If youths fail these days, it's not education's fault

Most of the time they are schooling you about eras that were far different from the ones younger people live in today, but some just like to moan.

And that’s precisely how my daughter saw it when we went to her high school transition night on Tuesday when – and I never believed I would ever, ever say this – I thought to myself ‘I wouldn’t actually mind going back to school’.

On the night we got an introduction from the heidy who ran 300-odd parents through what the school will be teaching our weans over the next four-six years of their impressionable young lives.

The description of topics they’ll be covering left us collectively turning to each other and nodding as if to say ‘that sounds brilliant’!

Some of subjects include designing computer games, studying politics and media, business, how to manage money (I’m still trying this), dance, food technology, about 30 languages – they even made religious studies sound half decent.

In my day we got maths, history, English, science, French and PE and that was it and the only qualification I left school with was an NC in trampolining.

I’ve lost count now of how many times I said to Louisa, ‘when I was at school, we didn’t have all these opportunities’. I’ve also lost count of the sighs which met my comments.

Also, the first year pupils who showed our eager group around were really happy and confident so my high school fears have been somewhat curbed – for the time being anyway.

Another bonus was making it out of a school without a detention.