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?

My children went to a school where a child drowned in a swimming lesson. I suppose you could think they would never want to take a child swimming again but they actually increased their swimming teacher.

In year 3 autumn term the children had a swimming lesson every day for 3 weeks, at the end of that if they could swim they joined the weekly lesson. If they still couldn't swim they had another 3 weeks in the summer term, smaller groups. If they still couldn't swim, only a tiny number they joined the year 3s the following year. Every child went into year 5 swimming and they all went swimming every week.

Mine could already swim when they started school so didn't benefit them but I did think it was a brilliant system.

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.

True, but the amount shit parents out there the OP has a point that life skills would be a better use of education. Hopefully it would then encourage future generations to teach their kids these skill.

@RaininSummer

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.

My children did an NCS course.

Children are at school for 1140 hours a year. This includes breaks. If they stay until the end of year 13, thats 15,960 hours out of 157,248 of their life up until they are 18. There just isn’t the time for schools to be responsible for everything. The most crucial learning years are before 2 years old and as a result many disadvantaged children enter school already behind their peers.

I agree with you that the curriculum is ridiculously outdated for the modern world.

I don’t necessarily agree with you about what should be taught instead however. I wouldn’t focus on life skills but would have more on things like computing, how government works, basic level economics, design (I know they do a bit). History could have more modern events and less Bayeux Tapestry. Geography could have more about environment and less igneous rocks.

Still academic subjects rather than “life skills” but modernised content.

@Ohdoleavemealone that would be an excellent idea if we expected everyone to leave school at 16 and take a minimum wage job. Anyone staying on, who wants to take an A level / degree in science, or computer science, or medicine, or geography, or engineering or mathematics or, actually, economics will need more maths then just how to add up and calculate compound interest.

@FedUpOfYetAnotherCold

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

Schools aren’t the issue.

Children living in poverty - which is exacerbated by poor education of their own parents - is the issue.

You need children to be enthused by the process of learning at primary school age.

So that when they get to secondary school age they still think learning is worthwhile, and improve their prospects by getting grades that open up opportunities to them.

Primary school learning should be broad and delivered creatively. Not about ‘learning to stay away from substances’ or ‘budgeting’ or the amorphous idea of ‘mental health’.

Focus your efforts on supporting parents of those kids who can’t access swimming lessons and can’t teach these life skills. Get funding for programmes to support them to support their children.

Our school did loads about mindfulness and teaching the kids how to improve their mental health, particularly after they came back from lockdown.

They got PE twice a week with a PE teacher and did a separate yoga/dance session once a week with the teacher. There were after school groups for basketball, football, cross country running and a before school gymnastic club. They also had a glee club.

They learned French, Spanish and German and there were after school clubs which did other languages.

Seems like you maybe just picked a shit school for your child.

They learned

Having run a payroll for a large company I think it would be really helpful if children were taught about NI, income tax and pensions plus their rights to things like SSP.

My children have lots of stuff about mental health and mindfulness and exercise 1k per day, bike safety , swimming etc… Wales!

@RaininSummer

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.

That and the fact that the ones most in need of the additional repetition of things they didn't engage with first time round wouldn't turn up. First aid is in PSHEE, cooking in Food Tech if the school has a food tech area and a food tech teacher, job/college applications earlier in the year...oh, and it's a time used for extra work experience - as well as a lot of MC families' favourite time to go on holiday, going by the number every year who call wanting to know the earliest date they can take them away (and not liking the answer of the official school leaving date).

many barely know what the term 'mental health' means - let alone know how to manage their own or support others with MH difficulties.

It's a bit much for primary school children who may not even know anyone with mental health issues.

Ime they teach stuff on bullying, how to be a good friend, my son learned a bit about his friend's autism (with permission from him and the family) , he had a diabetic classmate so learned a bit about that and they covered things like how to stay safe online...

@Hellocatshome

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.

Absolutely agree with this. 50% of people who drown can swim. We had a couple of close calls as children because the fact that we could swim very well in a pool meant our parents made some frankly reckless decisions about what was safe around open water.

In my experience schools are forever addressing mental health- to the point that by the time they are half way through secondary school they are all convinced they have mental health problems!

@ancientgran

Having run a payroll for a large company I think it would be really helpful if children were taught about NI, income tax and pensions plus their rights to things like SSP.

Aye, it would be nice but we can't do EVERYTHING.

I do agree with pps that it’s not the schools’ fault but the government who don’t fund them properly

But I agree there should be more provision for teaching swimming to kids whose parents can’t afford it. And children’s mental health is such a worry. There’s a lot of ot being taught at my children’s school though.

@minipie

I agree with you that the curriculum is ridiculously outdated for the modern world.

I don’t necessarily agree with you about what should be taught instead however. I wouldn’t focus on life skills but would have more on things like computing, how government works, basic level economics, design (I know they do a bit). History could have more modern events and less Bayeux Tapestry. Geography could have more about environment and less igneous rocks.

Still academic subjects rather than “life skills” but modernised content.

But all these things ARE in the curriculum! Computing, how the governement works, environment - all of it!

OP Can you give a breakdown of what you think should be within the schools remit and what you think parents can be expected to teach their own kids?

And then tell us how that curriculum can be taught 9-3, days a week for only 38 weeks a year?

Lots of what is taught isn't really about the content it's about the skills it gives the children.

Schools should not have to teach kids to cook. Nor how to budget. This constant abdication of responsibility will lead to a spiral of increasingly deskilled parents, becoming ever reliant on the state.

Most state primary kids are not given access to decent sports provision to support future athletic dreams

Who is paying for this decent sports provision?
Yes they should play sports but if you want proper coaching then you’ll have to find and pay for it yourself.

Learning a second language is often more valuable than sports in terms of preparing for the future.

Parents should just drop kids off at school on their 5th birthday and pick them up fully formed on their 11th birthday.

Maybe there's an assumption that parents will do some of the parenting?

Schools only actually have kid 6 hours a day for 195 days a year

Surely all that shit is what parents are for?! 🤔

Voted YABU as my experience of primary school (through my DDs) was far too much emphasis on mental health 'mindfulness' 'wellbeing days', health eating etc. Both daughters hated mindfulness, they must have been an anomaly as the headteacher claimed all other kids loved it.
As for languages, I don't see what's wrong with French in primary. Surely Chinese and Arabic would be too difficult to teach at primary level with having to learn a new alphabet/characters? Otherwise a massive portion of the teaching time would have to be given over to it. And we wouldn't have wanted extra hours adding to the school day, my daughters barely tolerated primary school as it was.

Did you forget music op? Why don't you care about the arts?