Why schools do this!!?

[FedUpOfYetAnotherCold]

AIBU to wonder why children in primary school are taught 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' in French, can tell the difference between metamorphic, sedimentary and ignious rocks, can trace a stone age picture, can create great models of the tower of London, and learn (and promptly forget) all about the Victorians, Romans etc... but...

Quite a few can't swim 25m by end of primary (a skill which could save their life), many barely know what the term 'mental health' means - let alone know how to manage their own or support others with MH difficulties. Most state primary kids are not given access to decent sports provision to support future athletic dreams, better manage in-school behaviour, and promote healthy lifestyle and reduce obesity, and very few kids are supported to learn key life skills. (I'm focussing on primary here - but we also need more life skills like MH and budgeting and cooking etc... taught in secondary)..

Surely we need more teaching in schools on mental health, life skills and better access to sports and teaching which will lead to physically and mentally healthy adults of the future.

When my children finish primary I'd like them to be able to read, write and do basic maths. But in terms of the rest of the teaching - surely we now need to re-evaluate how much emphasis we place on teaching less vital skills such as French (if a language is deemed important why not Chinese, Spanish or Arabic, or something more useful in this current global village) which could be learnt later if desired?

AIBU?

You’re making assumptions about all primary schools. My DC’s school does do these things.

Why the cookie?

Have you ever heard of the phrase "transferable skills"?

It feels like you have a bee in your bonnet about French. If you'd like your children to learn "something useful" (aside from a language spoken by millions of course), why don't you teach them it?

Quite a few can't swim 25m by end of primary (a skill which could save their life)
Because it costs money schools haven't got, and time that schools haven't got.

many barely know what the term 'mental health' means - let alone know how to manage their own or support others with MH difficulties.
Yes, we should absolutely be teaching 6 year olds how to manage the mental health of others.
There is plenty of PSHE which covers mental health at an age appropriate level.

Most state primary kids are not given access to decent sports provision to support future athletic dreams, better manage in-school behaviour, and promote healthy lifestyle and reduce obesity, and very few kids are supported to learn key life skills. (I'm focussing on primary here - but we also need more life skills like MH and budgeting and cooking etc... taught in secondary)
This is the biggest load of bollocks so far - are you basing all this flammery on one school?

Quite a few can't swim 25m by end of primary most primary schools don't have a swimming pool so you need to hire a minibus, and a pool plus the relevant extra staff to bus kids out to a pool. There's limited pools and lots of schools needing it so it's impossible to take potentially 6-18 classes of 30 per school in multiple schools..
many barely know what the term 'mental health' means - let alone know how to manage their own or support others with MH difficulties. I think schools do cover this in their own way, but to do it thoroughly would probay involve external staff coming in to deliver a chargeable service

Most state primary kids are not given access to decent sports provision facilities, money, staff

and very few kids are supported to learn key life skills what exactly would you teach in primary? Again I'm guessing resources and staff...

So basically money. And time.

So at what point do these become the parents responsibilty?

Children need general knowledge. The more general knowledge they have, the better readers and writers they are - text comprehension is more than knowing each individual word

Can’t you teach them to swim if the school don’t? Can’t you teach them about empathy, MH awareness etc? The school has enough to do as it is, I’m sure. Teachers are not replacement parents!

What does yabu and yanbu mean

Schools are for academic learning. Other skills can be taught outside of schools and learnt in their own time.

I'm not saying that this is the right approach. Maybe there should be a bigger conversation regarding what schools are for. Maybe they should teach life skills too. Though I think we need to be careful that in doi g this, schools aren't replacing all other influences in a childs life. I think this has the potential to lead to a sort of culturally one dimensional society.

It's proven that learning a language as a child promotes something in your brain (I'm not technical!) which makes it easier to learn more languages later.

I agree OP, the amount of kids who leave high school and dont know how to write a CV, complete an application form or even have the confidence to speak on the phone is staggering

Kids need to learn skills for modern life, they dont need to know Queen Victoria's kids names

We all have different things that we believe to be important in education.

I think children should have lots of musical opportunities and absolutely all learn to read music - it is the only truly international language there is.

Still confused about the cookie! I work with offenders, many of whom can't read and write, have extremely poor mental health and none were taught mental health, life skills or given access to ways to manage these things in school.

This is something I'm genuinely passionate about. I really think alongside reading, writing and maths - we need to support our kids to come out of primary school with good mental and physical health and knowing how to manage basic living skills, stay away from substances etc...

Good luck OP, you're going to need it.

Life skills such as swimming, budgeting and cooking can all be done by parents.

Mena

Oh nvm I found out what YABU and YANBU mean

Surely some of the onus is on the parents? We have the ability to teach our own kids to swim, pay for lessons etc. We also have the ability to talk about mental health or seek guidance on it to pass along to children.

Not everything has to be taught by schools

Yabu means you are being unreasonable

Yanbu means you are not being unreasonable

A school can not be all things to all men. Parents can expose children to sport and join local sports clubs. French is already giving way to Spanish, in my own experience. The PSHE curriculum is full of mental health awareness, and to be honest, it is difficult to cram it all in, given everything that schools are apparently responsible for nowadays.

Do you think @OP that there might have been other factors in youth offenders lives that led them to such difficulties? Do you genuinely believe that a primary school teacher with a class of 30 before her could have, alone, managed to mitigate those factors? Which lesson on "mental health" would have made the difference? Or would it perhaps have been better for these young people's families to be assisted and supported so that their children were not exposed to traumatic experiences and substance abuse, in turn allowing them to engage in school?

Ww do a lot to support mental health. It's a relatively new addition to the extremely full curriculum though so won't have made it through to your offenders.

Give us a break please. There are only so many hours in the school year. And as previous posters have said, some things are the responsibility of parents!

Being able to swim 25m in a swimming pool in your swimming cossie and goggles will only save your life in a very limited number of circumstances.

There is a website which tracks every news article which says "schools should teach....xyz"

If we taught all of those things we wouldn't have time to actually teach the actual academic curriculum

I see it as my responsibility's a parent to teach my dc to swim and to ensure they understand how to look after their own mental health

But yeah, maybe parents should just abdicate it all to schools

National curriculum is so cluttered and pressure to teach to the test (sats, phonics test and times tables test) plus produce in-school assessment data, all of which directly affect teachers' performance related pay, that life skills are squeezed out. Plus, ofsted.

The biscuit means "no comment". It was from a Gordon Brown web chat many years ago.