Can Someone Explain the British School System?

[LeslieDEN]

A while back Agne described the Italian school system, and I think Kelley described the U.S. school system. Would somebody please explain the British school system?

I ask because I recently received the complete 7-Up DVD collection as a gift and I was watching a couple of them today. The series is a documentary about a group of British kids growing into adulthood and middle age, filmed from 1964 through around 2000. It highlights class differences in England.

The movies are good, but they are confusing the heck out of me when it comes to the schools these kids go to! The terms either are unfamiliar or mean something entirely different from what they mean in the U.S.

I finally figured out that "public school" means "very posh private school" (!!!), but I'm lost when it comes to "comprehensive" school vs. "grammar" school. Looking it up on Wikipedia confused me more, with talk about 11-plus exams (?) and A-levels. Apparently when you're 12 or so, you decide between comprehensive and grammar school? Is that right?

Can some nice Briton explain this so it makes sense?

[WillFlyToDisney]

I'm not a Briton but I have 2 nieces that are.

Ellie and Phoebe explained to me that our Kindergarten is their Grade/Year 1, our 1st Grade is their Year 2, etc...

Other than that, I have no clue! Lynda??

[kari]

Pay attention at the back, I've explained this before :tongue:

The Brits? Righto! :)

Nursery school/playschool = any time from birth onwards these days. Not compulsory.
Infant school = 4-7.
Junior school = 7-11.
Secondary school = 11-16 when, provided you haven't been kicked out/deemed to be really thick, you take GCSEs which is in most cases 9 or 10 subjects, lots of exams, incredibly easy, get points for spelling your own name right on the paper ... that sort of thing. Choose the subjects yourself with a few restrictions put in place by the school, eg I was forced into doing Chemistry because it was either that or cookery. Nowadays they even let them take dictionaries into Modern Language exams. *waves walking stick* In my day ....

After 16 you do whatever you want.

Sixth form = 16-18, do your A Levels ... not sure how it works now they've changed it a bit but I did 4 subjects including the pointless General Studies. A Levels are generally your ticket to university. These are the hardest exams you will ever take. Except General Studies ... I kid you not, 100 multi-guess questions, an actual one from my mock:

Which of the following people was not a member of the legendary band The Beatles?

a) Paul McCartney
b) Ringo Starr
c) John Lennon
d) George Harrison
e) Bob Holness

I nearly cried with laughter. And the teacher's chosen specialised subject was politics, in particular in relation to South Africa, history of, 1853-the present day. In the exam we only got on question about South Africa and it didn't have to do with Nelson Mandela. It had to do with rugby.

If you don't want to do A Levels (and, let's face it, who would?) but want to continue in education there are a myriad of options ... the most popular seems to be an NVQ (which some have joked stands for Not Very Qualified).

At 18, if you really mad you go to university. Fingers crossed this'll take three years.

If you're a certifiable basket-case, after that you can do a masters degree or 6, or a PhD.

To complicate matters even further - in Scotland it's totally different! I also think that some areas still have a first school, middle school and high school ... some places might still even have the 11+.

Yes, public school means very posh private school, eg Eton or Harrow or somewhere like that. An ordinary private school (like the one I went to :rolleyes: ) is just a school that you have to pay to go to, there's an entrance exam as well and I've no idea how I got in :lol: . They're also completely outside the control of the local authority. A comprehensive school is just your bog standard school, basically. A grammar school would tend to enjoy a better reputation. A church school is one that's affiliated with a church and it used to be that they wouldn't let you go there unless you showed your face every Sunday.

The 11+ is something that's now gone out really. Post war onwards, the education system was reformed and there were 3 different types of schools: grammar school (which is learning schooly stuff, Latin and Greek and calculus and all that); secondary modern (which was a bit more practical in application) and technical colleges of which there weren't many at all. The school you went to was decided by your score in a test you took at 11 (the 11+). Higher scorers went to grammar schools, not so high went to the secondary modern, and technical colleges didn't really exist. My dad has told me that one of the questions in his 11+ was "who is Richie Benaud?" so generations of children had their entire futures decided based on whether they knew anything about cricket. Grammar schools would prepare for a future in academia, secondary modern and you didn't stand a hope of going to university. The whole system was largely unfair because of that, and the fact that the cut off score for girls was higher than for boys :fuming: .... they did have a level playing field when they first started but after a while changed it because we can't have the grammar schools full of girls.

