Young Writers Society

I need someone to tell me as much as they possibly can about public schooling in England. General info, mostly.

Some important points:

*Time in session: Typical months for start and end dates, holidays throughout the year and how long for each holiday, time the school day starts & ends.

*Uniforms: Do all public schools require uniforms? What's the typical uniform? How do students typically wear their uniforms (alterations and such)?

*Scheduling & classes: Specifically, secondary school. How are the days scheduled- same classes in the same order every day or different classes on different days? How many subjects does the average student take? What are the graduation requirements? What is the gifted/honours programme? What is the Special Education programme? And on a random afterthought, is there just primary school and secondary school? Is there something in between?

*Sports: What kind of sports are offered? What times of the year are they offered? Which is the most popular?


Any additional general information is welcomed. ^^

-St. Razorblade

I'll answer for my school, a private one, not state-funded. As such it may not be what you want.

Time in session: 5th September to 14th December , 7th January to 20th March, 13th April to 28th June.

Uniforms: All private schools(or almost all) require uniform. A good proportion of state schools do as well, some allowing home clothes in the last two years. My uniform consists of grey trousers, blue shirt, dark blue blazer, black shoes and a house tie (different for each house). Alterations: not much, the usual un-tucked shirt and top button left undone.

Classes: different for each day. My school has slightly odd classes, with eleven periods of 35 minutes each, with quite a few doubles. Average student takes 9 or 10 GCSEs and 3 A-levels (or IB). Honours? You can leave school at 16 (after GCSEs) but decent A-levels are required to get into a good University. Special Education? I don't really know, I don't take part in it. There are 13 years of school. Normally a child would go from year 1 to 6 in one school, then 7 to 13. However, some schools go all the way to 13 from 1 and some only start at 8, not 6. There are also some schools for years 1 to 3. There isn't really an in between.

Sports:
Michaelmas term: Rugby, football (soccer), squash, fencing, cross-country running and multi-sports.
Lent term: Football, squash, fencing, multi-sports.
Summer term: Tennis, athletics, cricket, multi-sports.
Multi-sports is basically the soft option.

If you have any other specific questions, feel free to PM me.

*Time in session: Typical months for start and end dates, holidays throughout the year and how long for each holiday, time the school day starts & ends.

Early September to Mid December, then early January to Easter, then 2 weeks after Easter to Mid July. Those are the three general terms. Holidays throughout the year consist of two sorts -- half-term holidays or end of term holidays. Half-term holidays are in the middle of the terms and usually consist of one week of school. End of term holidays (Christmas holidays, Easter holidays and then Summer Holidays) are variable by school, but mine was about two weeks for Christmas and Easter and then about 6/7 weeks for the Summer holidays.

Start and end times for school days totally varies between schools. My school typically started at 8.45 and ended at 3.15. But I've seen 8am to 3pm before and 9am to 3.45pm etc.


*Uniforms: Do all public schools require uniforms? What's the typical uniform? How do students typically wear their uniforms (alterations and such)?

Yes, pretty much all state-run schools require uniforms. The typical uniform usually consists of a blazer, white shirt/blouse, a tie, trousers/skirt and black shoes. This is clearly going to be different across the country. Some schools have smart jumpers instead of blazers, some give a choice. The most common for all is usually dark trousers/skirt and a white shirt with a tie. There's not many that don't adhere to that.

As for how students where them, usually messily. Everyone attempts to wear them as loosely as possible without getting told off. So that's shirts not tucked in, ties not tied very well, or tied short or pushed inside the shirt so only the knot can be seen. Some girls will where short skirts instead of the "recommended" length. People will try and where shoes that aren't necessarily smart. You can see a pattern here. It really depends on the person.

*Scheduling & classes: Specifically, secondary school. How are the days scheduled- same classes in the same order every day or different classes on different days? How many subjects does the average student take? What are the graduation requirements? What is the gifted/honours programme? What is the Special Education programme? And on a random afterthought, is there just primary school and secondary school? Is there something in between?

