The exam-focussed school curriculum is outdated

 The school curriculum is so centred around children passing exams, it’s lost touch with what school should be about: another step in helping children be prepared for the ‘real’ world, or the world of work that is almost inevitable in our society.

The curriculum needs to be a well-rounded set of skills that are taught to children in order for them to be able to live independently after moving on in their education, rather than just knowing how to answer 4 essays in 2 hours. There is an argument that school prepares you for exams and your parents prepare you for later life, but this is classist in assuming that children’s parents have both those skills to begin with, and the time to properly teach their children these skills. State schools should provide lessons in more useful life skills, as well as having less exam focussed work, and more subjects that are compulsory for students to learn about society and politics.

It’s clear that schools should teach English and Maths, and almost a consensus that these should be tested in an exam, but subjects like Science and Humanity subjects would surely make sense to be assessed as coursework. Coursework is the best form of assessment, as it means students can showcase their work from months or years in a range of forms that suits them best, in order to show their understanding of the subject. Students should be marked subjectively, their work should show what they do understand and how they understand it, rather than objectively in the same exam for everyone, when different people have different strengths and weaknesses or may have an off-day which would cause them to lose potential future prospects.

It's important that children grow up knowing how to cook easy and healthy meals, so they can avoid being the scapegoat for people when talking about the obesity crisis and blaming those from less well off families for eating junk food instead of healthy food. There should be compulsory lessons in school of food tech, which actually teaches pupils the way to cook a meal from scratch while spending the least amount of time and money, so healthy food is accessible to everyone. Teachers should be able to run through healthy meal options, and students keep a log of healthy recipes they can use in the future while being taught how to make them properly, throughout secondary school. This should also be done in a way that teaches about health, rather than perpetuating diet culture, so that it encourages nutritious food not disordered eating.

Other skills that schools should teach include simple sewing like a button, or sewing up a hole in clothes (in order to encourage keeping clothes for longer, instead of just throwing them away), or simply DIY, like the ability to put up a shelf or a run through of tools and their primary uses. Classes like these would ensure that everyone would have simple skills that make life easier, rather than having to teach themselves. They could also be optional, in order to just teach the pupils that don’t have parents who are able to teach them these things, or don’t have the time to spare to do it.

Personally, I think it’s important that students learn about the country and society they live in, and its history, no matter their opinion at the end of it it’s important they learn about the world. Students should have an understanding of politics within their country, how the voting system works, what the parties stand for, and the constitution of the country, in order for them to exercise their right to vote in the most informed way possible. History should be taught objectively, with an emphasis on racial and sexist history so that everyone can be more informed of the history of minorities and tensions between groups, and therefore more understanding of society as it is now. For this reason, sociology would also be a good compulsory subject, as it means that students can have a broad understanding of the underlying conflicts between groups in society, and how this affects people’s everyday lives. These, however, should be taught on a coursework basis, with no exam at the end, in order to allow for a rounded understanding and an enjoyment of learning, rather than another subject they have to pass an exam in.

Essentially, the school curriculum is exam focussed in order to get pupils to follow a certain path of GCSEs, A Levels, University and a job they stay in the rest of their life, rather than giving students a range of options and encouraging them to follow a path that makes them happy. Schools should provide students with the resources to succeed in what they want in life, and the ability to be healthy with an understanding of the world around them, instead of causing them unnecessary stress with exams and constant tests from the age of 11 onwards.