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?

(Sorry that was in response to @tootootaataa)

School = academic, music, arts, sport etc
Parents = life skills
Schools don’t replace parenting. Unfortunately some people aren’t fit to be parents.

@FedUpOfYetAnotherCold Im in complete agreement.

Because this way of schooling is under 100 years old and we're technically still in the testing area of it. They definitely should update it, it's well overdue, some of the books they use are from the 60s and 70s and I would have much rather learned BSL over German but it wasn't an option (I'm 28).

I see you are coming at this from a good place and agree that some light learning on mental health could be beneficial, but I don't think the entire educational system should be overhauled to cover life lessons based on a tiny minority of individuals who turn to crime because they missed out on them.

Although I do agree that swimming is essential.

I was taught the life-saving skills awards (bronze, silver, gold) between the ages of 6-9 by my school.

I know a 7year old who saved her 2 year old sister after she fell in a pool (at a house party where the adults were inside) she'd done the same course that I did (two decades after me). She knew how to dive in while fully dressed (even with shoes on) she knew how to support her sisters neck and head and swim backwards and how to tread water while supporting her sister. Learning this meant she didn't panic, she'd practiced it, knew how odd the sensations would be swimming with clothes on. She knew how time critical her action needed to be (I.e she didn't think to run off to call her parents) and she wasn't shaken up by it after the event. Practicing a real life emergency makes it much less stressful when it happens. Swimming should be on the curriculum, I would say it's a far more important skill than playing netball!

Just wondering what you plan on teaching your child OP? Or do you think it's just your job to keep them alive and school should do everything else?

Why is the responsibility for all these things on the school? Surely the parents should be having input into a lot of these things?

Swimming (particularly as a large school group) costs a lot of money and not all schools have the budget to cover that.

Mental health is covered as far as I am aware, just often through different terms that you are used to. My DD did a huge amount of work in school on "growth mindset" and talking openly about emotions and feelings. A perfect introduction at age 4-5 IMO.

French is a widely spoken language and France are our closest neighbours so it makes sense. Yes, Arabic/Spanish/Mandarin may be more "useful" but good luck finding primary school teachers who are experienced in that! Learning any language is good and once you have learnt one it is MUCH easier to learn another.

SOME schools don't have good sports facilities. Others do. Not everyone wants to be an athlete nor should they. However, ALL schools do offer outdoor play and have PE lessons.

You have an odd bee in your bonnet and I am not sure what you expect in our overstretched and under Funded schools.

Erm french is a global language! It’s also an ‘academic’ language. Plus it uses the Latin alphabet unlike mandarin or Arabic. It’s quite unrealistic to expect primary school teachers to be able to read and write arabic or mandarin. You ever tried to learn Arabic OP? As someone who has let me tell you, It’s bloody hard

@Helloise
I was making a point about concentrating on getting our English right before teaching or learning to speak Chinese (for example).

Bath can be said with a long or a short 'a' but isn't baff or barf.

@KingVoid

What does yabu and yanbu mean

Yabu- You Are Being Unreasonable. Yanbu- You Are Not Being Unreasonable.

You seem to have poor knowledge about what is taught in primary schools. Swimming is mandatory in Y4 and any student who can't swim by the end has to repeat in Y5 and Y6. You clearly haven't seen the Wellbeing and SEMH elements of PHSCHE either

@Helloise

When I used to teach, I worked in a middle school near to a k-6 Montessori school (this was America, 6th grade is 12-13 years old). About 20% of our 7th graders any given year came from the Montessori and we had a hell of a time getting them up to grade standard, especially in Mathematics. They were generally lovely and social kids though. I personally think Montessori is great up until about 6-7 years old, max.

Oh wow! That doesn't sound ideal and in exact contrast to what I have experienced. Would be interested if you could PM me the name of that school. We have the opposite problem here, the kids are way advanced of the local maths program.

YABU I think the other way around. We are lucky to have an education system in the U.K. and it's not all bad, parents should take some responsibility for their dc education too.

Swimming lessons don't have to be expensive and you can actually teach your dc yourself in a public pool very cheaply. My dad taught me to swim before I had school lessons and my dh taught my dc to swim. Parents shouldn't rely so much on things being given out to them imo.

Swimming lessons are very time consuming for schools, dc would be better off having a parent teach them swimming so as not to waste that time or expense at school, also the lessons that are at schools are often inadequate for actually learning to swim.

If you’re concerned about your children’s ability to swim why don’t you teach them?

Are schools supposed to do everything??

Since qualifying as a teacher, I have read on here that teachers should be responsible for…

Teaching swimming
Teeth cleaning
Applying suncream daily or twice daily
Doing head lice checks
Toilet training (bearing in mind schools cannot refuse to accept children who are still in nappies, this does happen more than you’d think already).
Teaching whatever language/art/sports subject the poster has a degree in or is quite good at, and thinks primary schools should be doing more of.
Makaton

There are probably countless others!