Days are generally scheduled differently. You have a weekly or fortnightly timetable. So different classes every day until the next week or next fortnight, if you see what I mean. How many subjects? Depends on the school, but I took around ten I think -- you have to take some form of Maths, English and Science up until age 16, it's a legal requirement. We also were made to take at least one humanities subject (geography, history, RE) and one modern language (French, Spanish of German). Graduation requirements -- you receive GCSEs after finishing secondary school. A-levels are something you do at a college, which you need to get into University. There is no graduation requirement as such like in America -- we don't graduate from school, really, you just get whatever you get. Gifted programmes were mostly lacking in my school. English education tends to focus a lot on the whole rather than gifted people. It absolutely depends on the school thought. I wouldn't want to generalise. I don't know anything about special education unfortunately. Usually it is just Primary school (ages 4-10) and then Secondary school (ages 11-16).

*Sports: What kind of sports are offered? What times of the year are they offered? Which is the most popular?

Sport depends on the school. I went to a school where there is a local well-known Rugby team, and the school had a tradition of Rugby players, so we basically did Rugby a lot. There were (limited) options for Football (soccer), Athletics, Tennis and a bit of Cricket. Sports at my school was awful. The teaching is bad and there's not much focus on it. If you're not a err Jock (to use an American term) you get ignored and given no options. Funding from the government isn't great and if you're not a private-funded school like Ofour's (above) there isn't a great deal of chances. My Dad went to a private school and he got lots and lots of sport.

Also: private schools have different timings to state schools. The day starts at 8:30 and finishes at 6:00, but the holidays are 3.5 weeks for Easter and Christmas and 9 weeks for Summer.

Time in session

Generally September to mid December, Early to mid January to Easter, and then easter to late June/mid July. There's a half term in the middle of each, and it's about a week long. There also tend to be days of for students at the beginning or end of terms/half terms to 'Teacher training' (PD days/ Personal development days) where the teachers attend but the pupils are allowed to roam free and wild. This is at the choice of the school, so when they are can depend. My sister's school always have an extra day in september, and an extra one in January.

Uniforms

All schools in my town have a uniform, the one I used to wear was bottle green, next door the schools had a black uniform, and another was bright blue. There are red and maroon around here too, but I think those are pretty much the only colours; red and seems to be pretty popular around here. We had to wear grey trousers, which was a pain because it was easiter to get black, bottle green sweatshirts, and green stipped ties.

As for alterations, it differed with social groups. My male friends tended to wear pinstripe trousers, and all my female friends wore huge baggy shirts instead of fitted blouses. A few people wore sneakers, usually something like converse. We always wore our ties longer than we really needed to, just because we thought it was fun. Most people tended to follow uniform rules, there were pretty liberal as long as you had the basics. Most girls tended to wear thier ties very short though, with the knot begin pretty thick and wide.

Scheduling & classes

We *used* to have five lessons a day (since I left the school has changed it slightly). We'd have 15 minutes for registration in the morning, where we were in our tutor groups. Then we'd have two lessons, a 15 minute break, another lesson, 45 minutes for lunch, and then two lessons to end the day. So we used to go from 9.00 to 3.00, and lessons were an hour long each. We had a two-week timetable, so the classes were in the same order in two-week blocks. We Never had 'double blocks', where we had two hours of the same lesson in a single day, (unless you did seperate sciences instead of double award; but even then you'd never have the same kind) but I know the schools next door to ours did.

Average number of subjects depends on how old you are. If you're doing GCSEs, you do Maths, English language, and Double award science by law (double award meas you get two GCSEs at the end, but they aren't specific to each science, it's all mixed up), short course RE, and four other subjects of your choice (I did seperate/triple science, art, music and german) our school was a 'specailist sports college' so we all had to do P.E. GCSE too.

