Teachers: is there a general subject that teaches topics including rights on marriage vs co-habitation, pensions and life knowledge, etc

[DontDrinkDontSmokeWhatDoIDo]

And if there isn't, AIBU to think there should be?

It's shocking to see on here that there are still regular posts where (usually) a mum who has had children with a partner and isn't married to them, is horrified to find out they have little no rights to property etc on splitting.

And posters who say 'marriage is just a piece of paper', not realising the protection it gives them (or the impact it could have on them, if they are the higher earner).

Etc etc.

Also the number of posts in the money section where people haven't started a pension (however small) and are now in difficulty.

Or those who haven't claimed child benefit because their partner is over the threshold but didn't realised they themselves would benefit from National Insurance contributions if they claims but declined the benefit element.

Or mums that stopped worked when children came along, 'encouraged' by their partner to do so, who now find themselves unskilled and under pressure?

So many life skills / knowledge about choices seem to have passed people by.

Is there a subject that covers things like these, and if not, AIBU to think there should be?

In my school we call it Cultural Literacy and it is one lesson per week for Y10/11/12/13

@NotDavidTennant

Something a parent should be teaching as a basic.

By that argument schools shouldn't teach reading, writing and arithmetic as those are all basic, so why aren't parents teachning them?

I’d imagine many do.

One problem is that teenagers are, in the main, not particularly interested in learning about tax, etc. It is all a bit distant.

The thing about cohabitation versus marriage:

I really wish this was taught in schools during PSHE, but I can see reasons why it would be controversial.

Because of the way this issue has generally been framed, it's really hard to discuss the desirability of being married before having kids, without sounding like some judgey church lady. It's possible to think that marriage generally protects women and children without being either religious or conservative, but it can be hard to get people to see this.

A very large part of the reason why women are usually much safer getting married before they have kids is because women's careers are on average impacted MUCH more by children's than men's are. We all know this happens. And yet, in schools dealing with schoolgirls, encouraging them to get their qualifications, to aim high, to have careers and be optimistic about their future working lives, I think there would be hesitancy about actually saying out loud to these girls: "Look, it's not pretty and it's rubbish that things tend to be this way, but the honest, truthful reality is that your career will most likely be pranged to a certain extent if you ever reproduce. Given this fact, marriage is a good way to protect yourself." Nobody wants to say this out loud to girls; it smacks of defeatism and pouring cold water on their ambitions. And yet if we don't say this out loud, it's impossible to state truthfully the real reasons why marriage tends to protect mothers.

Laying out the facts about the risk of cohabitation and parenting also requires you to spell out the facts about how cohabiting relationships are less stable, the guys are on average a lot less committed--and the trouble is that a really high % of kids are now in families where the parents are not married, and stating any of this will feel a personal insult.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

basic life knowledge and skills

Something a parent should be teaching as a basic. I’m amazed at how many feel so much should be down to schools and tax payers to teach and finance children they chose to have.

You're going to be fuming about your tax going to another generation of those you sneeringly despise if you're not prepared to let them be educated. What a nasty post. When is it EVER the children's fault if their parents aren't in a position to or don't support them? Honestly, comments like this make me so angry that people can be so selfish. Unclench and try looking for some empathy.

IceCreamAndCandyFloss (misnomer if there ever was one) was on another thread slagging off women who had a baby during COVID. Not sure what she is actually doing on a parents' site, to be honest.

PHSE , British values and SMSC covers this
Some banks also offer schools courses.

@NotDavidTennant

Something a parent should be teaching as a basic.

By that argument schools shouldn't teach reading, writing and arithmetic as those are all basic, so why aren't parents teachning them?

Many parents do teach their kids these basic literacy and numeracy skills which is why as with anything in school, the kids who have the most parental input in developing any skill do better than those who don’t receive parental input and support.

In school, children learn academic knowledge from a wide range of (mainly) pure disciplines alongside pastoral life skills that they experience or may come across as a teenager (Sex education, healthcare, relationships, college and vocational applications, drugs, nutrition, social media, crime, internet safety etc. because with limited time available in the timetable, most schools have prioritised and handpicked these issues as being relevant and important to most kids in this age range over things like pensions and council tax. There isn’t enough time to teach the core subjects effectively let alone find time to teach even more life skills.

Fair enough - seems the majority think I am being unreasonable.

I honestly think more time should be allocated to sports / activity / life knowledge within the education system, and less time shoe-horning in topics that will never be relevant.

There are many, many, many parents who don't have this critical life information to pass on - I'd like there to be options to break the cycle.

It's in no way a criticism of the teachers - just a topic I care about.

"I honestly think more time should be allocated to sports / activity / life knowledge within the education system, and less time shoe-horning in topics that will never be relevant."

It depends on the purpose of schools. Is it to educate and open young eyes to a breadth of subjects, so that they can eventually narrow their interests down for A levels and further/higher education, or to plug gaps left by useless parents so that their kids can function at a basic level in society?

I think I'd have been cross if hours were wasted telling my kids stuff that they already knew. I can talk to them about relationship choices and pensions, but can't teach them a foreign language.

