To think schools should have a class to teach basic life skills

[beesandstrawberries]

We all learned so much in school that we haven’t used in day to day life - I mean when have we ever touched a Bunsen burner since school? But none of us was learned the basics of life and how to navigate it - things like:

• Showing how to do basic meals, cooking pasta safety, use of kitchen appliances correctly
• paying bills
• what a mortgage is, how to deal with contracts and paperwork
• how to meter readings
• change a lightbulb, basic tool use in the home
• how to check fire alarms
• credit card education
• managing money, spreadsheets to manage them
• insurances like life insurance and what ones you need
• education on abusive relationship signs
• things like peer pressure
• how to write formal letters/emails

I think we learn so many things that mean nothing when we leave school. If you teach kids basic life skills from a young age, it would make kids a lot more well rounded and less anxious in the ‘real world’ when it comes to managing money and not getting in debt. Even learning things like the warning signs of abusive relationships to young and impressionable teens as I think if I heard the signs then, I would have know what to look out for to prevent myself from getting in one as an adult.

I remember being in the real world and not knowing how to have good money management and I’m 28 and have no idea how to change a lightbulb. Even education for kids to learn about their bodies, that their outie bellybutton is normal and so are their stretch marks - so they don’t go into adulthood thinking their bodies are imperfect.

Children deserve more than Shakespeare or how to play football in pe. They deserve a kick start to life

@RamblingEclectic

I also think we need to encourage on-going, adult education rather than treating primary and secondary schools as the only places people can learn. My local college and adult learning programmes used to run DIY courses and courses on these types of finances, but then austerity meant funding for these types of courses disappeared and they've sadly gone to the wayside.

Fully agree. The 90s and 00s were a terrible time for the dismantling of our World leading adult education system. As you rightly say, there used to be loads of options for adults wanting to learn, whether formal qualifications such as GCSE and A levels, or professional qualifications, such as AAT accounting, or DIY, flower arranging, languages, car maintenance, ski-ing, etc etc., via evening classes. They were done in several places in our small city and nearby towns, at the polytechnic, a few local colleges, even village halls. We used to get a pamphlet through the door which was a directory of all the courses, the locations, durations, costs, etc.

All gone.

All our colleges shut down except one which turned itself into a 16-18 only and does no adult education at all. The Poly converted to a Uni and does nothing like that anymore - all about degrees now (Thanks Blair!). We still have one of the colleges standing empty, as it's never been used since.

But that wasn't "Austerity" - it had all gone before then, like I say, the 90s and 00s when public funding was removed from adult education and channeled into universities instead.

Whilst most of these things are down to parents to teach, in hindsight, I would have found a lesson or 2 in money management skills and mortgage stuff etc far more helpful than learning algebra which I've no need for.

But I fully understand that it is not down to schools and teachers to teach us all that we need to know.

They already do formal letters on English language. They learn to cook basic dishes if they chose to do Food Technology and abusive relationships and peer pressure in PHSE. Other stuff parents should teach. I taught my kids about mortgage payments and led them through buying their first homes, life insurances and pensions.

And there are lots of parents who think teachers are responsibile for party invitations and even arranging play date ones, it's weird

The Poly converted to a Uni and does nothing like that anymore - all about degrees now (Thanks Blair!).

Polys turned to unis in 1991. That was Thatcher, not Blair.

The Poly I'm taking about did indeed convert to a Uni around that time, but carried on doing "adult" education course for some time, where we worked, we continued sending our trainees for accountancy professional level courses throughout the 90s, even though they weren't degree courses. It was where I went for my own accountancy courses in the 80s - externally examined. They stopped all that in the early 00s when they shut everything else down and started ONLY offering degrees. I remember it well because we had a few trainee accountants at work part way through their studies and had to find alternative courses for them which proved incredibly difficult as the next nearest place (which was a college) that previously did accountancy courses had also stopped doing them and was only offering 16-18 year old courses. Personally, I taught AAT accounting at our local college (that was as high as they went) to classes of a mix of adults and school leavers, which was also cancelled when the college stopped offering anything other than 16-18 year old courses - that was 2002!. It was a very gradual erosion of "adult" education over the 90s and 00s as I said.

But plenty of people do use mathematics in their lives. Engineers. Financial modellers, quantitive analysts. Doctors have to understand the principles, fluid dynamics etc. children need to be exposed to these principles to stand a chance of getting into these roles. Especially those who aren't spoonfed by parents. I wasnt spoonfed into medicine. They do not need to have them bumped in favour of life admin just because you don't use algebra. This argument is so facile and damaging. If accepted in schools, it would cause huge class divides.

Yes, someone here even thought teachers are responsible for children trying new types of water and monitoring consumption. FFS.

I understand that people are saying that some children just won’t get these things and it could/will lead to problems later on however schools doing it because if lazy and crap parents is not the answer. I don’t want academic stuff removed/or cut down so that schools can make up for stuff parents should be doing. I want my children to have a full curriculum, dumbing down abd making students all do the same thing because otherwise it stigmatises others also has to stop.

If this is needed then something needs to be setup after school, but not delivered by teachers, to cover this stuff. I would be interested to see how many children took it up. I’m willing to bet not many because many just don’t want to take responsibility for themselves and it’s easier to blame someone else.

Couldn't agree with you more and these kids needs to be supported from a young age, it's not that difficult to know which ones will end up where. That doesn't equate to removing things from the curriculum to accommodate this, and making everyone mediocre. Remember too, we live in a global economy now.

