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?

In the past schools did teach children to swim, it was a duty they had to do. Perhaps they don't have to now, it does cost a lot of money. I taught my own children to swim, spent hours and a shed load of cash.
I also spent time with my children, talking to them, explaining how they could always talk to me about anything.
Perhaps parents should actually spend time with their children and show empathy and set good examples. I have heard and seen so many parents scream at their sons telling them to 'Stop crying like a girl, " great advice. Don't be surprised when your son cannot deal with mental health issues.
Schools teach a government approved curriculum.
If the curriculum stated that an 11 year old must be able to prepare and cook a 3 course meal then schools would teach that. They don't, so there you go.

Not everything can be the school's job, not without more money, time, staff and resources and even then - where does it stop? At what point does it become the responsibility of parents/ family/ the wider community? Similarly, there is only so much a primary school can do - do you really think the offenders you work with would not have gone on to offend had they done more swimming and talked about mental health at primary school?

I was teaching Spanish in primary 15 years ago, it wasn't new then. Quite often the language a school chooses to teach will depend on who they have available to teach it and what they can fit within budget, Italian used to be fairly common because the Italian embassy had a scheme where they would support it, not sure if that's still the case.

We do plenty (I say we, I'm not currently teaching since having DD) absolutely plenty that supports good mental health - it might not always be explicitly spoken about as 'mental health' although in some settings it is. But there is a huge focus on mindset, mindfulness, resilience, self confidence and self belief, positive relationships, restorative practice around behaviour management just to name some examples.

Huge push on healthy schools, more sport etc too. But again, only so many hours in the day and can't cancel out what goes on at home.

The school curriculum is extremely limiting.
They teach you to pass exams, to become a good cog in the machine.

‘Tory funding cuts’ and ‘prescriptive Tory curriculum’ are the answers to most of those.

Perhaps, OP, the answer is to support the parents instead.

Parenting classes, basic cooking classes etc.

Surely French has so many benefits tho? Improves their knowledge and understanding of grammar and spelling (in English too) helps them think logically (transferable to other subjects like Maths), makes them better communicators, gives a wider cultural understanding, sets them in good stead for learning other languages, as well as the enjoyment and accomplishment of mastering something new!
Many of the other things you mentioned are the things we do as parents, sports, swimming etc, I'm not sure schools can be responsible for everything!

@MintJulia ding ding ding! But giving taxpayer's money to undeserving, lazy adults is soo unpopular. So we always throw it at schools, who can't solve these problems in 6h a day, and blame them when children are fucked up by their fucked up parents.

That is what parents are for.......

School professionals work extremely hard to provide a good quality education which teaches core knowledge and transferable skills based on the national curriculum that is set for for to work from. Many schools do offer swimming lessons even though this is costly and the new relationships education framework gives younger children the opportunity to learn about things such as friendship and respect.

It is unfortunate not all children have parents who give them opportunities to develop these skills but I don't think this should fall on to schools to rectify when they already have enough to contend with, I think that is a much deeper issue within society.

My kids schools do all of the things you mentioned. There’s lots more teachers with a level and gcse French at the moment then Chinese but I imagine this will change as time goes on. You can’t just teach a language you don’t know no matter how much you think it would be a good idea! I’m a secondary school teacher. We have some troubled kids who can’t really read abs write. We throw all sorts of interventions at them and try our hardest to teach them these skills. It often doesn’t work…I don’t know what the answer is but I think your view on the works of education is naive and simplistic. Those in young offenders institutions that can’t read and write aren’t there because of the primary curriculum…

I can't believe the OP can work as they do and not be aware of what's going on in schools, the lack of funding,

Also, so many of the things listed are down to parents.

1. Swimming-its in the NC that all children should swim 25m by the end of primary but travelling to the pool and back costs time and money. Most schools do it on a rota system because it's the only manageable way.

Why don't you take your child to swimming lessons?

1. MH. I agree and many schools are teaching about MH but usually called wellness or something similar and is more focused on what to do if you feel overwhelmed etc. rather than on MH labels and diagnosises.

1. Behaviour. The best way to fix behavior would be for parents to actually parent, and to support the school/teacher in managing behavior instead of complaining and making excuses every time their little darling gets into trouble.

1. Health/obesity - see above. I have a child in my class with a (non diagnosed) "eating disorder" meaning we have to allow him to eat nothing but the sharing bag of doritos and chocolate bar he brings for lunch. Unsurprisingly he's obese. Schools provide balanced meals for lunch. Schools teach about Health eating and lifestyle (y2 and y3 science). Schools do physical activity. If your child is obese you need to take responsibility yourself.