Maybe there's an argument for doing both but what to get rid of to make space in the curriculum?

Our school teaches relationships as part of Sex Ed. We talk about the benefits of monogamous and long-term relationships, and get complaints that we're judging people who have a succession of short-term relationships etc I can't imagine those parents being happy about us extolling the financial benefits of marriage.

@NotDavidTennant

Schools do not have the time or resources to plug the gaps in life knowledge. This is parental responsibility.

Schools have the time and resources to teach knowledge that most people will never use like quadratic equations or oxbow lakes, but they don't have the time and resources to teach about basic life knowledge and skills? In what world does that make sense?

Because anyone wanting to move on to uni to study engineering, for example, would be a bit fucked if they didn’t have basic knowledge of quadratic equations. Just because you don’t use something in your everyday life doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.

Cultural Literacy, Digital Literacy, Economic Literacy etc. Comes along with Soft Skills and Citizenship at my school.

There are a gazillion important non-academic life things which kids should learn. Schools would only have time to teach them all in any meaningful way if you got rid of at least half of the current curriculum. Parents need to bring up their children. Schools cannot do it for them.

@NotDavidTennant

Schools do not have the time or resources to plug the gaps in life knowledge. This is parental responsibility.

Schools have the time and resources to teach knowledge that most people will never use like quadratic equations or oxbow lakes, but they don't have the time and resources to teach about basic life knowledge and skills? In what world does that make sense?

If schools only taught children what would be directly relevant to every single one of them in later life, 99% of the curriculum wouldn’t even be taught. You’d only have to teach children how to calculate the right amount of change, how to read a sentence and basic chemistry like boiling and freezing and melting so they could cook.

Learning about WW2, kings and queens, atomic structure, conversing in French, Pythagoras, classic literature, natural selection, mountains, rainforests, homeostasis, immunology, ratios, forces, electricity, Mozart, the elements, art etc. all contribute to opening up as many future doors as possible for each child in terms of careers and interests whether that be university or trades or something else. It’s the beauty of knowledge to expand their mind.

You don’t have to be a mathematician or a physicist to use maths. We use algebra, loci, ratios, exponential graphs, geometry, statistics much more thank we think we do in lots of indirect ways. Being competent at these skills makes life a little bit easier.

I, and colleagues, have covered a lot of that in PSHE lessons over the years and a deal more.

The actual topics, depth etc etc depends on who is in charge of pshe, those staff who write and deliver those modules, who can be brought in to explain to pupils etc. At one time banks would send staff in to talk to pupils about finance, how to write a cheque etc.

As I wasn't in every lesson I can’t say in how much detail they were taught in.

However not everything sinks into young ears and so parents also have a responsibility too.

If every expert, group, parent had a direct say in how much time was to be spent on each subject, each aspect of education children wouldn’t have time to come home.

There is precious little time as there is - particularly when there is an external push to be at the top of the exam result table.

Those subjects that are deemed to be hard, expensive to teach, don’t make as much of an impact on the result table as other subjects, don’t figure on results tables etc tend to get squeezed out of the time table.

Pimlico school. - the one in the news last week - doesn’t offer DT to GCSE level. (According to staff there on DT FB group.)

I’ve seen sports/exercise groups and organisations push for 5 hours a week? Great idea - but where is that extra time going to come from.

Generally I feel that schools, certainly the ones I’ve taught in/my children have been to do a reasonable job of fitting everything in.

Morgoth
I agree with you and if we are really honest, we both know independent schools wouldn't be designing their curriculum based on whatever life skill Joe Blogs has decided it's too much to expect parents to do.

There's already a problem of narrowing the state curriculum without people wanting a utilitarian agenda implementing.

One of the major reasons I would consider private for DC if I could afford it is precise because the independent schools near me value outdoor time and games in the early years, a range of enrichment and a broad curriculum through to upper school. By contrast, some local state schools seem to be driven by endless testing, many secondary schools near me have a poor offering for creative arts, some only teach 'humanities' instead of separate subjects, and the overall diet is very limiting for a lot of students. If we went down the route of not teaching topics unless they link to life then that's a huge cap on aspirations.

I saw this and it made me think of this thread.

Call it what you will, but yes I think it should be taught.

If you want a selfish reason: I feel people who lack this kind of knowledge and skills are more likely to end up net recipients not net contributors.

No money skills, no savings, claiming benefits. No pension, claiming pension credit. Bankruptcy, the lenders don't get their money back. Unmarried relationship breakdown, one parent pisses off with everything and the other parent ends up on the dole. Etc etc.

Overall, I'd say this kind of legal knowledge and practical and financial skills are too important, for not just the individual but for society as a whole, to be ignored in schooling.

And yes, details change. But details change in other subjects - new scientific discoveries, new English words, new perspectives on history. We don't abandon teaching those subjects because of that. General principles change far less.

It's easy to say just Google it, but that's a skill too. A skill people find out they lack the hard way when they get caught out by a website charging £90 to renew a driving license.