There's lots of things that school taught me, like the song about Henry VIII's wives, longshore drift, and how to put a condom on a plastic penis. Here are the 10 things I think would have, overall, been more applicable to adult life. The condom thing was quite useful once.

1. Financial Literacy: Lucky they didn’t otherwise we probably wouldn’t have the Good Jobs For Bad People newsletter. We all remember the Pythagorean theorem and dude had some pretty sweet ideas but understanding how to manage money would have been great. Skills like budgeting, saving, investing, how to use credit cards properly and understanding how tax works.  

2. Mental Health Education: There's so many more resources available now than when I was a kid, but teaching students how to recognise, understand, and manage their emotions, stress, and mental health issues, along with the importance of seeking help when needed.

3. Basic First Aid: Funnily enough, I've never seen anyone on 24 hours in A&E say "Just put a wet paper towel on it". Knowing how to respond in emergency situations like the recovery position or how to perform CPR, and treat minor injuries shouldn't be specialist.

4. Household DIY basics: How do I fix a leaky tap? What do I do with mould? What's a fuse box? How do I hang a picture straight? Anything so I don't have to call the plumber.

5. Nutrition and Cooking: If you did food tech at school, you'll probably remember making some disastrous cheesecake or lasagne, after you'd forgotten to tell your parents about it the night before and had to run into the shop for ingredients before school. Did not help me learn how to cook or what to eat.

6. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: If we get this out the way early, then when kids have to go through the pain of group interviews and team building exercises as a young adult, they know exactly how to build the tallest tower out of spaghetti and loo rolls.

7. Communication Skills: The ability to communicate clearly, listen actively, and things like presenting and public speaking skills are so painful for some but if you start early maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Super useful in all areas of life.

8. Conversational Language: I learnt French for 11 years. I can still only say I am going to the library or going swimming.

9. Understanding Contracts and Legal Rights: Basic knowledge about to understand and read legal documents such as contracts and leases which are purposely made to seem more complicated than they are.

10. Digital Literacy and Safety: I feel like this is already starting to happen now kids as young as 8 years old have iPhones and I've seen the major network company's ads about it, but digital footprints are so important. If I'd know that my Facebook status' would haunt me 18 years later, I might not have written so many.