So, it came about in the 70s that this thing was gradually phased out and comprehensive (stick 'em all together in the one building) education was brought in - incidentally I blame comprehensive education for everything :D

[EyesSkyward]

And then there's Hogwarts... :tongue:

- Jeff

[pknnewson]

Having grown up in Scotland I will try and explain the Scottish school system.

First theres primary school for primary one thru seven, prob ages 5-12. Similar to elementary school here in the USA. For the first part of primary one kids go to school only in the morning. Then after the potato holidays ( a two week break in October) they go all day 9-3. Also the cut off date for 4 year olds is way later than in the USA. From what i remember 4 year olds can attend primary one if they are 5 before the end of February, so technically you could spend most of your first year in school as a 4 year old.

After primary 7 you go to high school. There are two years of taking all subjects. Then when entering your 3rd year you pick certain subjects that will help you with whatever you think you want to be when you grow up. Like a 14 year old is qualified to decide what they want to be. At the end of the 4th year you will take exams called standard grades. Your future is a little dependant on these.

Do good and you can stay in school and take more specialized subjects. These are the courses that you will need to get into university. Each university course has certain subject and grade requirements. So at the end of the 5th and 6th years you will take some more exams called higher grades. Hopefully you do good and get into university if you want.

If you mess up on the standard grades, or just don't want to go to University, you have a couple of choices similar to what Kari explained. You could leave school and get a job, move into the real world. You could opt to go to college, take a course to get into university, or a course that could give you something similar to the US associates degree. Or you could stay in High school for another two years taking courses called modules that supposedly help you get a better job when you are 18 and have to leave.

All school after age 16 is optional, although the troublemakers don't really get the option to spend any more time in the public education system.

Its kind of a longwinded explanation but hopefully it explains it well.

Suzanne.

P.S. I personally think that Hogwarts is the way to go :tongue:.

[LeslieDEN]

Thanks for the explanation, Kari. After reading your post, I watched the DVDs with a much better understanding of what they were talking about ("Do you regret going to comprehensive school and not grammar school?" etc.).

Amazing that they set the bar higher for girls than for boys!

Suzanne, I enjoyed reading about the Scottish system too. Man, it's complicated in the U.K.

In the documentary, three working class girls who had gone to primary school together were given a choice between comprehensive and grammar. The interviewer emphasizes that it was a choice, so I guess they had all tested well enough for grammar, but two of the three chose comprehensive because they thought it would be "friendlier." What a choice to have to make at 11.

It's a neat series. One of the boys ends up getting a Ph.D. in physics at Oxford and takes a job as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. He seems happy in the U.S. but he's surprised at how much American universities resemble comprehensive schools in England in terms of student population ... basically, we let anybody in. :)

[Lynda]

Good explanation Kari!

I took the 11 plus exam and passed it, I don't remember it being easy as I was one of two people from my class who passed it ( about 14 took it and you were not allowed to even attempt it unless your teachers recommended you) You had to go to another school to sit the exam.

The exam is called the eleven plus but was actually taken at 10 years old, ready to commence grammar school at 11.

I remember there was a section on allegebra and English language but cannot remember the other subjects.

What I do remember is the pressure it put you under for weeks before the exam.

[kari]

Lynda you didn't pass! :) You "achieved the specified standard" :lol:

Years ago I saw some example questions from the 11+, one was:

Which is the odd one out?
Courage
Cabbage
Measles
Flu

and which is the odd one out of
Dog
Garden
Television
Radio?

Yes, the bar was higher for girls than boys, as soon as they realised that the grammar schools were full of girls and what's the point of educating these people who are only going to mop floors and make tea anyway. In some areas there just weren't any grammar schools anyway either.

I was seven when I took my first school entrance exam. There weren't any places at the school concerned, my parents were just sending me there to practise for the entrance exam that they really wanted me to pass. I hold it against them to this day :lol: It was a terrifying experience, the first session was maths and we all sat down in a classroom and the headmaster stood at the front. He would stare at the ceiling (not reading questions from a paper or anything) and read out our questions, watch the clock and exactly five seconds later we had to stop writing for that question. We also weren't allowed to write anything down except our answers.

These numbers ran into billions! I kid you not! He would just gaze up and say "seven thousand nine hundred and sixty nine billion times three hundred and ninety two thousand hundred million minus eight to the fourteeth squared." I'm not joking! I think I just wrote "3." For heaven's sake - what 7 year old can do that?! Then after the break it was English and I wasn't too bothered thinking I'll do better at that anyway.

