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?

Surely some of the onus is on the parents? We have the ability to teach our own kids to swim, pay for lessons etc.

I get that, but many kids don't not have parents able to teach these things or provide lessons etc...

I think, as a pp said, we need a conversation about the role of schools and how we can support ALL kids (not just those privileged enough to have parents able to teach them) to keep mentally and physically healthy and manage to live in society in a compassionate way, able to stay on the right side of the law, and able to live happily and comfortably

I teach in one state primary and my kids go to another. Neither teaches french (except in an extra curricular club) and both teaches all the other things you mention.
Swimming - difficult to organise and finance but in both schools, years 3 + 4 do a 6-week swim course (one morning a week) which is better than nothing and enough to get some basic skills.
We do many other types of sport and fitness unless you mean skiing or snowboarding or suchlike?
Mental health - both schools work on this constantly.
Also do cooking and food prep regularly, especially in secondary.

What experience of schools do you have?

Something to do with facilities and funding maybe?

Schools don’t have time or money for everything.

Parents who don’t ensure their children learn to swim, understand mental health issues and don’t make sure they can cook, budget and write a cv have failed their children. If they don’t know how themselves, then they can learn and teach at the same time.

All responsibilities in life can’t be palmed off on teachers.

I'm a teacher. I'd love to spend more time doing what you suggest but our hands are tied. The head and senior team dictate our timetables, amount if time allotted to each subject etc so we have very little freedom to teach what the children need. It's really frustrating and reflects badly on us. But they themselves are under pressure from the local authority, advisors, ofsted, DFE

As my dd has a degree in history, I'm glad they did plenty on the Victorians, she (and i) hate sport so glad they had French lessons !

Haven’t read the whole thread but you’ve just listed a lot of things that parents should be doing

Okay well they are primary age children you are referring too. They do all of things you have listed but age appropriately.
Parents need to support children at home too, it’s not all down to teachers.

Schools are not some sort of universal panacea to all life's ills. They cant and shouldn't take on the role of parenting a child. I'm sure if you talk to the young people you work with you'll find that many of them have difficult home background- and there's a limit to what school can do to counteract that.

Crikey my yr 5 and 6 do all kinds of stuff about mental health. Mindfulness, talking time with mentors etc. And school has lots of sports coaching too. We're in a very deprived area though, so they really have to do this stuff.

It feels like you are advocating for a very large hammer to crack a walnut @FedUpOfYetAnotherCold

Schools are academic establishments that have an increasingly complex PSHE curriculum. They can't also take on huge amounts of social care and life skills. Yes, it's good if they can get some in and there is certainly more than when I was at school, but it's up to parents to nurture their DC's mental health and teach life skills. My DC are young but I will be sure they have financial understanding, can cook and fill in forms etc because that's my responsibility as a parent. Clubs like Scouts are where lots of practical life skills are also taught. Schools can not do it all.

And yes it would seem that schools are expected by a lot of parents, to bring children up, rather than provide an education.

How old are the people you work with? Schools have changed a lot in the last 10, 15, 20 years but you need to allow time for things to filter through. The other issue is money and training. Schools can afford many swimming lessons. Re training, I'm suddenly expected to cover MH in PSHE - I'm just someone trying to use common sense and my knowledge of children because I've never been trained in it. In March 2020 parents were clamouring for lessons on how children should cope with the pandemic, which funnily enough my teacher training never covered so I really did feel they were in as good a position as me to help their children understand it.

Why is it the job of the primary school and not the parents who should be teaching these skills?

@PyjamaFan

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!

This

I agree there is not enough physical exercise and this is even worse at secondary level.
Disagree about swimming specifically, and PSHE covers well-being.
They do need to start learning languages young too - I'd argue they should have more of it and younger, not less.

So you essentially want the school to parent your child. YABU.

And the vast majority of teens could not give a shite about learning to budget - teach them strong maths and comprehension skills, they'll be able to do it then when they're older. Taxes are much the same - another thing people shite about that 'should be taught in schools'.

My ds would have been cross-eyed with boredom if asked to learn about 'mental health'. Being a cheerful and self contained child, he'd have categorised it as a 'load of rubbish' and would have checked out. Children can be very literal at that age.

Swimming is expensive, hard to teach in groups of 30 or more, and involves travelling off site (and therefore wasting time). Swimming as something taught by parents or at least organised by them. The same for cooking.

I'm happy if they stick to English & Maths, History, Geography and Science with a language, music and art if possible.

Our junior school covers a lot of mental health and life skills. But I also think parents should take responsibility for helping their DC in these areas. And when people are older, they should take responsibility for educating themselves as well rather than expecting others to educate them.

People shite ON about, that should say. C'mon MN, where's an edit button when we need it?

Why do you assume that these young offenders who didn't (or were unable to) engage with the lessons that the school did offer would have actually engaged with lessons on mental health/life skills? As it is, we do teach that sort of thing as part of the PSHE curriculum and the kids see it as a doss that they don't need to pay attention to.

"Quite a few ..." "most state primary kids..." "very few ...." Many ..." all of these statements are written as if from a position of knowledge. Where do you get these statistics from? Doesn't sound very well-informed to me, in fact, it sounds as though this is simply your own opinion, based on your own experience.

As a secondary teacher, who has taken many a teenager up on their request to "teach us something useful, like taxes or how to budget", I can confirm that they do not actually want to learn it and immediately start moaning when you do.i suppose its easier to say "it would all be better if we weren't doing this particular thing I hate" rather than accept that all learning can be hard and boring at times.

Why don't you ask school to build a room for your child and let them parent your kids 24/7?

Seriously school is to build a general knowledge base, not just prepare you for adult life. Plenty of life skills could (and should) be taught at home. The responsibility on schools to cure all societal problems is getting out of hand.