Primary Education
Begins at the age of 5. A primary school is divide into infants & juniors.
At infant school there is usually no written time-table.
Children are taught 3 Rs: reading, writing & arithmetic.
They also draw, sing & model from clay.
At the age of 7 children move on to junior school, where real work begins.
Children have set periods of arithmetic, reading & composition, which are all 11+ subjects.
Other subjects taught at junior school are: History, Geography, Nature Study, Art & Music, Physical Education, Swimming.
Pupils are streamed, according to their ability to learn, into A, B, C & D streams.
The brightest are in the A stream; the least gifted are in the D stream.
Previously at the end of their 4th year at junior school the pupils wrote their eleven-plus “11+” examination.
But the exam was abolished in the 1960s, & comprehensive schools were organized, where pupils of all abilities can get secondary education.
Only some children take the selective examination to be admitted to grammar schools.
11+ is mostly retained in Wales.
Secondary education.
Comprehensive schools dominate among all types of schools in secondary education: about 90 % of all maintained schools are comprehensives.
Other children attend grammar, secondary modern & very few – secondary technical schools.
Some go to public schools, many of which have a reputation of giving a better education.
Comprehensive schools are non-selective, co-educational, often very large schools.
Grammar schools make only 3 % of all schools, but their leavers constitute a large proportion of university students.
So grammar schools are the main route to higher education.
They provide an academic course of high level.
There is the “sixth form” in grammar schools & most pupils remain at school until 18 or 19, esp if they want to enter a university.
Secondary modern schools give a general education with a practical bias [‘ba`2s].
In comparison with grammar schools more time is given to handicrafts, domestic sciences & other practical activities.
Secondary technical schools are a small group, not a very popular one.
They also give a general education with practical bias related to industry, commerce & agriculture.
Independent schools
They are called so, bcs. they are private schools, charging tuition fees & independent of public funds, of state education system.
But they are subject to governmental control, they are open to inspection.
& the Department for Education & Skills has the power to require them to remedy serious shortcomings in their instruction or accommodation and to exclude anyone regarded as unsuitable to teach in or own a school.
About 7 % of schoolchildren attend independent schools.
There is a wide range of independent schools for all age groups.
Independent schools range from small kindergartens to large day schools (a private school for pupils living outside the school) & boarding schools (a school at which pupils live as well as study).
A number of independent schools have been established by religious orders or ethnic minorities.
Independent schools charge fees varying from around ₤ 300 a term for day pupils to over ₤ 4,000 a term for senior boarding pupils.
Many independent schools offer bursaries to help pupils from less well-off families.
Such pupils may also be helped by LEAs – particularly when the LEA’s schools cannot meet the needs of individual children.
The most important & expensive are public schools, which are private secondary schools taking pupils from the age of 11 - 13 to 18 or 19, & preparatory schools (“preps”), preparing pupils for public schools, for Common Entrance Examination, which pupils are to pass in order to get to a public school.
Public schools are usually single-sex boarding schools, though many of them take some day pupils too.
The tuition fee is very high.
In the 1990s the average boarding public school fees were over ₤ 7,000 a year.
Some public schools are ancient foundations dating from the 16th century & even earlier.
There are several hundred public schools, the most famous ones being the “Clarendon Nine” (Кларендонская девятка).
These are the oldest & most privileged public schools:
Winchester College (1382) - Shrewsbury S.(1552) - Rugby (1567)
Eton (1440) - Westminster School(1560) - Harrow (1571)
St. Paul’s School (1509) - the Merchant Taylor’s S.(1561) -Charterhouse S.(1611)
Demand for public school education is great.
Usually there are 3 applicants for every vacancy.
Public schools have the best teachers.
Teaching standards are very high & much better than in any other secondary schools.
(Public – since originally students could enter the school from anywhere in England & not just from the immediate neighbourhood).
Many public school leavers occupy key positions in the country’s political & economic life, & that is what the whole system of public school instruction is targeted at.
Scotland has a slightly different system of secondary education.
Children stay in the primary school until the age of 12.
The National curriculum does not apply in Scotland & each school headmaster decides what subjects the school will teach.
At 16 the pupils take the Scottish Certificate of Education (SCE).
After 16 instead of A-level exam Scottish students take the Scottish Higher Certificate, which is more like continental European examinations, it covers a wider area of study than the highly specialized A-level courses.
In Northern Ireland secondary education is organized along selective lines according to children’s abilities.