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

Why would they be embarrassed its ok not to know things we all have to learn somewhere. I'm sure the poster knows how to do things you don't. We never stop learning and it's comments like this, that makes people not ask for help when they need it

We do, in Wales. I do also, as a mum.

Maths includes simple and compound interest, for mortgages, inflation, future costs ect.
business and economics also cover contracts and things.

apart from that humanities and English covers reading and critically responding to sources.

science covers a lot more than how to use a Bunsen burner. I teach science.

This year my year 6 class have covered the needs of living things, experiments on the importance of light, water and nutrients and predicting natural disasters, current warning systems ect. Later in the year we are covering electrical circuits, which incidentally they will get to ‘change a light bulb’ as we purposely blow one of the tiny 4V bulbs by increasing the voltage.

I think the issue is not learning stuff in school but retention. I do find it amusing how many adults insist you don’t learn financial maths at school. You do, you probably just were not listening!

I think schools have got enough to do.
This stuff OP is parents responsibility

Schools do not have the time or resources to replace everything parents chose not to do, people are happy to have children but then think that is where it ends

In an ideal world this is what parents would teach their children. But there seems to be a huge amount of people who either don’t have the time or inclination to teach basic life skills to their children so yes I think this would be useful for all.

School is not a replacement for parenting!

@beesandstrawberries If you can't change a light bulb, who does it for you? Or do you just sit in the dark?! Surely you've had ample opportunities to watch and learn by age 28!

Is that a reason for bringing down school education for all the children?

Some children can't speak English when they start school (in England, obviously). You don't update the entire curriculum to include basic English?

You don't put on hold all the PE lessons in Year 7 until Christmas because one secondary school child won't know how to do his shoes laces because his parents haven't taught him.

Other than the finance stuff I learned a lot of this stuff at Guides! Yes you do pick it up at home but it sticks better in a formal setting. On the finance stuff - I had a class at college for this alongside A Levels and hardly anyone attended it because it was last thing on a Friday. Came back to bite me having to learn as an adult when it actually matters. You can take a horse to water, and my college did try

Or the skills, sadly.

Of your list I learnt 75% from my parents, 20% from Money Saving Expert, and 5% from school, because we did formal letter writing at school.

Can't believe you never changed a lightbulb in your bedroom, did your parents raise a princess?

My 13 year old just prepared a full roast dinner single handedly for the entire family. He don’t learn this at school. He learnt a bit from me and a bit from watching videos how to do it. He did an amazing job and put my cooking to shame. He didn’t need the school to teach him this. My job is to prepare him for adulthood. Most of those things will be covered and some of them he’ll learn as he goes along just as I did.

the school has enough to do without teaching life skills! That’s my job.

incidentally they do learn how to write formal letters as part of their English language GCSE.

I have taught my DC everything on that list and consider it my job to do that and what parents are for. I prefer that schools teach them the things I can’t so they can have the career they want, which is what they are for.

I've thought this for years. I got a job at 16 working for Debenhams and got given prizes due to the amount of people I got to take out storecards. As soon as I turned 18 I was also given a store card and that was the only way I could get my discount.

Thank God my mum encouraged me not to use my store card (purely because she hadnt watched my sister quite so carefully and she ended up in a lot of debt at 18!), but I had no idea I had encouraged so many people to take out what was basically a credit card. I wish i had known more.

@beesandstrawberries

Aged 28 I wired in my electric cooker

Aged 28 I was decorating, laying carpet, changing plugs and fuses

Aged 28 I could cook pretty much anything - on anything - out of nothing

Aged 28 I was paying rent, rates, gas , electric and water bills

Aged 28 I was budgeting to be able to afford to live on my wages and put a tiny amount away each week

Aged 28 I was working full time and two part time jobs to be able to afford to live without credit

I was 32 when I applied for my first mortgage - no didn't have a clue about buying a property - soon learned

I was 28 long before the internet, had to go to the library and take out books or/and sign up for evening classes

These skills are not something to be taught in schools. I learned to cook by helping out when I was living at home - started with peeling the spuds

I learned to budget by being given x amount a week and learning it had to feed x amount of people for x amount of days - maths really helped - being able to add and multiply

I learned about paying bills by reading the things and following the instructions. I learned what happened if bills weren't paid the hard way - back in the days where they just cut you clean off

If aged 28 you dont know how to change a light bulb, I suggest you go have a word with the adults who bought you up in to this world

A lot of that's covered between food tech, PSHE and maths lessons.
What isn't covered can be googled when needed if they have shit parents.

If the parents are too ignorant/thick to teach their children, there's always chat GPT.

Maybe not the cooking so much, but surely they learn from watching/assisting their parents?

But did you learn how to stop a grown man from choking on his own vomit when you where 8 or how to hide from bailiffs or to protect your siblings from violence. Not everyone has the same upbringing making out people are stupid or a princess because many of you grew up privileged is not fair

Define decent.

I’m very curious why this is a difficult life skill that needs to be taught, GCse aside . I don’t recall ever being taught how to do it. I just got told to read my meter so I went to my meter and read the numbers off. I am honestly struggling to work out how anyone can’t work out how to do this.

Yes I agree @beesandstrawberries it’s ridiculous, I actually think we should be able to drop our dc to school at age 4 and then return to collect them at age 18 as fully functioning adults!…

honestly though I don’t know where you or those around you went to school but here you go

• Showing how to do basic meals, cooking pasta safety, use of kitchen appliances correctly - I learned ALL of this and more in HOME ECONOMICS
• paying bills- this is hardly rocket science but I learned the basic idea of this in BUSINESS STUDIES and again HOME ECONOMICS
• what a mortgage is, how to deal with contracts and paperwork- again HOME ECONOMICS and ECONOMICS
• how to meter readings- it’s numbers on a screen…does this need to be taught??
• change a lightbulb, basic tool use in the home- HOME ECONOMICS
• how to check fire alarms- not rocket science…the button literally says “test” on it…
• credit card education- ECONOMICS/BUSINESS STUDIES
• managing money, spreadsheets to manage them- BUSINESS STUDIES/ACCOUNTS
• insurances like life insurance and what ones you need-BUSINESS STUDIES
• education on abusive relationship signs- PSHE
• things like peer pressure-PSHE
• how to write formal letters/emails- ENGLISH/BUSINESS STUDIES/COMPUTER STUDIES

Most of your list OP is already covered, through PSHE, Maths, English, DT, Cookery, Science etc...
how to change a light bulb probably isn't though.

Whether teens can recall their school lessons at the relevant time in their later life is another thing... At least today they can use the internet to look it up!

Parents should teach their kids life skills, but some (many) don't.
My dc did have a class in high school that taught life skills, family planning, nutrition, including the flour sack babies. The students were teamed in groups of 2, and they had to budget and care for a "baby".

Well said @feelingbleh