The most pointless school subjects

[LauraSol]

Are there any school subjects you think are/were pointless? Is there anything you wish you'd been taught instead? I'm conducting research, thanks very much!

The law thing doesn't work because even most law courses at uni don't lead to people being lawyers and often law a level doesn't act as ideal prep for a law degree.

My point exactly. So why teach other subjects/topics that actually have little use/benefit to the majority and where it could be taught at a higher level only for the ones who need it in their future career??

Nothing was pointless for me but I think that as international travel has become more accessible there would be a good argument for introducing a 'european language's GCSE which would cover holiday french, greek, spanish and german. Just at a basic level

I think kids should be taught a foreign language from reception

But which foreign language. The Brits always look bad because we generally can't talk a different language, but lots of other nationalities can speak English. But that's because English is a well recognised second language. I've just been on a Baltic cruise - most passengers were German, Italian or Spanish, but English was the default language - on our table, there was a German couple and an Italian couple - neither spoke eachothers' language, so they spoke to eachother in English!

Not much point learning French if you go and work in Germany! Yes, of course, you learn skills if you learn any language that can be carried over to different languages, such as grammar etc., but that could be taught by a more general "language learning" subject that covers the basics of several popular languages - so that at least people know the most basic across a number of languages.

As for foreigners speaking English, in reality, it's usually at a very low level - just enough for simple conversation. Everyone goes on about how, say, Spanish waiters and shop staff speak English - no, they don't, they know just enough to get by - ask them something slightly unusual, and they've not got a clue, yet they can recite the menu in English!

My point exactly. So why teach other subjects/topics that actually have little use/benefit to the majority and where it could be taught at a higher level only for the ones who need it in their future career??
Given my point was about law a level (which people opt in for) I don't get your point.

How exactly do this minority manage to learn 7 years worth of material in a couple of years once they've decided they might consider academic study?

How on earth do people learn they have an interest or aptitude for a subject if we limit their options based on the interests of 12 year olds?

Again, it's those from homes who don't value study and education beyond "do this because it's linked to a job" who end up with their options limited.

It's already a problem when you look at state Vs top independent schools. Top independent schools offer a much more rounded curriculum generally then many state schools (who are cutting subjects down). The people who get harmed by this "only teach what the majority might need for life unless they opt in" are the students with lots of potential from homes that don't value education.

Latin, i was told it was the basis of language and it was a useful subject.
Never used it since I failed my O level in it.

History was learning about one particular time period. It was learning by heart laws that came in and then were repealed a few years later.

English literature. Put me off reading for life.
I did enjoy reading books till I had to write 5 page essays on them after I had read them.

English language. I was told you should write how you speak but then was told my writing was wrong. Never told why I was wrong.

I think I should never have gone to school after about age 12. Total waste of time.

I do a very hands on job but being a girl in the 60s/70s everything was focussed on training to be a housewife or office work.

If I had gone to the secondary modern at least I could have done hairdressing or plumbing and carpentary

kazzy
Yeah let's not bother with languages because everyone speaks English. As for general language lessons, it takes time to learn grammar for individual languages. The idea they can be bundled up into some MFL tick box unless you're a child who has a home supportive of language learning (which we've established kids should be able to opt out of academic studies at 12 ish because they know what they want from life and most of what is taught is useless) is daft.

Then again, this thread is highlighting to me why our MFL staff have a battle, why some non core subjects have an issue because theres so many adults who think school should baby sit, teach life skills, narrow educational options for kids and generally not worry too much about teaching subjects unless the families and children want to opt in.

I think RE shouldn't be taught before juniors.

Actually I think RE shouldn't be taught at all and the lesson could be a General Knowledge/Current Affairs sort of lesson. There might be a lesson explaining general knowledge, about say Islam, like what a mosque is, about fasting, praying on mats facing Mecca, what the Qu'ran is, who Mohammed is... but you'd get other subjects too.

The law requiring non-faith primary schools to have assemblies of a broadly Christian nature should be removed. Children could be exposed to wider variety of music and stories/talks at assemblies which links back to the general knowledge angle.

I think that in an ideal world, Forest School could be extended into older years. (Maybe added to DT? PE?)

Latin, i was told it was the basis of language and it was a useful subject.
Never used it since I failed my O level in it.

I use it to answer questions on the chase

FWIW: I was only allowed one language for GCSE. If I’d been allowed all 4 I’d have done them. I was also affronted that my school didn’t teach German too I don’t even travel anywhere that I could use any of them!

I could weep when I read posters informing us that logarithms, calculus, trigonometry and especially algebra are pointless. Christ!