Gifted/honours is called 'Gifted and Talented' around here, though a lot of schools have now dropped it. I was one my schools and it sisn't really mean much, we went out on a few extra trips when we were younger, and they went out of thier way to make sure we could do the subjects we wanted, but that was about it really. We never did much once GCSEs started. Before that we did some fun stuff though, but it was pretty much all science based. We also did extra classes after school depending on what we were good at, to enter higher exam tiers. In my SATs there were a few of us that had weekly math lessons to do the level 8 tier paper, at for my GCSE german a few of us did weekly lessons to do the higher speaking paper. There were only about eight of us altogether in my half of the year.

Special education I only know a little about because my tutor was a special needs teacher. They have a seperate set of classrooms with thier own supplies and resources. One of my friends was on the programme, she went to normal lessons but would get sent to special needs if she became too upset or angry; she had quite a few emotional problems and stuff. They also used 'mentors' more, who were meant to help if you had problems with stress or things at home and stuff.

Most people go through primary and secondary. I went to primary school from reception-year two (4-6) and then Junior school for years three-six (7-10), the schools were literally next door to each other, and behind the same school walls. They've since joined into one, but they were pretty much always linked. I'm not sure about anything else though.

Sports

Girls and boys did different things in my school. In winter we would play hockey on the astro-turf, or gymnastics in the gym. summer we'd play tennis (though not often), badminton (though inside the sports hall), netball, and before GCSEs, althletics, but they stopped that because we couldn't do it for our PE GCSE, which we were all forced to do. We were also lucky in that we had a swimming pool on site (there are two schools on our site, and so the sports facilitys made a sports centre which the public could use outside of school time)

I'm not all too sure about what the guys did, they did football, hockey, tennis, and baseball? I'm not sure about any of the others, sorry ><"

I think I may have just rambled, and if I've mentioned anything someone else has already covered, I'm sorry XD and questions about anything, feel free to ask ^^

Sorry to but in, but this is a LOT of really good info for me to know, as I'll be studying abroad in England next year. Could someone possibly tell me what the difference between "college" and "University" is (and, perhaps, why the capitol on one and not the other?). Any other general info on British higher education would be great!

Sorry to piggy-back your thread Razorblade, I'll get off if you want.

*Time in session: Typical months for start and end dates, holidays throughout the year and how long for each holiday, time the school day starts & ends.

Generally, from about the 1st/2nd/5th September (depending on whch day the date falls) school lasts till the Christmas Holidays. The length of terms can vary (I've started those holidays as late as the 23rd December, and as early as the week before). The holidays generally last for about 2 weeks. Also, we have a half-term holiday that lasts about a week, half-way through the term (obviously!).

For the Easter Term, the length will depend on how long the Christmas Term was. Sometimes it's long, about 14 weeks, sometimes it's only 10. The same goes for the Summer term. Again, a week-long half-term holiday, and the Easter Holidays can start from any time from a week to the day before Easter itself. Again, they're about two weeks long, usually marginally shorter than Christmas.

Summer Term follows basically the same format, although is usually longer. School finishes for me on Friday 21st July (although I'm in work experience for the last week, so I've already finished!). The Summer Holiday lasts about 6 weeks up until September, where the whole process starts all over again.

That, however, is for state schools. I used to be in a private school, and they usually have much shorter terms, thus meaning they have longer holidays, about 3 weeks for Christmas and Easter (sometimes 4, depending on the school) and 8 for the Summer Holidays. Ironically, this means that you're paying for your child to spend less time in school than they would if they were to go to a state school.

*Uniforms: Do all public schools require uniforms? What's the typical uniform? How do students typically wear their uniforms (alterations and such)?

Yes. Usually, it's just a polo shirt with the school logo, a sweater with the school logo, and trousers, which are either black or grey. For state schools, at least. The most anybody will do to alter them is wear another jumper, or different shoes, usually trainers (sneakers). Of course, you get extremes. Also, our backs come in many different colours and types, the typical beaing a backpack. I am aware that private schools are usually more strict with uniform (mine was relatively leniant - at least, after I left). Usually shirt and tie, with a sweater/blazer with school logo. Proper shoes, dark coat, and I'm unsure of whether there are any limitations where bags are concerned.

