to seriously question whether these teens actually go to a good school?

[MyNameIsKenAdams]

Great Ofsted rating. Faith school. Aged 13-15. Some examples,
Not knowing which set they are in
Not knowing which sets are higher than others (have some sort of bizarre letter rating system)
Thinking it takes six hours to cook a chicken
Not knowing what I.C.T stands for even though they take classes in it
One of them (15) saying they want to be a Police Person when they grow up
One of them (15) saying the Harry Potter books are too complicated
Being unable to locate eastern Asia on a map

Plus more that I couldnt list

I dont hang around a lot of teens so ive no real idea but I am genuinely baffled at the lack of concrete knowledge between them.

Aibu or just expecting too much?

I have colleagues in their 50s who would have no clue about cooking a chicken, nor what ICT stands for. Despite working in an international business I reckon quite a few would struggle to identify Asia on map.

It's not just teens though. My dd told me they had great ICT facilities on a school residential trip which confused me greatly, as I pointed out surely Icy Tea isn't that popular among 8 year olds?

To be fair i did A' level geography and at 18 couldn't have told you where anywhere in the UK south of Sheffield was , except possibly London . I worked in the travel industry for a few years after leaving school and now know where just about every where is in relation to a globe. This knowledge is not at all usefull in my current role

Hong Kong is definitely in East Asia, As are Japan, both Koreas and Taiwan. Other countries you could argue about, China etc, and Indonesia and Philippines.

I agree about the general knowledge point.

I few years ago on the English gcse there was a newspaper article about jellyfish. The headline said something like 'an armada of jellyfish' and the students had to analyse the language.

The too marks went to those who discussed the connotations of the word 'armada' ie establishing the jellyfish as an intimidating enemy, connoting battle etc.

Only ONE of my TOP SET students talked about the word. When u asked them afterwards about 3/32 had heard of the Spanish Armada. I was gobsmacked.

At a level eng language the module on language change requires them to analyse language from 1700 and relate it to historical context. We cannot teach the history of the world from 1700, and so often the student who do well are the ones with the best general knowledge, who read, watch the news etc.

'Only ONE of my TOP SET students talked about the word. When u asked them afterwards about 3/32 had heard of the Spanish Armada. I was gobsmacked. '

That is also the narrowness of the curriculum. DS loves history.
But he did WW2 at primary, and at KS4 and would have had to cover WW2 and the political aftermath at A level, so he didn't do A level history.
Too boring, he wanted Romans, Vikings, Normans and Crusaders and Medieval whatnots.
I have an O level in Medieval history, due to the oddity of my teacher and her passion for that era.