I think in terms of compulsory subjects we need to focus on what we actually need students to try and learn like do we really need students to learn lots of plant biology and chemical reactions for compulsory Science or geometry, transformations,shapes for compulsory Mathematics? Whilst these topics are clearly useful for students looking to study these subjects at an advanced level or go in a career relevant to these aspects of the subjects most people won't need them in their everyday life.
Core Subjects:
- Writing( note that at the moment Writing is only covered as a small part of English Language(25% for my GCSE) which is not enough I feel)
- Reading
- Essential Science(electricity,human biology,evolution etc.)
- Functionial Mathematics
- Computer Literacy(most students will learn this before the end of school)
- Politics/RE (RE was probably the closest subject to Politics you studied at school and I think there are strong links between these subjects.)
- Financial Mathematics/Economics/Business
I think that too much of education consists of teaching students what we would like them to know rather than what they need to know which is a huge problem. Many students, particularly those who are not academically inclined, find that only really Maths and English were useful for them and even then we have huge amounts of students failing at these essential subjects and it would make more sense to focus more on the essential subjects and of them focusing on the essential parts of these essential subjects so that all students are learning what they need to know.