Tell that to Apple, Google and all of the tech companies.

Do people really want to return to a time when most kids were never taught academically challenging stuff because somebody decided that they would never get a chance to use it, because they would all leave at 15 and go straight down a coal mine or into a mill?

You can’t deny kids a chance to learn and find new interests. Even if they never use trig again, it teaches logical thinking.

A grasp of logic and numbers would be a boon for the many, many people I encounter who have no idea how loans and mortgages work. Yes, let’s just consolidate that unsecured credit card debt into the mortgage, thus putting your home at risk and making sure that you repay much more in the end because you’re borrowing for 20 years, not 5. Because Carol Vorderman is on the advert so she should know. It is terrifying.

Home Economics. Sounds fabulous in theory, running a home budget well is crucial. We were taught to make jam roll poly and gingerbread week after week, half the time taken home semi-cooked because the lesson wasn’t long enough to finish baking. Was a very long time ago, hope it’s changed.

Don't be absurd!

Also, I dropped French before A levels (I was doing ‘pointless’ maths and physics) but because I liked it, I kept up with it and I now speak it fluently. I love it. Thank god for school giving me a taste of it, plus history, Shakespeare and classic literature, all of which I still enjoy now.

MFL delivery is half-hearted in the UK- especially at primary school level where it should be scrapped as it's never going to be funded properly.

I think that GCSE English has become ridiculous. I know that there's creative writing in language which my kids enjoy(ed) but the rote learning of quotes and poems have put them off massively.

I think RE should be taught but it should be the same way history covers different time periods/ science covers different topics: ie: it should cover all the main religions, what they’re about, when they started, who started them, where they’re mainly practised etc. Religion in my (Irish Catholic girls) school was as predictable as you would imagine. It was called Religious education but it wasn’t religious education. It was prayer and teaching me to be a better catholic. That’s not religious education. That’s religious indoctrination which should not be happening in school! Education should teach about all the religions and show a bias towards none.

I would say with Games/PE it's often the method of teaching that makes it the waste of time not the subject.

Team sports in Games. The constant emphasis on team this, team that. Some kids (I was one of them) will not Get Them (or be picked for them). And as a result will get turned off any exercise for life as the school message is Team.

What is needed is to discuss with kids what options there are and why we do it. DS's Games teacher once said to me that there are kids who will always be sporty, will do everything going, are in the A team for this and the A team for that. Those kids aren’t the ones that make his job worthwhile. It’s the ones that hate sport, trying to get them to engage.

I’m not naturally team sport orientated. I’ve spent most of my adult life overweight, and female so there’s two things against me. Sports at school should have included talks on getting good sports equipment such as proper supportive bras so that I wouldn’t have been uncomfortable running at faster than walking pace. Not having communal showers. Or making kids go out for cross-country in woefully awful weather. Having sport where being on a period was seen as something to be gently and supportively aware of not shouted at for (yes, I’m looking at you Head of House before the swimming gala!)

Giving Games/PE a point should, to me, include telling children that there’s a point in fitness where it becomes a lot easier to move. There are things for everyone – especially the non-team-sport folk. For instance Squash, badminton, tennis (in conjunction with local clubs who would see it as a chance for more members perhaps), table tennis, golf…

I'f I'd have known about the fitness threshold and proper kit (which to be fair probably wasn't available back then, so it was usually the thin or less-endowed on top girls who were sporty), perhaps I'd have been enjoying running for the past 30 years of adult life, not just the past two.

Forest School could be extended into older years. (Maybe added to DT? PE?)
I'd really like that. An outdoor education programme would be brilliant. Sadly, there's still people on this thread who'll argue that there's no point because when will they ever need to do outdoor things in life.

pikapikachu
I agree with you on MFL teaching. At the moment we haven't got enough MFL graduates to do full MFL provision. It's a shame.

On English, I actually quite like some of the changes to the literature spec. I thought it could be all rote learning quotations (and I'm sure it is done badly or without specialists), but I've spent more time debating politics, ethics, morals, gender, social change, power, corruption, class, etc than I've ever spent under the old spec. They're all timeless themes and it's amazing seeing students notice that things in the news today have been written about for centuries.

Social studies in 6th form. I went to a local nursery and took children to the toilet, waited for them to finish and then fed 1 year olds yogurt.

Other classmates went to older peoples homes, drank tea, ate biscuits and listened to stories of the War.

Agree there's no useless subjects but a lot of useless lessons.
At least 'reading round the class' appears to have died a death, 29 kids bored rigid as one reads a page fairly fluently, then another stumbles through and all 30 are embarrassed, not to mention no explanation of the book - the last one I remember was The Snow Goose which is mainly about fishermen who end up in the evacuation of Dunkirk, except none of us realised that a) WWII was happening, or b) that Dunkirk is in France not Scotland, so men in boats meant nothing at all to us!