*Scheduling & classes: Specifically, secondary school. How are the days scheduled- same classes in the same order every day or different classes on different days? How many subjects does the average student take? What are the graduation requirements? What is the gifted/honours programme? What is the Special Education programme? And on a random afterthought, is there just primary school and secondary school? Is there something in between?

Again, it varies from school to school. School starts at 8.45, whereupon we have 5 minutes to get to registration. That lasts till 9 (apart from Monday, where it goes on for another 15 minutes). I have 6 lessons a day, each lasting 50 minutes, and have different lessons each day. Break lasts for 15 minutes, and starts at 10.40 in the morning. Lunch lasts 55 minutes, and starts at 12.35 in the afternoon, where we have lunch reg. for about 10 minutes. This means the lesson blocks are split into thirds - lessons 1 and 2 from reg. till break, lessons 3 and 4 from break till lunch, and lessons 5 and 6 from lunch reg. till 3.20 in the afternoon, when the last bell of the day rings.

We don't have any middle school. It's straight from primary to secondary. Primary can start from as early as the age of three (kindergarten) up until the age of 10/11 in Year 6. Secondary school lasts from Year 7, where students have the option of leaving at 16 (Year 11) or staying on for A Levels and leaving at the age of 18 (Year 13). In Year 9, we have to choose 4 (or three, for a double-award) subjects to carry on for GCSE, in addition to the core subjects of Maths, English, and Sciences (Welsh is also core if you're in a school in Wales). The same thing happens for A levels, although we can drop the previous core subjects if you want, but you still have to take them as GCSE level lessons, and you won't have an exam on them.

*Sports: What kind of sports are offered? What times of the year are they offered? Which is the most popular?

From Years 7 - 9:

Christmas Term: Rugby, a couple of weeks of Football and Cross-Country running.

Easter Term: Sometimes a bit more Rugby, and Football

Summer Term: Athletics (short- and long-distance sprinting/running, long-jump, shot-put (Year 7), discus (Year 8 ) etc.) and Cricket.

Years 10 - 11 (if not chosen PE as a GCSE subject):

We get put on a sort of rota, split into three groups, where each group does one sport for 10 weeks each. The sports are Rugby, Football and Fitness Room (like a gym). For the remainder of the year, we do cricket.

For all the PE fanatics (chavs, mostly, and the "popular people"), Rugby, Football and Cricket tend to be the most popular sports. For the rest of us, the individual sports are preferred, ie. Athletics and Fitness Room, although no-one particularly enjoys Cross-Country. Cross-Country is always (for reasons I cannot fathom, as the PE teachers constantly complain over the condition of the fields) done in the middle of Winter, and thus in the mud, wind and rain. If the conditions are particularly bad for any of the Winter sports, we usually do basketball in the gym.

Bearing in mind, these are only the sports for boys. Girls have hockey, and other different sports.

Hope this helped. Most British state/public schools are very similar, so this should apply to any of your needs.

-Kaz

gyrfalcon wrote:Sorry to but in, but this is a LOT of really good info for me to know, as I'll be studying abroad in England next year. Could someone possibly tell me what the difference between "college" and "University" is (and, perhaps, why the capitol on one and not the other?). Any other general info on British higher education would be great!

Sorry to piggy-back your thread Razorblade, I'll get off if you want.

College is generally the form of schooling where students go if they don't wish to do their A-Levels in Secondary School, or for adults who wish to pursue a new career. It's also usually for the more practical jobs, such as plumbing, electricians, etc. University gives a higher level of education, is more difficult to get in to, and is for the students who have completed their A-Levels. Jobs include, Vets, Doctors, Solicitors, etc. Generally, more higher-paying jobs (although that is not always the case). Universities used to be an upper-class "thing", whereas college was not associated with the same amount of prestige, as it were. That snob value is not so prominent nowadays, however. There isn't any particular reason for putting a capital letter on one, I think that's just how Ofour spelt it.

-Kaz

Alright, thanks everybody. I think I have plenty now. <3

-St. Razorblade