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When I was at school in the 60's we did 'Rural Studies', which was mainly gardening, a bit of biology and wildlife. I was top of my year but dropped the subject for the 'much more interesting' O level Physics! Then went to work in an office in the City, before (6 years later) seeing the light and here I am nearly 40years later!
Back to the thread - its time the schools started to teach more practical subjects.........maybe common sense will come with them!
How interesting, I wondered if there was a subject that had been removed - What else did Rural studies cover and could you do an O level in it then?
Ah...... I think it was called Rural Science now I come to think of it! Not sure about the O level option - rather a long time ago!
We had a large greenhouse with a heated and unheated section and a classroom. The garden had vegetable beds, cold frames etc. I can remember heated propagators for cuttings. It was a treat to get out of the main school building for an hour a week.
Hello Colin, I wonder what happened to this option?/ Does anyone know? Was it the time, space, cost? I had cookery something about making scones and Victoria sandwich cake, Art including throwing lino cuttings around but everyone liked Art, but no greenhouse or growing inspite of being in the country.
I read that Rural Science developed after the war and the 'Dig for Victory' campaign. Conservation and environmental concerns seems to have gained ground over plant and animal husbandry. http://www.andycadman.force9.co.uk/RuralScience.htm
Perhaps write to the national curriculum review body and ask for it to be put back on the curriculum, next to Physics of course!
when my daughter was in the 1st year of primary school I had just started gardening for a living and she volenteered me to talk to the class about plants as they were doing a topic on plants at the time.
I set off a load of sunflower seeds in little pots so they were about 2inches tall when i went in, gave the kids one each at the end of my little talk, and they loved it.
for weeks i had kids telling me how tall their sunflowers were when i was at the school picking my daughter up.
Kids are very interested in plants because it's something that they can actually see growing, and they are in control of looking after them. My daughter loved it when we grew pumpkins at home, bloody things took over the whole garden, we was out there every day checking on them and ended up with a couple of fairly big ones for halloween.
great stuff!!
I did rural studies too Colin, We was the last ones to do it at our school, the teacher retired and the subject was dropped from the curriculum. Shame it was good, plus I live in a very rural part of the country. Makes sense to have kids educated about it.
Colin Hunt said: