Young Writers Society

Well, I've decided to have part of my novel take place in Britain, and I need help. So, I saw Childark's post on American Schools, and I'm using some of his questions. Answer some, answer one, or answer them all.

1. What are the grade systems? What grade/year/... are you in when you're five. Six, seven, eight? What year do you graduate? What year do you start school?

2. Schedule system? Do you have the choice to pick your schedules or do the school pick the schedules for you?

3. Class transfers? After a class, do you stay in your class and wait for the teacher to come in or do you transfer to a different classroom and come to a teacher?

4. Do you have breaks between your schedules?

5. Do you have two eating breaks? Recess and Lunch Break?

6. What time is usually your dismissal time?

7. Do you have the choice to join clubs or do they choose you?

8. "Popular kids"? Who are they?

9. What are the different trends in the American teen community? (Trends like emos, etc... I hear something about chavs...)

10. What's the transportation? Bus, car, walking? How far away from the school do you live, how far away do most live?

11. Do you go home for lunch?

12. If there are any, what are the electives?

13. What is popular right now? Books, TV shows, Movies?

14. What slang do you use?

15. Is there anything else you have to tell me?

Thank you so much! Feel free to put a link to something you want me to help you with, or PM me later about it.

1. Okay well children tend to start Nursery School first at the age of three though a lot of nursery schools take children aged two but it isn't obligatory. Not everyone attends a nursery school. At four you begin Infant school and are in the reception class. Then next year is year one and the year after that year two. At seven you go to Junior school and spend four years there. At eleven you start High School and are in year seven. You start there until year eleven. After that is College but it's optional. If you decide to go you'll be sixteen and spend two years there and are just a first year or second year. There are courses that take three years though/ sometimes people re-do a year so you have third years too. Lastly is University. If you're straight out of college you start at eighteen and a course is usually three years long but four isn't uncommon and there are some that take seven or more (doctor/ vet).

2. It's not until High school that you get to choose any of your schedule. In year nine you make your first choices. You have to take maths, science, P.E. (Physical Education/ sport), R.E. (Religious education), P.S.H.E (Uh... Personal, social and Health Education if I remember correctly and I.T. Then on top of those you choose four other subjects. Dependant on what type of school you attend, you might have limits on one. For example, my High School was known as a 'Technology College' so we have to have a tech (Graphics, Food tech, Wood Work, Metal Work, Electronics/ Textiles) but previous to that it was a Language Institute so my sister had to take a language (French, German or Russian).

You get your next opportunity to choose classes at college. There you can study between three and six subjects (six being extremely rare and four being the average but people tend to drop one come their second year). You can also take GCSE's which are the qualifications you got at the end of High School but if you didn't have the oppotunity to do say Spanish, you can take it at College alongside your A levels. (Exams in year two are key stage one SATS, then you have key stage two SATS in year six and key stage three SATS in year nine.)

At University most people do just one course but you can study a combined course which counts as one but is actually two subjects. You can do this in three ways. The first is to study English AND Maths (just example studies) which would be half of each or English WITH Maths which would be studying mostly English but with a couple of modules in maths or there's Maths WITH English which is the other way around.

3. Class transfers vary. In Nursery to the end of Junior school you have just one teacher each year but change class every time you move school. From year seven to year nine you have a different teacher for each lesson but stay in your own class and you have a tutor who's also your P.S.H.E teacher. After year nine you move from teacher to teacher and are with a different class of students each time.

4. Breaks are a must lol. It's different for different schools though and not just different stages, different ages too. For High School, we got a fifteen minute break after first lesson, then forty five minutes for lunch after third lesson and then had two more lessons. You'd have to pm me for more info here if you wanted college/ infant school.

5. Not really. No. Lunch and 'Playtime' as the younger children call it are just one and the same. Older children just call it lunch break and don't really have much time for playing or whatever. It's more 'hanging around' or going to one of the lunch time social groups. There's the fifteen minute break like but that's just to make allowance for those who eat breakfast at school and most people go down to the snack bar and get something to eat/ sit in their form room and chatter/ lurk in the hallways.

6. High School ended at quarter past four for me unless I was at an after school class. Then it was about half five dependant on the class. I did drama club on a Thursday and when I was younger, I used to do art club.

7. You choose. No club is going to seek you out, you have to make the effort to join it. Generally speaking if the teacher who runs it knows you, they might suggest you join it but nothing more. My tutor suggested I help her out with the new drama club she was starting but I could have said no if I didn't want to. Make sense?

8. It's not as a big deal over here. Oh sure there's popular and unpopular but there aren't that many perks to being popular. I've seen both sides to it. I was almost the least popular kid in my early classes but my best friends were the most popular. It makes for an odd conundrum. The same happened in High School and in College and uni I've been closer to popular than not I suppose. It's something I still find uncomfortable but it's nice. There's two types of popular children, the ones that are so friendly and care so little about being popular that everyone can't help but love them and the ones that tend to be quite nasty but at the same time falsely nice and who work their way up by treading on others. Still, the ones that stay popular are those in the first category.

9. Oh please don't get me started on Chavs. Heh. let's just say I come from a town that's full of Chavs and Moshers and I'd take the Moshers any day over those hooligans. All Chavs should die. Or most anyway. Right well we have Emos and Goths and some Hippies and Geeks/ Spoffs. There's no cheerleaders and not any jocks either. Then there are Moshers and Chavs who are sworn enemies and take any chance they can get to fight. We had school cancelled once because of their war fare XD Moshers are similar to Goths, similar enough that I'm not going to bother outlining details but some of my friends wouldn't be too happy about that, haha. Anyway, Chavs are anti social idiots. They tend to wear heavy gold chains or big gold loop earrings, not real gold of course, just gold coloured. And here's some examples:
male chav
girl chav
girl chav

10. I think most students walk to High School or it was like that at mine anyway but those from further away had to take the bus and some got lifts in the car. At College more people took the bus than walked and some drove. The driving age is eighteen.

11. You can go home for lunch but it's very rare. Most stay at school and there's two groups, the pack-ups or school lunchers and the school dinners. The first group bring their own lunch and they play first while the second group eat dinner, then they switch over. That's juniors and below though. For High School, our lunch rota was ordered by year with change overs throughout the year but year sevens would start on first rotation and one of the older years on last. So friends could all eat together but it was always major queuing and generally a nightmare.

12. Electives? Ah, that means free subjects I believe. There aren't any at High school really. You can quite often do an extra language but that's it. Then at College, there isn't a need for them and at University you actually do call it a 'free elective' and you get one each year unless you do a subject such as law or medicine in which case you often don't get them/ only get them for second and third year etc. At Uni you can choose anything your University offers.

13. Books are never really popular amongst most High Schhol kids but movies tend to be reasonably, TV Series too though it's more a college thing.

14. An awful lot and different areas have different slang. You'd have to decide where it was set first and then ask someone from that area or we'll be here all day.

15. PM if you want more specific info? It's a lot to take in I know but I can try to explain more if you tell me what year you're featuring on and what area ^^

I know Heather covered it all but things change depending on area etc and so I thought I'd give you my (brief) two cents on it.

1. What are the grade systems? What grade/year/... are you in when you're five. Six, seven, eight? What year do you graduate? What year do you start school?

*Primary School*
Reception - age 4/5
Year One - age 5/6
Year Two - age 6/7
Year Three - age 7/8
Year Four - age 8/9
Year Five - age 9/10
Year Six - age 10/11
*Secondary School*
Year Seven - age 11/12
Year Eight - age 12/13
Year Nine - age 13/14
Year Ten - age 14/15
Year Eleven - age 15/16 (end of compulsory schooling)
*Sixth Form/College*
Year Twelve - age 16/17
Year Thirteen - age 17/18

2. Schedule system? Do you have the choice to pick your schedules or do the school pick the schedules for you?

The schedule is picked for us and is non negotiable. It's also referred to as our timetable. In my school, each class is a period and there are five one hour long periods in a day.

3. Class transfers? After a class, do you stay in your class and wait for the teacher to come in or do you transfer to a different classroom and come to a teacher?

You go to the teacher. Each lesson (or period) you go to whatever room that teacher teaches in.

4. Do you have breaks between your schedules?

A fifteen minute break between period two and three and lunch between period four and five.

5. Do you have two eating breaks? Recess and Lunch Break?

You can eat at first break but otherwise it's just lunch - which is an hour long.

6. What time is usually your dismissal time?

Changes really but usually 3:15. We never get out at that time though.

7. Do you have the choice to join clubs or do they choose you?

It's all optional but your recommended to participate in some form of extra curricular activity - even if it's just chess club.

8. "Popular kids"? Who are they?

