Besides knowledge, what do you think they should be teaching children in schools?

[ShreeVishu]

Is the modern education system fit for purpose? Is it equipping children with the skills to be happy and successful in life? What additional skills do you think we should be teaching children in school?

Basic first aid

Excel

Money management, budgeting etc

The problem is you can teach children as much as you like but really how much do you actually remember.

Everything mentioned on this thread is already taught in modern schools, we did some fantastic outreach work with the education department of a local bank, they came in and broke down a payslip, spoke about credit cards, mortgages and loans etc it was great and that went alongside other finance lessons already taught as pSHE. However how realistic is it that any of that information will help those students in 5, 10, 15 years time when they come to need it?

Other than ox bow lakes how much do you actually remember from school?

First aid!

It's amazing how much of what is being suggested is already taught.....

I’d expect parents to do that and let the teachers concentrate on teaching maths, science, English, history etc.

Every option in the poll is already heavily covered in PSHE, from EYFS to secondary.

They shouldn't have too but what makes a good parent it seems so people can actually think before they sleep with anyone

The need to be taught how to learn, and not to constantly question every fact they are given. Learn it first, ask questions after. That comes later on, not at the outset.

They need to be taught how to memorise things, and then be able to recall that information and apply it when required.

Brain training, if you will. Those pathways become physically permanent in the grey matter.

I do slightly wish schools would go back to not just teaching but ensuring the learning of basic spelling …

As it was the generation before them, and the generation before them, and so forth and so forth. Where does the blame end? In the Garden of Eden?

At some point you need to take personal responsibility. If you're old enough to have teenagers of your own you are far too old to be blaming your parents for your personal failings.

My children went to mainstream infant and junior schools that had a deaf unit. All children were taught BSL alongside normal lessons regardless of whether they had a hearing difficulty. I think this should be standard in all schools.

From the poll I'd say communication skills but I'd expect them to be teaching that already just as a by-product of normal school lessons, but could be done in special lessons too (the last two years of primary school for DD they do special lessons once afternoon a week and cover all sorts of things in 6 week blocks including mental health and communication, bit like PSHE but also do things like a board game block and a sports block)

Financial literacy is definitely important. I remember learning about VAT and compound interest in maths in secondary school but that was about it. But I really like the way they teach it in my DD's Finnish school, they do a whole project on working life in social studies where they learn about taxes and what they are used for (they have to design their own town and balance its budget, with the taxes coming in from the businesses they choose and the expenses going out on the services they choose), job hunting, practice filling out applications, have a mock job interview, then spend a day "working" that job at a special business village with lots of other children and then spend their wages there (my daughter spent hers in the mock Lidl there )

Problem is trying to fit anything else in the UK curriculum!

Read through the 5-14 Curriculum, these things are all covered.

A primary school from my hometown teaches BSL, a lad that went there campaigned for a BSL GCSE which is brilliant

I go into many different secondary schools and I am astou dedicated how different things are from when I left 40 years ago.
Of course there are going to be big changes.
Some schools are fantastic and the technology the young people have as learning aids is fantastic.
The one thing I would change in the schools that I have seen would be to create a distance between the pupils and teachers. The ones that I have been in the pupils are too friendly with their teachers and know too much about them. It's as if the teachers are trying to be the pupils mates. This was happening 15 years ago when my child was at school. He knew the teachers name what concerts they were going to, etc. I think there needs to be a bit of distance to create authority, which I believe pupils need.

You wouldn't like schools in Finland then, the teachers are called by their first names, or even nicknames, and my DD certainly knows lots about her teacher. There's a nice closeness and relaxed atmosphere yet her teacher still maintains authority, calmly and quietly in control while still being able to have a laugh with his pupils.

You wouldn't like schools in Finland then, the teachers are called by their first names, or even nicknames, and my DD certainly knows lots about her teacher. There's a nice closeness and relaxed atmosphere yet her teacher still maintains authority, calmly and quietly in control while still being able to have a laugh with his pupils.
That does sound nice and it is somethingthat i would like to see.. However the main stream schools that I go to i.e. not PRUs there is a general lack of respect and rowdiness. Some teachers act like mates but when there is an incident the usually male pupils , expect them to carry on being their mate.
I think a reset in many schools us needed to be honest.
( note, not all)
This is not a teacher bashing post, just an observation I've made when I've gone into different secondary schools in Salford, Manchester and parts of lancashire

Literally nothing. We are teachers of knowledge, shockingly enough the rest is actually the job of parents. It's a shame most of them just can't be arsed.

I agree. Now that we have the internet and can Google for anything, we need to scale back the teaching of knowledge and memorising stuff. Far more important for the modern World are more practical things like learning "how" to Google for stuff (i.e. more emphasis on research).

