Exercise1. Answer the following questions according the text:

1. What do state schools in Britain provide their pupils with? 2. What can parents choose? 3. When do children start primary school? 4. When do pupils take a national exam called GCSE? 5. What prepares pupils for a national exam called A level? 6. How long do students study for a degree? 7. Whom do universities and colleges of higher education accept? 8. How many independent schools are there in Britain? 9. Why are the most independent schools called preparatory schools? 10. What school is the best known public school? 11. When does compulsory school begin? 12. How long does a child stay in compulsory school? 13. What subjects do children learn in Primary School? 14. What kind of exam do students have to take when they are 16? 15. Do students have to leave school at the age of 16 or to continue their studies? 16. How do private schools differ from the regular ones? 17. How many universities are there in England? 18. What is the Open University? 19. What kinds of degrees do universities award?

Exercise2. Match the words and phrases in the box with the correct definitions.

~ suspend ~ play truant ~ lesson ~ break up ~ prefect ~ term ~ expel ~ subject~

1….. a period of time (often 45 minutes) when students learn in a classroom

2…..miss school without permission or without a good reason

3…..a period of time (often 3 months) when a school is open

4…..start a school holiday, such as the Christmas holiday

5…..tell a student they can’t come to school for a short time because they did

Something wrong

6…..something you study at school, such as maths, French, etc.

7…..a student who is given extra responsibility for making sure other students

Obey the rules

8…..tell a student they can’t come to school ever again because they did

Something wrong

Exercise3. Complete the passage using the words and phrases in the box.

~ secondary ~ sixth form ~ senior high ~ primary ~ elementary ~ junior high ~ nursery~

Education system in Britain and America

Britain and America have different education system. In both countries, most children go to (1) … school (or kindergarten) between the ages 3 and 5. Then, in Britain, they start (2)…. School, where they stay until age 11. This is followed by (3) … school until age 16. If they stay at school, they go into the (4) … until they are 18. Sometimes, this means going to a special college.

In America, children go to (5) …. School from 5 to 11. Then, they go to middle school (also called (6)…..) until age 14. From 15-18, American children attend high school (sometimes called (7) …. school).

Follow-up: Work in pairs. The extracts given below present controversial subjects. Team up with another student, work out arguments “for” and “against” and discuss the extracts in pairs. Use conversational formulas of agreement, disagreement, giving opinion.

A. Should a teacher take home his pupils’ work to check it?

Don’t fall into the habit of bringing work home, Rick. It indicates a lack of planning, and you would eventually find yourself stuck indoors every night. Teaching is like having a bank account. You can happily draw on it while it is well supplied with new funds; otherwise you’re in difficulties. Every teacher should have a fund of ready information on which to draw; he should keep that fund supplied regularly by new experiences, new thoughts and discoveries, by reading and moving around among people from whom he can acquire such things.”

B. Should a teacher plan all the procedure of a lesson?

“The rest of that summer Miss Dove mapped her strategies in her bed-chamber. To represent a classroom she laid her father’s chessboard on a table by the north window. The squares were desks. The ivory men were children. For hours on end, moving them about the board, speaking to them in unequivocal terms, she did what might be called ‘practice teaching”. To the last detail she planned her procedure. The greeting to each class, as it entered the room, the ceremony of its dismissal, the rules and penalties and forms were all settled upon. The presentation of her subject matter was carefully considered.”

C. Should compulsory school attendance be abolished?

“We should abolish compulsory school attendance. Our compulsory school attendance laws once served a humane and useful purpose. They protected children’s rights to some schooling, against those adults who would otherwise have denied it to them in order to exploit their labour, in farm, shop, store, mine, or factory. Today, the laws help nobody, not the schools, not the teachers, not the children. To keep kids in school who would rather not be there costs the the schools an enormous amount of time and trouble, to say nothing of what it costs to repair the damage that these angry and resentful prisoners do whenever they get the chance. Every teacher knows that any kid in class who, for whatever reason, would rather not be there, not only doesn’t learn anything himself but makes learning harder for anyone else. For many kids, not going to college, school is just a useless time-wasting obstacle preventing them from needed money or doing some useful work.”