THE King’s School at Parramatta is as expensive as it is exclusive, but soon some of the $23,500-a-year tuition fees could be spent teaching students how to be better around the house.

Cleaning lessons ... The Kings School is teaching boys life skills.

The elite GPS institution is considering a radical new curriculum for Year 10 students, under which they would learn how to cook, clean up, recycle waste and fix leaky taps.

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The plan would have up to one-third of each school day dedicated to hands-on, activity-based lessons, excursions and community service.

Boys would be taught how to service a car, cook a meal and conduct first aid, as part of the home economics component.

They would also visit funeral parlours, courthouses and banks to familiarise themselves with the core services there.

School headmaster Dr Timothy Hawkes said it was planned to teach the new courses, in addition to the mandated curriculum, by reorganising the school day.

He said King’s had started designing a program to compress compulsory subjects into four periods before lunch, with two periods after lunch being reserved for life skills.

Dr Hawkes said the changes were needed because students were leaving school without picking up essential life skills.

“There are a range of home-maintenance skills that are frequently missing in our students: how to maintain the lawnmower, change a washer on a tap, put in a new flyscreen on a door, turn off the water if there is a leak, recycle waste, conserve water and reduce the power bill,” Dr Hawkes said.

Students should also be taught how to be resilient and cope with grief, how to deal with intimacy issues, and financial skills.

Dr Hawkes criticised Western education systems and said these were failing students by not providing a well-rounded curriculum and preparing them for life after graduation.

He insisted that the extra lessons would not compromise the syllabus and said the school’s plan instead would ensure that students were equipped to handle common challenges.

“Although the obstacles of a heavily prescribed and overcrowded syllabus are real, it is hoped that a curriculum might still be introduced into our Year 10 program,” he said.

“The role of schools is infinitely more exciting than to prepare a student for their final leaving exam. The role of schools is to prepare students, not just for college or a career, but for life.”

NSW Parents’ Council vice-president Robyn Christmas said she supported the plan, but that she was concerned about syllabus compression.

She said running similar programs after the School Certificate would be a better alternative.

Ms Christmas also questioned whether schools were responsible for helping teenagers acquire these skills.

“Traditionally, parents have taught their children themselves, but the changes in family structures often means there are no opportunities,” she said.

“It would be very difficult for schools to teach these, but the underlying point is these are things people are coming out of school without having learned, so who’s going to teach them? I don’t know.”

NSW Board of Studies president Tom Alegounarias said any school could introduce life-skills programs if they met mandatory requirements and hours for the NSW curriculum.

“There are a range of hours that you have to commit to certain KLAs (Key Learning Areas) and he has to do that, but it allows some flexibility for schools,” he said.