The Student Room Group

What should be taught in our schools?

Would you like to see Mandarin and healthy cooking on the curriculum?

Healthy cooking and the slave trade could become compulsory subjects in a shake up of school timetables for 11 to 14-year olds in England.

Mandarin and Arabic may also be offered as an alternative to European languages. The proposed changes are designed to make subjects more relevant to real life.

Is it a good idea to teach Mandarin or Arabic? What about the other proposed subjects? Are you a parent or a teacher? If so, what do you think should be taught?

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Healthy cooking, climate change and the slave trade all have important pats to play in their relevant subjects.

I am not so sure about Mandarin and Arabic. Some people have enough of a problem learning European languages which are very similar to English in alphabet and strcuture.

Even more people would struggle with such vastly differnet languages, which could result in even fewer people leaving school even with basic laguage skills.

However, both languages play an important part on the world scene and it will benefit the country to have more people able to communicate in them. If a school wishes to teach on of these languages, then I think it might be a good idea to have it happen, but not at the complete expesne of a more traditional language such as Frech, German or Spanish. They should remain the main three languages offered in our schools for the foreseeable future.
Reply 2
I think we shouldn't be forcing subjects other than English and mathematics down the kids' throats. And anyone who wants to learn a language like Mandarin (or indeed any language) or healthy cooking enough will do so out of their own initiative.
Reply 3
I'm surprised to see such an emphasis on climate change... as a child pointed out on the news today, it's already taught quite extensively in geography lessons in most schools.

Regarding languages, I agree with Juwel. It'd be great if schools could offer more options but not as compulsory lessons.
Reply 4
Mandarin? :wtf?: How about more time teaching the proper subjects and less time pissing around with Mandarin and Physical Education. :\
Reply 5
Of course resources as they are mean schools can't offer every GCSE or other similar course under the sun. It's a shame, but it's demand and supply. I'd like to see more use of distance learning; I benefited from it myself in taking an A-Level that the school itself didn't have a qualified teacher for. It would definitely open doors for children.
Reply 6
I think that P.E. should always be compulsory but I'd like to see students being able to choose their activities. I mean... I got absolutely nothing out of hockey lessons but I really enjoyed trampolining and I would've chosen that and aerobics over any kind of competitive sport. I can't see why that would be a problem.
Reply 7
LPK
Mandarin? :wtf?: How about more time teaching the proper subjects and less time pissing around with Mandarin and Physical Education. :\

The theory goes that you'd be suitably qualified to work in China or with the Chinese, especially in the financial and other services industries, and knowledge of Mandarin could count as a pretty lucrative asset. But as I say I think it's up to the child to see this for himself.

As for PE, kids spend a large chunk of the week in school, and I wouldn't think it right for children to be without exercise for all of that time; but again this should be down to choice.
n u c l e a r b d h
I'm surprised to see such an emphasis on climate change... as a child pointed out on the news today, it's already taught quite extensively in geography lessons in most schools.

Regarding languages, I agree with Juwel. It'd be great if schools could offer more options but not as compulsory lessons.

Maybe the climate change issue is that it isn't a requirement in schools. But some teachers feel they have the time to fit it in somewhere or that they can connect it up to some other topic thy have to cover.

It looks like now every child will e taught about it at some point in their schooling :biggrin:
Terry Pratchett should be added to the recommended reading lists for 11-14 yr olds - once you get into secondary school English stops being about reading for fun (roald dahl etc). No wonder English attainment is dropping and the number of boys going to university is plummeting - Reading should be FUN first, then it becomes easy and interesting to expand into more challenging authors..
Okay, the basics obviously, english, maths etc. I don't think alot of the authors that are compulsary really make sense, but still.

I would have loved the chance to learn mandarin at secondary school, the languages (well language, french) that was offered was of no interest to me, so different languages, but definately not compulsary.

Things like IT are important nowadays, but mostly it should be left down to teachers, too much stuff is compulsary nowadays that it doesn't make sense to learn about.

And general stuff about living as an adult, money, work, how to do basic things as adults etc, which there wasn't any of even a few years ago when i was at secondary school.
pig
Teach MS Office (especially Excel, even just doing formulae etc).
shhhhh - I don't want people nicking my job:p:
Reply 12
I was listening to this on the news earlier, and they made it sound like the changes were revolutionary and would completely shake up the education system. Personally, I can't really see a clear difference between most of the new topics and what we already do. Making it compulsory to learn about the slave trade? Welcome to year nine History at my school; that is literally ALL we did for a year. Climate change? Edexcel paper 4H (the case studies one) for GCSE Geography- one of the components includes managing the environment, and that is focused primarily around the effects that climate change have had on the environment. The paper 3H focuses a great deal on it too, and it also is covered in GCSE Science- not just in Biology, but even in Physics and Chemistry (the composition of the atmosphere; acid rain; the greenhouse effect and so on).