Swimming depends on the school being close to a pool. My oldest went to a school which was walking distance to a pool and in ks2 everyone got had a term of swimming every year (age 7-11) My youngest went to a school that had swimming a bus ride away so they only did the government mandated minimum of one term in ks2. Parents had to pay for the bus there and the school had to pay for the kids whose parents wouldn't or couldn't pay.

Presumably you work with adult offenders. As you know they are more likely to have negligent parents who aren't going to be teaching them how to deal with their emotions etc Tbh this is something that most parents start before kids go to school (around 2/3) They do teach the kids about drugs and gangs (-I have teens) but the reality is that the kids more susceptible to it often come from backgrounds where the parent might be doing it or are indifferent to their child being brought home in the back of a police car.

If they could do all that, you'd be complaining that they couldn't sing head, shoulders, knees and toes in French.

There's a limited amount of time and a limited amount of topics they can fit in the curriculum.

Parents should teach their kids to swim, budget and cook. It's not the school's fault that so many parents don't actively parent.

@Porcupineintherough

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.

Absolutely. Yet another thread about what schools are not doing. If you asked 1000 people what they thought schools should be doing, you'd get nearly 1000 different answers. We are expected to do everything, but with 10 years of austerity under our belts and no money it's hard enough to teach kids the basics.

I'm in secondary- English and literacy- and today taught 13 and 14 year olds who cannot read above age 5-6 level. I've been blending sounds with them for weeks and I'm slowly getting somewhere. If they cannot read they cannot access the rest of the curriculum. The have lots of sport/ PSE about mental health and lifeskills. The shitty, shitty environments in which every, single kid around that table today has been brought up in and lives in is the single, biggest reason why they are where they are today. Each of them has adverse childhood experiences coming out of their ears. That's not school's fault but we're working our arses off to try and compensate academically and socially. I have never seen such committed, marvellous professionals.

Spend time in a modern, school environment and then come back and criticise.

It is a parents job to teach their offspring skills to help them survive.
Schools are their to educate leading to employment.

I have no beef with the primary curriculum but I do think we should overhaul the secondary in a similar way you speak of.
After teaching the basics, Maths should be more like economics - life skills like budgeting, business etc. English could look at communication.
There is alot of stuff we don't need to know that is taught and alot of important stuff not taught.

You should be campaigning for the return of Sure Start and Children's Centres imo. It's well documented that they improved the quality of life for children and saved the NHS money

ifs.org.uk/publications/14139

The time wasted after gcses are taken has always bugged me. It would be great if 4 to 6 weeks after the last exam were spent getting first aid skills, job application skills and useful stuff like cooking to a budget amongst other things. No doubt money is the block again as I expect the normal teachers are busy doing other things once exams are done. I do think all the history, language, science etc is important however or we really will produce a cohort of dullards with no sense of learning, what might interest them or ability to score points in quizzes.

I think your issue is with ‘the government’ or ‘the national curriculum’ not ‘schools’.

I teach in a fairly standard primary school and we cover all the things you've mentioned. PSHCE is all about mental health! It's taught weekly. Covid aside, swimming is on the curriculum so it has to happen. It's very expensive but it's statutory so a big chunk of the budget is set aside.

Without mentioning the Reading, Writing, Maths, Science, Computing, Geography, Art, etc. etc.

We often also need to teach children how to dress themselves, brush their teeth, cross a road, stay
safe online, tie their laces, use a knife and fork, etc. because their parents totally neglect to do this.

In addition, we regularly support children by giving them life experiences. There are many children who have never been on a train, been the the cinema, played on a beach, paid for something in a shop, buttered a slice of bread, seen a pantomime, been to a museum, travelled on a double decker bus, etc.

We're doing our best. Direct your frustration at the government.

I disagree with you. I think a lot of the things you mention are up to us, the parents, either to teach or to facilitate.

English could look at communication

English is communication.

While all the private schools continue to do as they presently do, and their children go to the top universities and the best jobs.

I do think there is a lot of stuff taught in schools that is not that relevant to life.

But with MFL Britain is a million miles behind the whole of Europe who all start languages much earlier and give them much more importance so kids come out actually being able to speak several languages even when that's not their speciality. We should be starting languages much earlier because once you get to secondary school the window when your brain can accept and learn new sounds is already closing which is why adults find languages so hard. People who learned one or more second languages at a very young age find it easy to learn more languages later. It's horrible British exceptionalism to assume that everyone else will learn your language.

@fingersdoublecrossed you do an amazing job, but you must be run ragged. As I said above, so many of the things you are having to take on are the responsibility of the parents.