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Britain`s Education

The British School System
Britain`s education begins at the age of 5 and ends at the age of 16. At first children have to go to Primary School, which corresponds to the German Grundschule.Primary School consists of Infant School, for the 5 to 7 year-old pupils and Junior School for the 8 to 11year- old pupils. The results of primary education should be that pupils are able to read, to write and to count without any problems, because these three subjects are the most important ones. Besides they are taught in art and religion. Religion has to be taught at every school.
After primary school follows Secondary School. Over 90% of the seconders attend a comprehensive school which is comparable with the German Gesamtschule. The other 10% attend a private or independent school where the parents have to pay fees for their children. Comprehensive school includes the classes 7 to 11 and is attended by 12 to 16 year-old pupils.
Now they can visit the Sixth Form, to reach their A-Level. A-Levels can be studied in the Sixth Form of a secondary school (state or private) or in a separate Sixth Form College. But only 45% continue with full-time education after the year of 16. The rest go to work or join employment training schemes.
School LifeEvery British school gives lessons until the afternoon which means that pupils sometimes have to stay at school till 4 pm. That’s why every school offers lunch and gives a long break for it. The food is free for pupils whose parents have financial problems. There are no further breaks except a 15 minutes break for breakfast. One lesson runs 40 minutes.A very long tradition is the Everyday Assembly. Among this arrangement, a person reads out one or some parts of the bible and interprets it ( for the pupils). It always takes place in the morning before lessons. The boys and girls have to come shoeless into the assembly hall and have to be very very quite. Some teachers have to pay attention if everyone listens to the headmaster and they get angry if someone doesn’t or is too late. If a pupil is often late, he or she gets a blame or something else. After the Assembly, the young people have to go to their classrooms immediately.

Exams
English pupils get their marks in form of letters. A is the best and G the worst. British have to write a lot of tests and exams with high/big demands. Altogether they have to write 4 important exams. They are called Key Stage Exams. They have to be written at the end of Infant School and Junior School, in the middle and at the end of Secondary School in 3 subjects: English, Calculating and Science. ( At infant school the subject Science is replaced by ` Ability Of Reading'.) At theese times, pupils have the age of 7, 11 ,14 and 16. The Key Stage Exams help to compare the results of pupils and schools with the national average results. ( Also to see if the pupils have reached the achievements.)
In the age of 16 they take GCSEs. (GCSE is the shorter form for General Certificate of Secondary Education.) The GCSEs are one of the most important qualifications and correspond to the German Realschulabschluss. The government thinks of dropping mathematic as a compulsory GCSE subject because a lot of teachers and educators think it is enough for pupils to learn the use of numbers and that there is no sense to force 14 to 16 year-olds to learn further things of mathematics. This subject could be left to students who enjoy maths and want to study it. Educators think, most pupils are interested in learning languages or humanities.
After passing the GCSE, pupils can leave school and get a job or stay at school and do their A-Levels. (A stands for advanced.) The A-Level is compareable with the German Abitur. If they have their A-Levels, they are able to go to university to study their favourits subjects.
Additional Informations

School Uniform
The idea is to make pupils look equally so that nobody will be discriminated against because of his social problems which could be less money (or things like that).
The pupils don’t like their school uniform, because they don’t feel like an individualist anymore. A lot of teenagers also don’t like them because of the colours, which are often ones like black or grey and the majority says that their uniform is uncomfortable too.School uniforms often consist of a blazer with a t-shirt or a blouse below it, a tie and a pair of trousers for boys and a coat for girls in summer.
Swearing At SchoolA special programme, which is part of a project named Personal, Social and Health Module, was introduced since September2002. ( PSHM also includes topics like sexual health and education, drugs, smoking and relationships.)Within this programme, schools give their pupils lessons in which the 11 to 16 years-olds have to write down as many swearwords as they can think of. Then the teachers describe and explain them to their pupils, because specialists think that pupils don’t really know what their swearwords mean. The aim is to get young people to look carefully at their language and see if they really meant to say what they say.A lot of parents are against this programme, because they think that their children just get a wider range of disgusting words.
SmokingSmoking at school is absolutely forbidden. If a pupil is caught in the act, his parents will be informed immediately. Until now, there is one school in Britain who let’s its pupils smoke. They are allowed to smoke with their parents agree. A spokesman for the Department of Health said that it was very unusual. Other schools reacted shocked.
12.07.2004
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