The problems of climate change and so on may have only been emphasised by the media in recent years, but they've been on the syllabus for years now. Sure, they might have been covered in a slightly more general sense, as opposed to in the "this is going to happen to us for sure" manner; but nevertheless- they're taught.

I think the government needs to really focus on the subjects which they least expect there to be problems with. I think English should definitely contain a compulsory grammar component- at the moment most GCSE students (at A level it does at least improve slightly) don't even know what an adverb, verb and so on are- let alone know how to identify a direct object or a split infinitive.

I.T. at GCSE is pretty much useless- I'm currently [supposed to be] finishing my third piece of coursework for it, and I would estimate that maybe 3% of it is actual practical usage of computers and software, and the other 97% is analysis.. evaluating your analysis.. evaluating your evaluation of your analysis.. and so on. Employers don't care if you can justify your size 22 pink Curlz MT font (although I'd certainly hire someone who could justify that); they just want people to be able to use basic applications like Access, Excel, Word, Powerpoint and so on. The same applies for Maths- who really cares if you can draw the graph of Sin? As long as your arithmetic skills are alright/ you can calculate VAT/you can use basic logic, then that's what they want.
Reply 13
Chineses?!?!? how about if u focus more on math and science ...........the obvious subjects..the compulsory ones.. i also think that we should focus more on history.. especially non-european?!?!? so at least something can be learned from it.... i think languages are gr8 2 learn when are not forced ... unless students have passion for certain language it can be a great experience. i have always been the believer that learning is a side effect of joy.....that joy being is ofcourse subjective!!
Reply 14
Mandarin? Arabic? People I know who have taken a language as an option for GCSE (I, thankfully, didn't) find it hard enough learning French or German... let alone Mandarin or Arabic.

Plus there's the fact that, as people above have sort of pointed out, a hell of a lot of people leave school without being confident with their use of English; particularly in reading and writing. The number of people who when asked to read in class, aren't fluent - even at 16 - is appalling. I won't even mention spelling. I would have thought these kinds of things just come naturally to people. Evidently not.

I think more emphasis should be placed on English, as at the moment it kind of seems the most... neglected, of the 3 core subjects.

Rubbish like compulsory PE should be scrapped. At your bog-standard state school (like mine) no-one does anything except mess around. A waste of an hour which could have been used for something much more worthwhile. Ugh.
Reply 15
Pistolry, rhetoric, diplomacy, fencing should all be taught - how else is a prospective gentleman supposed to survive the Great Game out on the imperial frontiers?
Reply 16
Surely the idea of having Arabic and Mandarin as school subjects just means "allow people who can already speak it to get a recognised qualification". Which seems like a waste of time to me. If you can speak it fluently, why have a qualification to poxy GCSE level? Better to just say it's your mother/at-home language!
blissy
Surely the idea of having Arabic and Mandarin as school subjects just means "allow people who can already speak it to get a recognised qualification". Which seems like a waste of time to me. If you can speak it fluently, why have a qualification to poxy GCSE level? Better to just say it's your mother/at-home language!



I think Brighton College (OK, so as an independent, not so relevant to discussion) has decided to start teaching all kids Mandarin at an early age, as most kids would now do French or Spanish. Personally, I think as long as the option to do European languages is still there and there is demand for it, I like the idea. But yes, in the meantime, it will just be used by some as a 'free' GCSE after a few lessons of exam technique.

I wouldn't mind people being taught what accusative, genetive, etc. case means in English, before a despairing MFL teacher has to go through it with the class! That's how I found out. My German teacher thought it mad that we didn't know these things when they are still relevant to English.

Small point: I think the Spanish Civil War would be pretty nifty to be taught as well. It's recent, it happened in Western Europe, it has links to literature and the like, yet hardly anyone knows about it. I suppose it's a bit complex and bloody for younger years though. Do any GCSE/A Level boards focus on it?
Reply 18
I know what they shouldn't teach...Welsh!

By becoming compulsory it stopped the majority of people in my school studying a language that would have been useful like french or german, as most people who do not intend to be career linguists cannot justify studying more than one language at GCSE...
I think it would be folly to make the slave trade, as a subject or even module, compulsory. There are so many important aspects of social and political history, why this one? These things are important and should be options for schools, and if there is staff avaiable, for students.

As for languages that don't use our alphabet, there is no WAY these should be compulsory. People have enough difficulty using English and european languages. How are they going to cope with all of that AND a whole new language structure with a whole new set of characters? Again, these could be options but a kid coming out of secondary education with GCSEs in French or German is likey to be more proficient in their chosen language than if they had had to start from scratch with Mandarin or Arabic, as these languages are so alien to most British people. If we are learning languages as an intellectual exercise, then learning one that also serves to teach as a new method of communication is surely more valuable than confusing kids with a new alphabet? And if they want to teach kids about culture, using a language isn't the right way. History and human geography is where that should take place.

The core subjects are worsening by the month. This is where our attention should be.