What would you like to see taught in schools that currently isn't?

[EllieRosesMammy]

I'd like cooking to be taught, when I was in school it was taught till year 9 and then optional after that. Plus when it was taught we were making something like scones or bread - not something you'd make every day.

I've met so many grown adults who can't cook and waste a fortune on crap and takeaways, I think teaching people basic cooking skills throughout school would help to prepare them for when they move out :)

The history of Britain and Ireland. Not being goady. It’s of huge importance and remains relevant - how many people don’t understand the Northern Ireland protocol being argued? It’s not their fault - no part of the history with the neighbours next door is taught.

Who is going to teach this stuff though?

I'm a teacher - have been for 22 years. I've only been financially stable (out of overdrafts etc) for a few years - lots of my colleagues are in debt

MH strategies - again, so many of my colleagues struggle with theirs sadly so probably wouldn't be best placed to lead on positive MH

Cooking - one of my 40 year old colleagues doesn't own a pan and eats at her parents or has ready meals.

I think education is stretched enough without adding other things in.

But, maybe add in one term of financial education replacing Religious education, geography or history etc
Business studies involved finances when i was in school and how to manage accounts with ins and outs.

In my sons school they do assemblies about healthy relationships and have the local drama group do plays about what a healthy relationship looks like.

Schools cant be all things to all people or it becomes useless to all if spread too thinly.

This thread is so weird! Firstly loads of the stuff being mentioned is taught! Secondly - parents need to do some stuff - all those of you complaining that you didn’t get taught budgeting- have you explained in detail how to buy a house to your 12 year olds, or do you think it might be a bit irrelevant and they’d do this 🙄 to you? And did you manage to work out how to do it or did you just give up? Have none of you met teenagers - if something isn’t a gcse most don’t remember it or take it seriously, especially if it is ‘boring’ or about something that will happen in the future. Those mentioning biology - reproduction is taught in detail, as is healthy eating, both in ks3 for about a term each. If children don’t know what a cervix is it isn’t because they haven’t been taught. Cell structure also for about a term - cells are fundamental so I’m afraid this can’t be missed! BSL - again many schools do offer it briefly, but to do it properly would require a lot of curriculum time and for the majority of people it will never be used - and unless it’s made into an examined subject wouldn’t be taken seriously. What I think schools should offer is parenting classes!

A lot of what is mentioned is already taught. Here is the PSHE guidance from the Department for education. Your child may not mention it as they find some of it so boring they don't listen! Not all of it of course.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-social-health-and-economic-education-pshe

I thought all school had to teach cooking. I thought it was removed then brought back in (at great expense to school who had got rid of the food classrooms)? It's very popular in the school I teach at.

Yes, all schools do have to teach cooking!

Great ideas but I think you have to conscious of the degree of social deprivation within a school. A colleague of mine was advocating financial management as a subject in a school with a n economically disadvantaged intake with good intentions. However I think financial management doesn't address the complex causes of poverty and may lead to children believing problems like debt are a result of a lack of numeracy rather than a societal/economically structural problem.

I also found those promoting life skills in an educational setting tend to refer to disadvantaged children and I think there is a danger of over generalizing that poor children aren't academic and would benefit more from life skills than traditional academic courses.

school time is limited as it is without schools necessarily doing the role of parents.

Surprised at the ignorance of what is actually taught in schools.

Schools should be teaching less, and parents/other avenues should be teaching more. The Sure Start centres were great at teaching new parents what they needed to know, when they needed to know it, and Martin Lewis has done more for financial literacy than any PHSRE lesson.

Can't be bothered to read further than the first 10 posts but instantly I can tell you that most of the stuff people are suggesting SHOULD BE TAUGHT BY PARENTS.

What is this bullshit about expecting the school to teach every bloody thing possible and parents doing fuck all??!

It's all part of this blame culture i.e. it's never my fault and someone else is always responsible for the shit happening to me.
Ergo the school should pick up all the areas I can't be bothered to teach myself (cooking; finances; sex and relationships etc).

Lots of mention of cooking but in reality to survive cooking pasta and eating fruit is all that is necessary; in reality there is no need for complex cooking (though of course there is enjoyment in it). Again isn't teaching cooking another reference to poor families being poor because they live on take aways and only if they could cook then there financial problems would vanish.

My 17 yo has just finished y11. Almost everything mentioned bar sign language and first aid is taught.
DD didn't have specific pshe lessons but content was covered in tutor time and drama (esp y8 and y9 covered knife crime, drugs, DD found it quite depressing). Food tech covered cooking and nutrition. Healthy living is in biology gcse across various topics. Interest rates covered in maths. Critical thinking, bias etc covered in history. Letter writing in English.

Maybe the govt should provide life skills for adults? Actually I expect they do. I bet adult education courses include first aid, bookkeeping and cooking.

Finished y12. Stupid autocorrect.

Sex education should be primarily the responsibility of the parents and I think it is incredibly difficult for schools to take into account the wide ranging cultural views about this issue and this often leads to controversy when you don't accommodate religious sensitivity etc.

There are still many in this country who are religious or at least have sexually conservative views and I think it is right to respect this and allow parents the choice to frame sexual education in a form they feel is suitable. I may not agree with particular family's view but we all have a right as parents to be the prime source of information and guidance on such a private and fundamental issue.

