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?

Well because that's life skills and parents can teach their children those things. Not all do, but that's not the teachers problem. I'm pretty sure our schools here do teach kids about mental health, relationships, cooking is done in home ec. They do gym e times a week and other physical activities, and I'm sure ds (in high school) told me they were learning about mortgages and credit cards last year.

Finance, politics, first aid, relationships, mental health and more are already compulsory in secondary schools..

Sound a like a step in the right direction, but if a kid can't read and write, and doesn't know how to manage their emotions or look after themself, or have healthy relationship, or attend to personal hygiene etc.. by the time they get to secondary, they will.likely have stopped attending before they get taught this stuff....

A lot of life skills are things parents can and should be teaching/passing on.

@Ohdoleavemealone

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.

Life skills like budgeting? Do you really think the average 15 year old would need budgeting skills at that stage of their life? Different many years ago when not many went to university and a lot of young people left at 15 to go straight into work and get married and set up their own home at age 19-20. These days they grow up much later. At 14-15 I doubt many would be interested these days on how to manage a monthly budget so you have enough for your rent and bills. Even if they ARE interested, by the time they come round to needing to apply those skills, things would have moved on so much that lots of it would be outdated.

As for just "teaching the basics" of maths.....my own sons are talented at maths. My eldest in the middle of applying to Cambridge for engineering, he is far beyond "the basics". He would view lessons in budgeting as a waste of time. Particularly as we, his parents, discuss life skills like this with him. Plus there is LOTS of info available online about personal finance, if young people can be bothered to look for it and teach themselves. You're doing a disservice to many many talented young people if you restrict the maths curriculum to just teaching "the basics" and adding some personal finance on top.

There is only so far you can argue that some young people aren't lucky enough to have families who discuss and support them with budgeting and other life skills and to advise and help them launch into adulthood and so schools are a vital resource in educating those young people in this stuff. The fact is that schools are there to educate your child academically, because most of us can't do that for our children, we don't have the knowledge or qualifications. There are only so many hours in the school day and while PHSCE covers a LOT of what OP is driving at, parents need to take responsibility for non-academic learning.

Times have changed since mine were young. Attitudes of parents seem to have changed. There are a lot of children starting school not knowing how to use a knife and fork, or they're wearing pull-ups. I can't believe how few parents and carers there are waiting outside for the classroom door to open at the end of the day. They casually stroll in in dribs and drabs. When mine were young EVERYONE bar one or two, was stood outside the classroom waiting for the teacher to open the door. Dismissal was quick. Now the poor teachers are kept waiting 20 mins far too often. Take responsibility for your children, and get there on time. Same goes with the other end of the day. Far too many kids who arrive late every day, disrupting the busiest time of day for staff and unsettling the kids themselves who are embarrassed to arrive late. We know the parents who have genuine difficulties in dropping/collecting. Far too many other just nonchalantly stroll up late with no apology or anything.

Ooh, I've gone off on a bit of a rant there. Just makes me angry. School staff are amazing. They are up against so much, and they do the very best for your child. So do your best for them.

Although I kind of agree that some of the things taught in school should be ditched and maybe more emphasis put on those things. A lot of kids don't have parents who will teach them these life skills so for the children's sake it provably would be a good idea.

I'm sure ds (in high school) told me they were learning about mortgages and credit cards last year.

Which is good - but very middle class.

Kids Also need to know about social housing, private renting, eating healthy on tiny amounts of money, making ends meet, how to pay a bill, electric meters, the value of money (you'd be amazed the amount of offenders who have no clue what a minimum wage is, or how to manage on such money - which leads to seeking the big money through drugs and crime etc...)

Taking a class of children for a swimming lesson can take up a whole morning of learning time. You can't fit much in before you go. Then the kids have to get their stuff together and go and wait for the coach (bus). The coach takes a while to take them to the pool. 30 kids getting changed takes a while. Then they have their lesson. Then they get changed back. Then you sit and wait for the coach. Then it drives you back to school. Then all the stuff has to be put away, the kids settled down again, you start to try to teach something, but it's lunchtime.

The government in the form of OFSTED expects a vast amount of teaching and learning to be fitted into a school day. Losing 10% of the week's lesson time to something that most parents can do for their child, is no longer a serious option.

Swimming - my kids go once a year for a term. Its about to be a lot less because our local leisure centre is going to close. There is a big local campaign but if it's not successful then the children will have to travel to another town. So will all the other schools in the area, and they will then be competing for lesson time with the schools who already use the other leisure centre. Plus increased travel time (less time to be learning things, more time just sitting on a coach) and increased costs to cover this.

Mental health. I work in a school and we do a lot about mental health (although we don't call it that.) The child that I work with that I am most worried about is in Year 4. Parents have separated. It's not harmonious and the child hears a lot of things they shouldn't about the other parent from both sides. Issues with step dad. Issues with violence from an older sibling. Child is becoming increasingly anxious and angry. I can chat about mental health, I can try and counteract anxiety, I can talk about anger and how to cope, I can provide strategies, but in the end, I cannot undo the damage that is being done at home. I worry about the future of this child. School is doing what we can, they are receiving more time than just about any other child in the class (which raises its own issues) but I would not be at all surprised if this child turns up years down the line in a young offenders institute. This will not be because nothing was done. It will be in spite of everything that was done.

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

Well if there's nothing we should leave to parents might as well just put all the kids in state homes & raise them there, then.

but if a kid can't read and write, and doesn't know how to manage their emotions or look after themself, or have healthy relationship, or attend to personal hygiene etc.. by the time they get to secondary, they will.likely have stopped attending before they get taught this stuff....

Then their parents will have failed the child, not the school. "Attend to personal hygiene" - are you serious? This is really not a school's job. It is the PARENT'S job.

Schools now are bristling with mental health initiatives. It hasn't really resulted in a mass outbreak of mental health, more a mass outbreak of kids overly anxious about their anxiety.
Academic content is important. Just because people in jail don't find ancient Romans useful or interesting it doesn't mean the whole society should be kept in the dark about their contribution to modern western society.
Budgeting is as much about a constant stream of spending decision, influenced by things like impulse control and organisation. These cannot be taught in a lesson, buy are mostly learned through modelling behaviour.

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?

this ^

Kids Also need to know about social housing, private renting, eating healthy on tiny amounts of money, making ends meet, how to pay a bill, electric meters, the value of money (you'd be amazed the amount of offenders who have no clue what a minimum wage is, or how to manage on such money - which leads to seeking the big money through drugs and crime etc...)

Most of these things (paying a bill etc) are tasks, not skills. We equip children with skills because you teach a set of skills (reading, arithmetic) and it enables you to then do many tasks for yourself.

You can teach them those things too ...
Schools have a very limited amount of money ...swimming etc is expensive and time consuming
The basic curriculum fills the day ...so there are time constraints too

The school I work in does it's best with all you say ....Mental Health etc etc

@FedUpOfYetAnotherCold

Oh gosh!! Just curious me back to this thread and see people are not in agreement!!

I understand people saying 'its the parents job' etc..

For what it's worth - my children are both competent swimmers as I have sent them to lessons and one is in a swim club. I do also teach them skills and MH awareness etc...

But I am not asking for a change in schools for me! Its about ALL children - especially those who have parents that are not in a position or able to send children to etc lessons, or able to teach them to be healthy or help them with life skills.

As I said before, I work with offenders. Many can't read or write, have significant mental health difficulties, don't know how to eat healthily or budget or time manage, many have substance use problems. Many can't manage their emotions and have no understanding how to look after themselves or others. I'd love schools to play a roll.in teaching these things as I don't know where else kids can learn this stuff if their parents are not in a position to do so.

I appreciate the pressures on schools. I love my kids school and think the teachers are amazing - my thinking is more about an overhaul of the system in general to make sure ALL kids leave school with basic life skills and knowing how to live healthily with good mental health. To me, this is more important than learning pythagorus theorum or about ox bow lakes, or about the great fire of London ....

You've made a fundamental logical error here.

The offenders that you're working with can barely read or write. Yet I can guarantee that they were taught to read and write at primary. They probably spent at least 10 hours every week learning English of some form (this is the norm). They struggled to learn. The reasons for this will be complex and different for each, but the upshot is, they struggled to learn.

For the sake of simplicity, I'll say you're suggesting swapping all science/geography/history lessons all to PSHE so that they can better understand the world and their emotions. That's probably no more than 5 hours per week. What makes you think that they would be any more successful learning this type of content than they were learning to read and write, given less than half the time to do so?

I do agree that there are some areas of the curriculum that are given more priority at primary than I think they should be. But it will not work the miracle you're hoping for. By a long shot.

FYI, Ofsted are currently obsessed with "wider curriculum." Mainly history and geography. So I can tell you that the current political agenda is completely against what you want. I don't like it either.

These days schools and teachers are probably too busy teaching toilet training and very basic socialisation, to have any time left for advanced skills like swimming and cookery.

Sorry if I've offended french teachers!!! I didn't mean to!! My little one loves french!!

I just feel we have our priorities in school wrong. For those kids who have support at home, have no problem accessing swim lessons outside school have parents able to teach them about mental health etc... then I get that learning French can be fun and enriching. But it's not a priority for many kids

I agree life skills are really important, although I consider learning a language a life skill.

I have to say my DD's school is very good. They have a pool and all DC get lessons for half the Autumn Term and the whole Summer term. They've done lots of activities for their mental well-being from the beginning, however I'm not sure it is appropriate to expect a Primary child to support someone else with their mental health. The Sports and Music provision is excellent and she's certainly learned about healthy lifestyles.

I know when I was at Secondary I felt we could have learnt a lot more skills essential to adult life instead of tonnes of GCSEs. My 14yo DS is at college now and is doing a qualification alongside GCSEs that covers a lot of life skills which I'm really pleased about.

If you teach someone good reading, writing and maths skills, they can easily use those to:

• research and apply for social housing
• pay bills
• budget
• follow recipes
• understand the minimum wage
• read books and websites full of information on nutrition

If you neglect those skills and rote teach them how to pay an electric bill, all it does it teach them a single task.

I agree
Especially french
Why are we still teaching this
Brexit
Agree

@KitBumbleB

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

My children were thought how to write a CV How to fill in an application form....just came naturally ....if it hadn't I'd have helped them. As for taking on the phone ....well if they hold conversations at home this will help that .

The swimming is very important.
I know a lot of families who can't afford to go to the baths themselves and certainly can't afford lessons. A lot of parents never went swimming as children and can't swim either.

Taught

Not being able to swim is less likely to be a barrier to long term employment than good language skills.

French can be taught cost effectively to a large group on site, takes little time, and contributes to better language and communication skills.

Getting to being able to swim 25m takes an investment of time and resource that is not practical to provide to groups of 30.