The relief was short lived. I went to sit down again, turned over the paper (we actually had question papers for this part!) and sighed when it simply said:
"Write a story entitled 'A Day in the Life of a Pencil.'"

It was a real thriller. I spent about ten minutes staring at my pencil thinking "how are you, mate?"

[LeslieDEN]

Hmm. The first one is Flu because the other three all have seven letters.

Not sure about the second one. I think I could make a case for Garden?

(Almost as bright as a British 10-year-old I am!) :)

[Rebecca]

What IS the right answer?

I thought "cabbage" would be out because it's the only one of the four that's edible, and "dog" would be out because it's the only one of the four that's a creature.

That's what I hate about these kinds of tests! So, are there lots of therapists in Britain specializing (er, you'd spell it "specialising") in helping children get over the trauma the school system puts them through?

:shocked:

[LeslieDEN]

Yeah, what IS the answer? I thought Garden because it's the only one of the four that doesn't emit sound.

You could also make a case for Measles in the first because the other three end in vowels.

It seems more like a psychological test than an intelligence or aptitude test -- you know, like those tests that show whether you're left- or right-brained or whatever. I don't know nuppin about psychology, but it seems as if Rebecca and I used different logical paths to arrive at our answers:

I looked for shared qualities to find the odd one: "What qualitiy do three share that the other doesn't?" while it seems as if Rebecca looked for a unique quality not shared by the others.

But you sure made your point, Kari. Arg.

[Lynda]

I don't know the answers either but will take a different view.

Dog is the only one that has legs to move around on!!!

Flu is the only abbreviation, for Influenza!!

[kari]

Some of you have the right answers but for all the wrong reasons.

The first one is cabbage as it's the only one that cannot be preceded by a nationality.

The second one is garden as it's the only one that doesn't require a license.

Yes, they decided children's entire futures based on this!

There should be lots of busy therapists. They keep bringing up the idea of exams for 4 year olds. When we were 10 we had to take the entrance exam for the senior school, even though we'd already passed an exam to get in in the first place. For months beforehand the teacher piled on the pressure and told us that we could fail. What are they going to do - kick us out? Of course, now I realise that the only reason we had to do the stupid exam was because they would have used our scores as the benchmark for everyone else. When September came bringing all the new people, it became clear that we must have done really badly :)

[LeslieDEN]

I gave the two-question quiz to husband and he got both right but for the wrong reasons:

Garden because television, radio, and the RCA Victrola dog logo all go together.

Cabbage because it's just obvious.

Me: "You can't do that! You have to have the right reasons!"

Him: "Are you saying that in England I'd be considered an idiot-savant?"

Kari? Just one more question?

He wants to know what "art school" is. This might be more a 1970s or 80s thing, but for a while it seemed like every other musician coming out of England had gone to "art school." I'm curious too.

[Lynda]

Hi Les,

Art school is the easy one, it is just like it sounds a school where you are taught to improve on your art. Drawing, painting, sculpting etc. Damian went to Art school following his time at senior school ( age 16) he then became a graphic designer and is still in that job.

The correct name is College of Art and Design however it has always been known as Art school.

[Agne]

I found this question in my driving test:

The following road sign:

1-shows the emergency room entrance: true or false?
2-shows the way to the cemetery: true or false?
3-marks the border between Italy and Switzerland: true or false?

:shakehead

[kari]

Oh I hated those stupid theory questions, most of them were so rubbish - what's the speed limit for a tractor on the A1, that sort of thing. Well I'm not going to be driving a tractor on the A1 so why do I need to know? And "how can you use your vehicle's engine as a brake?" Turn it off :) I got them all right though so not too bothered :)

But that stupid hazard warning thing - that should be scrapped! Click whenever you see a hazard .... well what about the unsupervised 3 year old on the pavement - is that a hazard or is it only a hazard when they step out under your wheels? And all those pedestrians with a death wish. Then it disqualified me from one of the questions for seeing the thing too early!

And as for that show and tell ... "open the bonnet, identify the oil and tell me how you would check for an appropriate level of oil ..." "open the bonnet, identify where the brake fluid resevoir is and tell me how you would check for a safe level" "Show me how you would check the handbrake for excessive wear" "show me how you would check your indicators are working, you may use the hazard warning lights for this if you wish." Silly DSA. Do they really expect me to go poking around under car bonnets - that's what men are for!

"pull over on the left behind this blue car please .... okay Karen this is the reverse park exercise ..." Ummm - excuse me? This is a hill :D Still at least he picked a nice cheap car unlike the instructor who had a strange habit of picking out Ferraris. :lol: