Re: OT: School systems (was: Re: Introduction)

Joe wrote:
>In England(and Wales), if anyone's interested, we have the following:
>
>Age 4-7: Infants(Reception Year-Year 2) - equivalent to kindergarten, I
>suppose, but it is usually lumped in with School.
Reception onwards is compulsory, AFAIK American kindergarten is not. Also,
it's rare to see seperate Infant and Junior schools, normally they're
lumped together in one building as "Primary School", with Senior school
often called "Secondary School".

>Age 7-11: Juniors(Years 3-6)
>Age 11-16: Seniors(Years 7-11), at the end of which GCSEs are taken.
>Age 16-18: Sixth Form (Years 12 and 13), and A levels are taken as exams
>throughout the Sixth Form
After the age of sixteen there are three options, not just Sixth Form. You
can either leave school, go on to Sixth Form and do A-levels or go to
College and get a vocational qualification. This isn't really as clear-cut
as it seems, as many Secondary schools have Sixth Forms, where only
A-levels are offered, yet many Colleges also offer A-Levels as well.

It's worth noting that several counties have slightly different systems:
  Age 4-9: First School
Age 10-13: Middle School
Age 14-16: Upper School

It might also be worht noting that there are two types of "Senior" state
schools (private schools are a wholly different matter): Comprehensive and
Grammar. A Grammar school is selective; pupils are chosen at the age of
eleven by taking an exam called the Eleven-Plus[1]. Grammar schools have
the reputation of being more academic and offering a better standard of
education. Comprehensive schools are open to anyone. Historically, Grammar
Schools are older, as they were first set up to teach Greek and Latin
grammar, and to this day remain the only Secondary Schools in the UK to
teach Greek or Latin as a compulsory subject to the age of 14 (Latin is the
most common, followed by "Classical Civilisations", which is a cop-out in
my opinion as it involves very little language work. Greek is pretty rare
even in Grammar Schools, although the one I went to did teach basic Attic
Greek as an option for those who chose to do Latin as a GCSE, like me).

The abbreviation "GCSE" means "General Certificate of Secondary Education",
which replaced the older "GCE" ("General Certificate of Education"), which
in turn had replaced the old O-Levels (O for "Ordinary", hence A for
"Advanced" in A-Levels). GCSEs are taken in around eight different subjects
(although you can take as many subjects as you want- I've  taken fifteen,
for example[2]), taking exams in English, Maths, Science, Technology and
Religious Education is compulsory, the other exams are in subjects chosen
by the pupil at the age of fourteen and must include at least one Humanity
(either Geography or History) and one Modern Foreign Language (Welsh
doesn't count in Wales). GCSEs are graded from A* to G. You can also get a
U grade, which means "ungradeable"- i.e. so bad the examiners can't make
head not tail of it, or "failed".

Dan
[1] the 11+ used to be compulsory, now it's optional and not organised on a
national scale- really it's just an admisssion test set by individual
Grammar Schools.
[2] In English Language, English Literature, Maths, Biology, Chemistry,
Physics, History, Religious Education, Latin, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Welsh and Technology, if you're interested. I was lucky enough to
have a school which allowed me to take all these exams- most would limit
you to about eight or so. I failed Technology, by the way ;o)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ath yw dyned can pob den o rydhad o voenyth, cynanaf â chraveth.

            o Raeth 18 o Gorlavaraed Vethysadec an Dynedad Dyneth

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