Cookery lessons doing shortbread for the third time were also pointless. Learning how to clean a cooker was the only useful lesson.

Most useful lessons ever were Current Events where you had to bring a newspaper article each week and teacher would explain the context and we'd discuss, and the science one about dihydrogen monoxide.

I feel art was a missed opportunity at my school (a girls grammar) - essentially you went in at 12, if you could draw you were an art person, if you couldn’t you were given no guidance and compulsory art lessons were an utter waste of time.

I grew up thinking I wasn’t creative at all. Things changed in my late 20s. At 30 I started teaching cake decorating, I was knitting and crocheting and sewing and then I started designing and selling paper cut artwork - I can’t draw so I developed my own technique to turn photos into layered designs.

I so wish I’d discovered these abilities at school, maybe my life would have gone differently!

Languages are useful as you learn how people in other countries live and think. We had a term of being taught about taxes, PAYE, unions, bank accounts etc when we were in yr9. Very useful.

Crikey, yes @jackparlabane I’d forgotten ‘reading around the class’. Who benefited from that? Not the slower readers, who stumbled through reading pages of The Robber Hotzenplotz aloud, and not the better readers who read ahead to the end of the book whilst waiting!

At ds school they have just spent nearly 3 years studying ethics but have decided that there won't be a GCSE qualification in it, that is 2 hours a week that could have been spent on something else, maybe extra lessons in GCSE subjects, plus PE which considering most of the Y11 pupils avoid doing PE is another hour could be spent on GCSE work.

now to me, ethics taught properly is the cornerstone to every decision you make in life.
Whether it is about lifestyle, politics and who to vote for, IVF, sceience and preogress, our whole lives are filled with dozens of ethical decsions, and most of us have never had to think it through. If this is taught well, they will have been taught how to consider both sides of an arfument, how to understand the difference between societal and personal ethics, to think about our lives and the consequences of their actions.

Who cares about an exam, they have been taught to THINK.

So much of this thread is SO depressing. eg "I've never spoken French, therefore it isn't worth learning."
Well, I ended up, quite unexpectedly, living in 3 different countries and learning the language in each, and having learnt French at school, that was much easier to do! I could give another 4 or 5 reasons why everyone should learn another language, but in Uk that is like hitting your head against a brick wall.

It looks like there are two distinct groups here - those who think that nearly all learning is good learning and those who think that should only learn what you need to get by.

It would be interesting to break these two groups down into what makes the attitudes so different. Perhaps it's school experience. I believe I went to excellent schools and had really good teachers but I bet there were people at my school who thought they went to a shit school and had rubbish teachers.

It looks like there are two distinct groups here - those who think that nearly all learning is good learning and those who think that should only learn what you need to get by.

No, I think it's more a matter of ensuring that everyone does "learn enough to get by" as the minimum, and all other learning is a bonus. If the pupil has the "toolchest" to do both, then brilliant, if not, then surely priority has to be life skills, that they'll actually/definitely need, rather than a subject they may or may not use in later life.

No point trying to teach languages to someone who is illiterate, nor maths/physics to someone who is innumerate. You can't teach algebra to someone who doesn't know their times tables nor prime numbers.

Let's get the basics sorted and then move onwards and upwards. For those who struggle for whatever reason, they need more time on the basics - yes, even if that means less time on Studying a second foreign language or 1066 or the periodic table.

Personally, I'd love to see a more modular system, like they have in some other countries or at Uni, where you complete various (maybe random) modules, the marks of which accumulate to give you a school-leaving certificate. Fancy a bit of history? Choose a one-off standalone module on the Industrial Revolution - fancy some drama - choose a one off module - that way you get a broad range of subjects, but you're not tied to a fixed 2 or 3 year course.

No point trying to teach languages to someone who is illiterate, nor maths/physics to someone who is innumerate.
That's why student with literacy and numeracy issues usually have additional English and maths and don't study an MFL or have adapted pathways at ks4.
Theres already provision there.

Saying that, I'd go further. I'd be open to having an average score at the end of secondary school and within that students can take classes from different years but must tick certain boxes (eg a minimum number of points has to come from creative arts / technology / humanities etc) So if you're good at history and a harder class was on, you could study with the higher group (topic depending obviously - I wouldn't want to be exploring representations of sex in Romeo and Juliet in a room with 11 year olds). Some classes could have a prerequisite reading or numeracy score. If a student was under in these areas they had to do additional.