If you want the curriculum changed to include these things-write to your MP.

@Mischance

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.

Absolutely 100% this. If I had my way every child would be able to read music and play an instrument by the end of secondary school. Reading and playing music aids so much other learning and can help with mental health and stress. However it’s sadly not practical because it takes individual teaching to play an instrument and regular practice

Honestly, the bollocks some people trot out on here about schools is unbelievable. Primary schools making kids rote-learn lists of kings and queens . I'm a teacher but I hid the MN education boards a while back for the sake of my blood pressure. The regular dimwitted and ignorant pronouncements about what teachers and schools should have been doing to deal with the pandemic were the final straw tbh.

Howshouldibehave
You also need an insert any topic that was in the news because someone somewhere did a survey and a knee jerk response to put it into an already full PSHE Curriculum was made.

I'm quite concerned at the push from some to expect children and young people to learn how to support mental health. It annoys me even more than pushing it onto teachers. Being a nice person and being considerate is part of learning how to be a reasonable person. Responding to mental health issues, potential trauma that someone might not have disclosed, and so on is something that requires professional knowledge, training and expertise. Well intentioned but poor quality mental health support is far from supportive and potentially very damaging, but for some reason some people want to push this on children under the guise of be kind.

The reason for the big drive on mental health in schools is because it's taking attention away from the fact that children and young people are being systemically failed by the absence of consistent, high quality, professional support for those who need it.

Educator here:

Attending and learning at school is no replacement for life experience and the role of parents and peers.

Learning to swim for example shouldn’t be taught at schools but children should use their after school time for a variety of activities, especially when they’re young and their ability to concentrate and absorb information and process it isn’t fully developed.
So, plenty of physical activity with their peers outside of school time, including swimming at the local council facilities; they can learn to cook with their family; and budgeting and learning about managing money should also be done in a family setting to start with.

Learning to read, write and learning mathematical skills is invaluable and will put them in a very solid path for a future education, be that academic or apprenticeship based

I totally appreciate not every parent is able but I would say teaching children is largely up to parents/guardians/carers. Schools were to learn to read and write everything else was passed through generations. Our primary school does a lot of work with mental health and various other activities. I teach my children to cook and appreciate money and care for a household I wouldn't expect my primary school to teach my children that. Parents have to take responsibility for the upbringing of their children too (I realise this is not possible in every household)

My kids were taught to swim in school once a week from Reception until they left, as their school (bog-standard normal primary) had a pool however, I don't feel this is something that should be taught by schools really, I think the onus should be on parents to give them these skills.

I also don't believe that it's solely the school's responsibility to teach them to read and write. They give them the tools and methods, and parents should reinforce them at home.

They've also been taught about wellbeing and mental health all the way through. Light touch at primary, heavier focus at secondary.

I think parents put too much emphasis on wanting schools to cover all bases when we need to take responsibility for our children's development, wellbeing and education.

The Tories......

They have cut funding and increased content and difficulty ( the children DO NOT need to learn what a fronted adverbial is or the other stuff they never see again in secondary EVER) to an extremely stressful level. More funding and time for healthy activities would certainly go towards reducing MH issues for children. I HATE what the tories have done to education and I have been a teacher for over 20 years

I'm assuming all the PPs saying that children should be taught to swim by their parents. That's fine if you can afford it but there will be so many parents who can barely feed their children let alone pay for swimming and lessons.

@Summerrain123

I'm assuming all the PPs saying that children should be taught to swim by their parents. That's fine if you can afford it but there will be so many parents who can barely feed their children let alone pay for swimming and lessons.

Where does it stop though?

I'm assuming all the PPs saying that children should be taught to swim by their parents. That's fine if you can afford it but there will be so many parents who can barely feed their children let alone pay for swimming and lessons
My parents couldn't do swimming lessons for us. We had half a term of basic lessons during primary school (possibly year 5 or 6).
I'm more than supportive of all children having a basic level of water safety instruction and basic swimming techniques, but ultimately schools are not parents.

There seems to be a growing trend that anything and everything becomes the responsibility of schools. That's mainly because it allows the government to turn a blind eye to the real causes of the issues: usually linked to poverty, systemic social issues that the government doesn't want to spend money on, chronic underfunding of services.

Schools become responsible for swimming vs government properly funds local health and fitness opportunities including swimming pools so they are affordable and accessible

Schools become responsible for dealing with child mental health vs government properly funds a dedicated mental health offer so that all children get the correct level of mental health that they need (which in turn would reduce the likelihood of them needing more services in adulthood)

Schools to have parent and family support workers and huge pastoral teams picking some of what was done by children's centres and other services vs government properly funding wrap around services to support families

It's very convenient for the government (and others) to throw everything to schools to avoid discussing the real issues and then when school staff complain they can be painted as the workshy union types who don't care about children.