School lessons that stand the test of time

HOW to use a Bunsen burner, “i before e except after c” and forward rolls all make it into the top weird and wonderful things we remember from school lessons.

Pi = 3.142, The Lord’s Prayer and “30 days has September…” are other lingering nuggets of knowledge we retain from the classroom.

Other skills and lessons we recall are playing the triangle, working out the value of “x” and E= MC2.

The study, by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, showed most recall singing hymns in morning assembly, playing the recorder and studying Shakespeare. A spokeswoman for the London attraction said: “While you are at school, you might feel like your mind is being filled up with lots of useless information.

“The outcome of this survey has proved that it’s very much the opposite.”

The poem about the order of Henry VIII’s six wives is number 21 in the top 30, just pipped on the list by “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”, a memory device for the colours of the rainbow.

Physical education has made a big impact on our lives too, as many are still practising or advising on the technique of both forward and backward rolls.

Others have the baton from a relay race ingrained into their memories from games lessons.

Three in 10 adults use “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” to remember the compass points, while prime numbers, Pythagoras’s Theorem and doing the nine times table on your fingers also hold up well.

E= MC2 is the most commonly used piece of information told by a parent to their child, followed by The Lord’s Prayer.

And it’s not just parents who pass the information on: many adults will remind friends and family of “tricks” learned at school, with one in five grabbing the opportunity to reminisce.

A further 18 per cent admitted friends usually laughed when they held forth, but more than two- thirds of Britons admitted the “nuggets” were all considered pointless when they were learning them back in the classroom.

The surprise bottom of the class in the top 30 recollections was the instruction: “Never walk across the field during javelin practice”.

It’s a wonder any of us survived school at all…

ACCORDING to a new poll “i before e except after c” is the thing we are most likely to remember from our school days. If you deign to teach current pupils this saying remember that it isn’t always sufficient. Seizing upon it at every opportunity in an attempt to feign knowledge would be a heinous error.