to think there are an awful lot of skills lacking in the next generation if this is anything to go by?

[Toodamnnosy]

Went to a year 10 parents meeting at a selective academic grammar school in an affulent area:-

3 things that were said to the group as the whole that made me think the above:

They are finding that there are a substantial number of pupils who:

1. don't know how to use a landline telephone (e.g. don't realise if pick up that's the same as pressing green button on mobile)

2. don't know where the address goes on an envelope (e.g. often put where the stamp should go)

3. have never travelled without a parent/adult and do not know how to catch a train/bus (this is a small town with good public transport)

AIBU to think if you have got to 14/15 years of age without being shown, used any of these things, then god help you when you leave home - if ever!

As a former teacher who taught in deprived areas, it doesn't surprise me one bit. I can well remember pupils who had to catch one bus from their own district to the city centre on work experience worrying they couldn't cope with the journey.

And in one project I worked in there were teenagers on probation orders claiming they couldn't come to appointments as they had no money for a taxi: they couldn't catch a bus as they couldn't read a bus timetable or work out where the stops were.

Work related telephone skills are different to home. Seldom at home do you pick up a call, work out who it's for, transfer a call to different set or put the caller on hold. Also you seldom have to dial 9 for an outside line at home. When I started working in an "office" rather than a warehouse I had to learn all this stuff.
Work experience in Yr 10 can be a useful time for learning that life is not all like it is home.

I suspect the most useful thing a couple of teens I had to sheepard on W/E the other year learnt was " if you don't get out of bed and show up, you are told to leave the company and not come in again" We were a supposedly " desirable placement" & had a list several times longer than we could take for placements. These kids had managed the application stage but failed badly during the week.

Dontcallmebaby that is my worry tbh as we are also instructed that we cannot enter the classroom with our children!!!!! personally this suits me fine as I don't want all the "Please don't leave me mummy" stuff. However I also have to get to work so can't wait until the teacher takes dd into the classroom.

The landline thing is just a sign that technology has moved on and many people don't use or have landlines anymore. It's like me saying I wouldn't know how to use a mangle. Nobody would say I was lacking an essential skill.

Ditto envelopes - probably sometime soon letter writing will become obsolete,

The public transport thing is the only one that really bothers me.