We also need to be teaching far more "Real World" life skills, like personal finance. Fifty years ago, personal finance was so much easier, most people got paid in cash every week, they paid their bills and bought stuff in cash, would save cash in jars or envelopes, etc - they paid for insurance etc to a guy who came round weekly on his bike. Now personal finance is so much harder, people have to navigate comparison sites, utility/phone contracts, HP/leases, credit cards, overdrafts, etc., yet the teaching in those areas is opaque (usually couched in mathematical jargon and complex equations which are outside the ability of probably half the students!).

As for "where will teachers find the time?". Well other things (such as pointless rote learning of facts) will have to take second place and be scaled down.

Yes, I fully agree that it should be the parent's job to teach life skills, but when the parents are incapable of that themselves (i.e. chaotic home lives or can't be arsed), then "someone" has to step in, otherwise the cycle just repeats itself.

It's completely pointless wasting time trying to teach pythagoras or simultaneous equations to kids who are innumerate and can't even cope with the simplest of equations. Just as it's pointless wasting time trying to teach a foreign language or Shakespeare to a kid who is illiterate and can barely read and write. Yet that's what schools are forced to do - square peg, round hole, etc.

Pythagoras, Shakespeare etc needs to be taught to the pupils who are advanced enough to cope with it. They're probably fast enough at learning so that there's time for real life stuff too. For the roughly half who'll leave without passes in English and Maths, things need to be different - pointless trying the harder stuff that is outside their reach, so keep things simple, reduce the time on academic stuff and put more time towards real life skills that will help them in the workplace, homelife, and even foundations for further education/skills training.

This is true but our efforts are sometimes ignored by our teens due to outside influences such as social media and children who aren't being taught anything at home plus add into the mix the stupidity that comes with being young , the messages need to be reinforced constantly!

My son went to a "strict" school where there was a lot of emphasis on behaviour and respect and it worked really well. The first year was pretty hard going, with most of the teachers "setting the scene" by being pretty strict, not particularly friendly, giving homework when not really needed just to establish the habit (and punishments for not doing it).

The second year onwards was a lot more friendly, but those "lines" had been established and most teachers could backtrack and bit and restore the discipline when needed, whilst being jokey/friendly at appropriate times. I think that's the key really, to adapt to the situation.

What was really good was that the teachers were nearly all far friendly outside core school hours, which again I think was deliberate from the top. For the after school classes, pupils were encouraged to use their teacher's first names, but with the clear message that it was back to formalities in normal school times and lessons. It seemed to work well especially seeing teachers in a more "normal" environment rather than only in lessons.

My son had a particularly surprising and (shocking to him) experience when they went on their week residential outdoors pursuits trip in their first year. The headmaster (A "Dr" XXXX) always came across as very strict and someone that most of them were pretty frightened of. He went along on the residential! My son found himself paired up with the head on a canoe and was shitting himself before they got in. In reality, the head could see there was a bit of nervousness, put him at ease, told a few jokes, and then surprised my son by saying "call me Chris this week". Son thought it was brilliant and it broke down the boundaries. Back in school time, it was back to referring to him as "Dr Smith" but over the subsequent years, son found himself dealing with him quite a bit for various things (and the head was his teacher for one subject for a couple of terms) and there was none of that same nervousness nor boundaries, yet there was still the respect!

I do think that kind of thing teaches the pupils different behaviours in different contexts, which in itself is a valuable life skill.

@Natsku

Problem is trying to fit anything else in the UK curriculum!

It really isn't. My son spent an entire term in year 8 History "studying" the Princes in the Tower. A full term!! At most, it's a couple of lessons, preferably just one lesson, as there's not really that much we even know for certain. But week after week, it was yet another worksheet, yet another page to explore, comparing one page with another, etc etc. It just went on and on. Fair enough, they were probably trying to teach evaluation of different sources, reliability of sources, bias, etc., but so long on exactly the same, pretty small, topic was just tedious for them all.

Lots of stuff could be scaled back or removed entirely, etc. Certainly in years 7,8, and 9, there's an element of "filling time" in some subjects. That's why some schools start the GCSE curriculum in year 9 even though not all students will go on to chose the subjects as their GCSE options for the "proper" GCSE years 10 and 11.

@taxguru youve quoted me but seem to be agreeing with something I did not say?

I absolutely believe schools must teach core academic subjects - and they should be open to all, not just a chosen few. It’s the job of teachers to communicate and share the thrill of great literature (for instance) even to pupils who struggle to read and write in yr 7.

That will have been a unit based on developing history skills not just telling the story. We do something very similar.

To be honest, schools are currently full of teachers wanting to leave and support staff being forced to paper over the cracks for no more than minimum wage. Adding ‘mental health support’ and banking skills as yet another expectation for those people to try at teach to classes of 32, when their parents haven’t managed to teach it to just them at home, is a plan that’s never going to get off the ground.

Until we have staff who are happy and motivated and consistently stay, and a government that isn’t obsessed with tests, data, targets and Ofsted, we can’t pile on anything else to teachers’ plates.