I hear what you're saying, but unless you take it further you're only learning the very basics of algebra, chemistry, physics etc. If you weren't exposed to it you wouldn't even know about it. And while I rarely use these things, there have been times I need to figure out what "x" is or maybe some very basic chemistry. There was a thread last week where the OP had found sulphuric acid (I think) and one poster told her to mix it with something, even with my very tiny remaining knowledge I knew that sounded like a bad idea. Ironically everyone will need a mortgage, so you could argue that's the thing that you shouldn't be taught in school because that should be easy to learn about anyway.

@TagyoureitI'm also sure they do teach you about mortgages, because I remember learning about compounding interest. I also remember learning about gambling in maths! I actually think we did learn alot of those things in school, but many of us didn't care and weren't paying much attention (me!), or remembered the details when it became relevant

I remember that one!!

Jesus. H. Christ.

So called state ‘cared for’ children (they’re anything but) would certainly benefit from this.

More generally, instead of woodwork I’d have liked a session on household items and systems such as boilers, electrical systems and gas safety!!

I'm an ex maths teacher. All the financial stuff you mentioned - credit cards, mortgages, budgeting etc - I embedded into my maths lessons.
The more practical stuff can be learned at home - light bulbs, washing, cooking etc. Parents have a responsibility to prepare their children for adult life.

Everything on your list is the job of parents.
If they aren't equipped then they are the ones who should take extra classes.

The real trouble is that issues like that can’t be fixed by or in schools. Not when SS are underfunded, early start centres shut down , early help support and interventions are minimal if at all and so on.

"More generally, instead of woodwork I’d have liked a session on household items and systems such as boilers, electrical systems and gas safety!!"

Secondary age children have almost no interest in this. What 16 year old cares about this?

If you did as a teenager you made have realised that electrical systems is covered in science lessons and household and gas safety in pshe.

Surely The point of education is to empower you to research and apply information on these things when you need them, not make sure you posses every bit of knowledge you'll ever need as an adult.

You're making quite a leap from a clear demand to teach a few life skills to whole concepts in Maths not being taught! Why go so extreme? What's the harm in "tweaking" the curriculae a little bit to put in a little more "real life" stuff and a little less specialist stuff, the latter which could easily be taught at higher levels or in "career specific" professional exams.

Can a pupil who struggles already in Maths really take on board the compound interest equation that you're trying to teach them? Is it not better to start earlier/simpler just to give examples of how much extra interest is paid over several years if someone doesn't pay off their credit card bill in full every month compared with those who do, i.e. buy a TV for £500 - pay it off within the month, total cost £500, but only pay a tenner per month for years and the total cost is £5,000! (pure guesses) rather than give them an equation they don't understand? Just to get the "message" across.

You mean losing more of what the OP and other posters propose (eg maths and sciences etc) in favour of mortgages and changing lightbulbs?

I think massive harm. How to kids knows what they don't know, so to speak and build upon the very basics to aim for the higher exams (A levels) that get them into further studies and careers?

In my opinion, in England anyway, studies specialise far too soon. This is a different thread but I absolutely do not agree children should be losing any 'less specialist' material any sooner. What they do learn is the bare foundations. Its age appropriate for GCSE but they need to know the solid academic basics. There are life skills already. That's valuable. But the balance cannot be tipped further. There's so much information available online now. That wasn't the case in the 70s. Much harder to replace a good teacher's role.

Yes, indeed, so much readily available online, so why do schools still spend/waste a lot of time on rote learning stuff and tests of knowledge in lessons, when most of the stuff being tested is available online? We don't really seem to have moved away from decades ago when people really had to learn facts because they couldn't carry around an encyclopedia with them. Fair enough in foreign languages where learning vocab is pretty essential, but not so much in other subjects where other skills such as evaluating evidence or logic are more important.

Why, for example in Maths, are some formulae given to the pupils in the exam paper (or formula sheet), and some aren't? That's a classic example of expecting a pupil to spend time learning something that's simply unnecessary as it becomes a test of memory in a Maths paper rather than a test of logic nor Maths ability. (Same in Physics with some formulae provided and some not).

What's your broader point re education, what changes do you think should be made and what do you think children actually need teaching and to get out of education? Do you not think any children benefit from learning academic subjects as far as they can, guided by trained teachers rather than paring this down?

It's not really about memorising equations,. All need applying to pass. Some better known ones, fine to make it a test of knowledge too. Not really sure what point that makes. The learning is always about being able to apply the principles.

My point is really time wasted in the classrooms learning things that don't need to be learned (lots of facts etc), then time wasted in lessons doing tests, reviewing answers to tests, etc. We're in a new World where "core" knowledge is at our fingertips and we really shouldn't be wasting limited "quality lesson" teaching time on unnecessary rote learning. I fully accept some rote learning remains necessary.

We should be spending more time on skills, whether academic skills, or life skills, i.e. research, logic, planning, organisation, bias, comparisons. And yes, I know that subjects like History are more about "cause and consequence", "balanced arguments" etc rather than rote learning of dates, but that's not much help if the pupil isn't studying History to GCSE level, so actually misses out on some pretty important "skills" that aren't "taught" in other subjects.

Nothing wrong with an academic education that we need for higher education, professions, and for people who are inquisitive and searching for knowledge, but at the same time, we need to give a good rounded education for those who are less able and will never achieve a good suite of GCSEs, let alone A levels or a degree, who currently seem to be abandoned by the wayside and often lose interest in school before they "find" their niche if it's in more practical pursuits.

we need to give a good rounded education for those who are less able and will never achieve a good suite of GCSEs, let alone A levels or a degree, who currently seem to

But how on earth would you determine who are the 'inquisitive' children who get the chance to learn the solid principles if they're written off learning organisation and planning before 16? Beyond the bits they do already. And why would they, if they don't get that exposure and teaching until they've already gone through school? What are you hoping to teach them when you say planning and organisation? It's like Brave New World!