You may also be intrigued to learn that the decision to switch to metric teaching in schools was made in the early 70s by the then Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher. The same person who later as Prime Minister effectively scuppered any further progress in Britain when she abolished the Metrication Board before it had a chance to complete the job properly.

Little wonder then that youngsters of your generation still encountered non-metric measures in many areas of life outside school.

It's true that Imperial measures now feature in the National Curriculum but only in a very limited way. Conversion factors between metric and inches, miles, pounds, pints and gallons are now in the NC for Maths.
All applications of measures though are still metric.

Nowadays metric educated youngsters are bound to be aware of Imperial. They be familiar with them in any area where they are still used - personal height/weight, clothes shops, pubs, market stalls, on the roads, in the car etc (I dare say you can think of a few more).

That was the reason for their re-introduction into the NC, not for idealistic but purely practical reasons.

The above postign is out of context, it was in response to SteveH in the thread "Ounce Question". It ended up as it is by accident

for once i agree with you pip!

"That was the reason for their re-introduction into the NC, not for idealistic but purely practical reasons"

I agree!

BTW - there IS practical use of imperial at school - I think you may be talking about the science lessons where metric is solely used (apart from "banter" and non-education references, obviously)