmorelego That is possible. Your experience sounds great!

From talking to people I have met over my 50 years of life....my primary school experiences are fairly normal and most schools are like that.
It sounds like you had bad luck.

I agree, most of those should be taught by parents.

British sign language and makaton. I wish I'd learnt that instead of french, it would have been much more useful. I haven't needed to speak french since the end of year 11.

Personal finance is already part of the PSHE curriculum, the problem is at 14/15/16 the kids don't really take it seriously. They all assume they will earn loads of money and have amazing cars etc. Even when budget planning with an average salary they just don't get it - we live in a society where everything is instant and they assume that's the case.

I don't necessarily think we should be adding subjects per se. However I do think that we should be reviewing the curriculum for some subjects. Maths for example should be split into numeracy and maths. The former should include very practical examples of maths in the real world including how to add VAT and work out what the pre VAT price is, calculating tax liabilities and compound interest - especially compound interest.... I also imagine a number of DC might find maths itself more interesting if they could see it had a real life application - like calculating the load bearing requirements of a roof covered with snow.

I think a level of first aid that is more than just basic would also be useful. We did it as an extra curricular subject with St Johns coming in to teach us. My first employer was delighted that I only needed a refresher to be a work first aider.

I would love to see the Danish "Klassens tid" introduced here - the intentional teaching of empathy.

Danish students aged 6-16 have an hour a week together as a class where they learn and practice collaborative problem solving based on listening and understanding.

I would also like to see more focus on Critical Thinking - it's going to be so essential for young people in the coming years.

I think kids should be allowed to pick skilled trades at about 14. Rather than having to do a bunch of GCSEs in things like geography or languages they have no interest in. They should do a Maths and English for employment course alongside the trades training.

Agree re critical thinking.

with the rise of SM we really need to teach what you read and see isn’t always the truth.

When I was at school in Scotland in the 70s, we had 2 O Grade qualifications- maths and arithmetic. The stuff we learned in Arithmetic was useful numeracy that I've found helpful in life, unlike algebra, geometry and trigonometry which was what the maths section consisted of.