Don't exists so much, or aren't as prominent within the school. Generally there are just many different groups who keep to themselves or everyone within a year mixes well. To be honest, they are normally the louder, 'prettier' lot who are into mainstream pop music, are naturally able at school but don't excel and who are friendly in a slightly plastic/bitchy way.

9. What are the different trends in the American teen community? (Trends like emos, etc... I hear something about chavs...)

Emos, Grungers.....then you have the people who are identified by their group leader or by the type of music they're into.

10. What's the transportation? Bus, car, walking? How far away from the school do you live, how far away do most live?

We don't have a school bus per say but we can use public transport (bus or tube), some get lifts off of parents or older siblings etc or you just walk. I walk to and from school as I live nearby.

11. Do you go home for lunch?

Only year 10 onwards are allowed offsite for lunch and you can go home if you live close enough but generally I don't.

12. If there are any, what are the electives?

Don't have any as far as I know.

13. What is popular right now? Books, TV shows, Movies?

No teenager will admit to books being popular (except Harry Potter and Twilight). Generally the big TV shows that everyone gossips about are Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, Friends, One Tree Hill, 90210, Family Guy, South Park etc.... Of course, everyone also talks about Eastenders - a TV soap.


14. What slang do you use?

Depends on area......'ta' instead of thank you, 'safe' also instead of thank you or as a way of saying something is trustworthy/good, 'peng' is goodlooking....I only really use ta....the rest are dying out lately anyway.

15. Is there anything else you have to tell me?

Is there anything else you'd like to know?


xxxx

Hey there.
You’re getting good answers so far. Would it confuse you if I tried to write a little about the Scottish system. Its different again.
1. What are the grade systems? What grade/year/... are you in when you're five. Six, seven, eight? What year do you graduate? What year do you start school?
Nursery (kindergarten) age 4.
Primary 1- age 5
P2 – age 6
Goes like this until P7 – age11/12
Then to secondary school
S1 – age 12
S2- age 13
S3 – age 14
S4 – age 15/16
After S4, some people leave school for college (which is more practical/industry training for employment) or get an apprenticeship. The same is true after S5 (age 17) After S6, you have to leave school, either for work or university, at age 18.

2. Schedule system? Do you have the choice to pick your schedules or do the school pick the schedules for you?
All through Primary school and up until the beginning of S3, the timetable is mandatory. You have no choice. At S3, you pick 8 subjects (although there are some you have to do) to sit your standard grade exams. This is a two year course. At S5, you pick subjects again, this time 5 subjects, for the one year Higher courses. Then in S6, if you choose to stay, you pick 3 or 4 subjects, either more Highers or Advanced Highers (which are more prep. For university.)

It strikes me now that you asked ages 5, 6, 7. Perhaps this is not so relevant.

3. Class transfers? After a class, do you stay in your class and wait for the teacher to come in or do you transfer to a different classroom and come to a teacher?
Primary school you have pretty much one teacher for the whole year, for every subject, unless there is streaming (which is where the kids who are good at math go to a different teacher for a couple of hours a week). We might also have visiting teachers to take us for sports, music, art and drama.

4. Do you have breaks between your schedules?
Varies from school to school. Not so much in Primary, though, as the schedule is much more flexible


5. Do you have two eating breaks? Recess and Lunch Break?
In primary school yes – “recess” (playtime) is about 10:30, usually 15/20 minutes. Lunch is 45 mins – 1 hour, somewhere between 12 and 1.

In secondarat school, we have a 15 minute break between each class, because our classes are longer (1hr 20 mins) Thats 15 minutes at 10:30 and 2:25, as well as lunch hour at 12.

6. What time is usually your dismissal time?
In primary 1, 2, 3 it’s 2:50. Primary 4, 5, 6, 7, 3:20. S 1, 2, 3, 4, 4pm. S5 and S6 varies because we have free periods. Last year, for example, I was in S6 and I got to go home at noon on Thursdays!

7. Do you have the choice to join clubs or do they choose you?
Mostly, you choose. In our school, we rarely ever had tryouts. But no one is that motivated to join clubs. There is much less prestige attached to school sports teams.

8. "Popular kids"? Who are they?
I wouldn’t know. I’m not one. But they do wear an awful lot of fake tan. Some days, they’re all orange and streaky.Nice.

9. What are the different trends in the American teen community? (Trends like emos, etc... I hear something about chavs...)
See your other comments. Its not much different in Scotland, although Chavs are known as Neds (non educated delinquent)

10. What's the transportation? Bus, car, walking? How far away from the school do you live, how far away do most live?
Most people probably walk. More people get lifts in primary school. By the time you get to the end of S6, lots of people have passed their driving test and drive themselves, although all of us have really old, slightly rusty cars.

11. Do you go home for lunch?
Some do. I would say the majority stay at school and buy their lunch, or go to the local shops, where we have fish and chips, supermarkets and a Subway.

12. If there are any, what are the electives?
I guess we have no electives – I don’t know what that is.

13. What is popular right now? Books, TV shows, Movies?
Books – Twilight only – no one admits to reading anything else. But by the time you get to secondary school, I think a lot of people have probably read Phillip Pullman or Eoin Colfer. Remember, Harry potter is pretty popular, but we call book one The Philosopher’s stone, not sorcerers.

14. What slang do you use?
My advice – writing slang will probably make your dialogue sound forced, and your story will get dated pretty quickly.

15. Is there anything else you have to tell me?
Erm – our summer holidays are from Late June – mid August, only 6 or seven weeks. We have 2 weeks off at Easter, 2 in October and 2 over Xmas and New Year.
Also, the vast majority of schools have uniforms – black skirt/throusers. School sweatshirt and shirt collar, maybe a blazer jacket.

Hope that helps!

Thanks everyone!

Most of the story will take place during P6-S3 or Year Six through Year Ten. Any details on those years?

Hmmm,
P6 you start rebelling - almost at "the big school," and you have a little more responsibility (although a lot of kids are brats before this point.)

P7 you seriously feel like you've outgrown schoo.

First year you spend absout 2 months having fun at school and feeling really lost, but grown up at the same time. You feel like there's a lot of pressure at first, but then a weird thing happens around xmas time. All the girls come back after the holidays wearing make up and with handbags instead of rucksacks.

2nd year, again, you start to get too big for your boots - ther's a whole year at school younger than you!

And then by the end of S3, the homework becomes a major stress - although you ain't seen nothing yet.

Sure that, really, its all technicalities though. growing up is pretty much the same anywhere.

m

Thank you!

Vivacious wrote:Thanks everyone!

Most of the story will take place during P6-S3 or Year Six through Year Ten. Any details on those years?

I know you probably don't need any more help, seeing as most of it has already been covered, but I thought I'd just put in my 2p worth.

Year Six is the last year of primary school, and I'm not sure whether this is still happening, due to controversy over the past few years, but in England (and Wales, I think, I'm not sure) all kids in the year take exams called SATs. They're tested in three subjects; English, Maths and Science. There are three Maths papers, Paper 1, which allows a calculator, Paper 2, which doesn't allow a calculator (these may be the wrong way round) and a mental maths test. In English, there is a longer writing paper, and a shorter writing paper (there's a certain amount of time allowed for both, but I can't remember them) and a spelling test. Then there are two Science papers. Some of these details may be incorrect; it's been four years since I took mine, so they may have changed.

Year Seven is the first year of high school; you're no longer the big fish in the little pond, you're the little fish again. Some kids come up complete brats, expecting to be treated as adults, others are completely timid, but that depends on the kid.

Year Eight is when most of the kids start to rebel, because there's no real pressure about exams and option choices, like any of the higher years, and you're no longer the youngest.

Year Nine is when you choose which subjects you want to carry on into Year 10 and 11. Some subjects are compulsory; English, Maths, Science, sometimes ICT and RE, and PE in some cases. At my school, we were forced to take English, Maths, Science, ICT, RE, PE, a language (either French or German) and Business Studies, because my school specialises in Business and Languages. Then you had three 'option blocks' on a form to pick out of. This changes from school to school, though. They also used to do SATs, until last year, when the markers completely screwed up the marking, and kid came out with much lower grades than expected, so many were sent back for remarking. This year's Year 9s haven't had to take them.

Year 10 is the second to last year of high school, the one I'm just finishing now. There's a lot of pressure because of coursework and essays that count towards your final exam grade. This is where some kids suddenly realise that they've mucked around the past three/four years and really need to get a grip and do the work. At the end of the year, around May or June, you may take some exams, called GCSEs. These are the important ones. Most of them are taken in Year 11, but some, like half of the ICT and Science exams are taken in Year 10.

Although, this is just based off my school and the area which I live in, it may be different in some other areas that have other systems. Hope this helps!