We have a relatively low number of children meeting expected standards in core language and mathematical skills as shown by recent SATs results so surely these are areas for schools to focus on.

Latin.
For the selfish reason that my year 11 state school daughter is having to study it with a tutor outside of school for GCSE and A Level. She loves it ( has been obsessed with ancient history since first reading Percy Jackson) and needs it to study classics at the unis she wants to get into.I'm aware she might be a minority but I think it's a shame that learning classics at most universities is only for the privately educated or families like us who can afford tutoring.
My kids do cooking at school but agree with above poster it doesn't focus on the basics.

Can’t help but noticed most of the subjects mentioned are already being taught at school.
economics: investment, interest rates, inflation, costs, pension etc
maths: more on how to calculate interest, risk, probability as well as algebra and the philosophical side of maths.
languages: English (compulsory), German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese
food technology: healthy eating, vitamins and minerals, how to cook, what the body needs to function well, effects of junk food on the body
art: various technicals and schools of thought, art history
PE: all kinds of sports, sport injury and treatment, team management, how to deal with losses gracefully
history: we were taught contemporary political issues in history by learning how to draw similarities between what’s happening now to what happened in the past. Use the past to predict the future. Class discussion on our prediction and actual political outcomes etc.

The list goes on.

I disagree with the statement that if school taught all these extras it will not have time for the core subjects. The core subjects come from everyday life. For example Maths can easily teach pension and investment by using them as examples in questions. I spent the majority of my time at school while my parents worked. After school was full of extracurricular commitment and weekends were full of tournaments. I see my teachers more than my parents. How could mum and dad possibly have the time to teach me about pension and financial investment when they get home at 7pm or 9pm?

A higher percentage of GDP should be allocated to education. It is proven greater spending in education is intrinsically beneficial for the country in the long run.
uk gdp% on education 4.5%
sweden 6.8%

I find these threads so sad

how many hours a day do you want kids in school?

Education should be about exposing children to the kind of learning that doesn’t fall in you lap in day to day life.
maths, science, history, music, art, philosophy and emotional intelligence. Education should show them there is a whole world to be explored out there and leave their brian fizzing with excitement.

If children are missing out on things like cooking, basic budgeting etc at home then rather than waste every body else’s time bringing them up there should be holiday schemes that can be accessed by referral for kids who need more basic life skills

just saying ‘X should be taught in schools’ over and over about whatever pet peeve you’ve got now (someone on this thread said telephone etiquette ffs!) is really insulting for the teachers who are already trying to cram the idealistic curriculum for excellence in to more children, with diverse individual needs, than one human can realistically do to the standard those individuals deserve

imagine if everyone kept shouting ‘Jeanie from the office should be managing my accounts as well as her already overstretched job’

Completely disagree.

Before sex education was a thing many kids were not getting the information they needed until too late. Good sex education should help prepare children to keep themselves safe as well as the basic biology.

the parents who would object have the kids who need it the most frankly.

A lot of the things mentioned here ARE being taught in schools.
Some are very niche and all about me ,me ,me. I hated French, but I would've liked to learn how to grow my own bananas.
Some I wonder if people practice what they preach ,and teach their kids themselves from an early age,or do they just expect schools to pick up the slack.

I think it would really benefit older children to be taught about child brain development + parenting.

Emphasising the huge responsibility it is might also reduce the number of teenage pregnancies.
And I really think bringing up children better is the best we can do about solving so many of society's problems.

Spelling punctuation and grammar is taught from foundation stage onwards

It would keep you alive but your health would be impacted if you lived on pasta and fruit for any length of time. Cooking needs to be prioritised at school because

• poor diets have an impact on the NHS and the environment, so we all pay if we don’t tackle it
• as someone else said, many parents cannot cook so how can they pass on skills they don’t have to their children. It entrenches disadvantage.
• Good food well prepared is one of life’s pleasures
• There are skills shortages in catering and hospitality, food production and manufacturing. There are some really interesting opportunities in food and drink. My old school friend is now a cheese maker for a brand you might have heard of and is loving it, another works at a brewery developing new beers
• And I say this as someone with a lot of academic qualifications, the curriculum needs more emphasis on practical skills for all abilities of child. The world is changing and the curriculum has been updated as much as teachers are able to, but the structure of it is designed for the lives and priorities we had in the 80s.

I taught DT for 27 years. Cooking is taught in all schools. It was introduced by law some years ago. Unfortunately as the curriculum is so over crammed by the government there isn’t enough time to teach it properly. Some places have only an hour every other week. So they can’t teach proper meal preparation. This is the government’s fault not the school.

There is no time to squeeze in finances or telephone etiquette(?). Gove created a monstrous overloaded curriculum.

lf you want more stuff like this in schools, vote in a different government.

Most things mentioned here are taught very well at my school.

The problem in my view is that advice on diet etc. is to an extent aimed primarily at the poorest in society and although what you say is obviously correct you cannot avoid the fact poor nutrition is often the result of poverty. You may only be able to eat well for instance if a food bank has been given nutritious goods if you have an impoverished family.
A lot of the household skills agenda mask political problems in this country and we should be careful to not patronize or stigmatise those without a great deal of money.

I'm surprised by some of these. Maybe it's a Scottish education system thing only but first aid has formed part of the PE curriculum now for some years and St Andrews Ambulance or equivalent is a common club/ add on too. Additionally most final year pupils will have several sessions on financial management as well as sexual health.