By restricting the curriculum to a comparison of plants and animals, our children can leave school knowing nothing about the largest kingdom of higher organisms which are neither plant nor animal. With their own unique lifestyles the fungi are crucial to the functioning of every food web on the planet and a vital component of many human commercial activities. Without fungi the supermarket shelves would be bare and many of our medicines would disappear. Most higher plants would not survive and the carbon cycle would be severely compromised. Fungi are far more than just mushrooms, yeasts and moulds and it is time that we challenged our cultural inhibitions by giving fungi the attention that they deserve. What better place to start that in our primary schools?