State schools

Education in Great Britain is compulsory and free for all children between the ages of 5-16. Nine-tenth of all children are educated in state schools.

Children attend a primary school from 5 to 11. Primary school may be housed in a single building. Within this single school there are two departments: infant and junior. Between the ages of 5 and 7 children go to the Infant school and between the ages of 7 and 11 to the Junior school.

The first years of schooling are the foundation of every child’s education. The three R’s: reading, writing and ’rithmetic are taught there.

Children leave the primary school at the age of 11.

Right up to the year 1944 secondary education in Great Britain had existed in the form of fee-charging public schools and free grammar schools. These schools are called so because grammar, particularly Latin grammar, formed an important part of the curriculum of the original grammar schools, some of which were founded as early as the Middle Ages, the recruitment to which was based on the selective principle.

With the i ntroduction of compulsory secondary education for all, it did not become equal for everybody. The so-called secondary modern schools, which were opened later, became second-hand educational establishments, because, unlike grammar schools, they did not qualify the school-leavers, mostly at the age of 16, toenter the university.

To sort out the primary school-leavers between these two types of secondary schools, an Eleven Plus Examination was instituted. Its aim was to separate at the age of 11three quarters of school children as “less able” and to retain the prospects of higher education only for the remaining quarter. The result of this examination affected the children’s future.

This examination consisted of an English test, an arithmetic test and of an Intelligence Quotient test (I.Q.) The Intelligence test determined the children’s inborn abilitiesand their intellectual potential. The pupils who could not cope with the examination were labelled “less able”, i.e. unpromising.

Up to the 50^th there were three types of state secondary schools: secondary grammar, secondary technical and secondary modern school.

Children were put into one of these schools on the results of selective examinations.

Secondary grammar school offers a predominantly academic education and prepares pupils for higher education.

The curriculum of this school includes the English language and literature, modern languages, Latin, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography and other subjects.

Secondary technical schools specialise in technical studies. They prepare pupils for technical colleges.

Those children who didn’t pass selective examination could go to secondary modern schools. That kind of school gives a non-academic education with a practical bias.

Selection at such an early age as 11 was strongly criticized by many educationalists and teachers.

In 1965 the Labour Government began abolishing selection at 11 and establishing comprehensive schools. These are non-selective secondary schools which take pupils of mixed abilities and which offer both academic and practical subjects. Different methods of grouping children are used in this type of school. One of the ways is the system known as “streaming”. This means that children of the same age are put into different groups or “streams” according to their abilities to learn, the brightest children being in the A stream and the least gifted in the D stream. Pupils never repeat a year. They may be grouped according to their abilities for specific subjects and the divisions will be called sets. Pupils can concentrate on sciences or arts. For those who do not wish to go on to higher education opportunities are given to study accounts, commerce, more technical subjects or homecraft.

At the end of the fifth year pupils stake leaving examinations. There are two forms of examination at 16.There is the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) “O” (ordinary) level examination and CSE examination (the Certificate of Secondary Education). The second examination is not as difficult as “O” level. It is for practically inclined children. Some students may only sit for 3 subjects. Better students will take ten subjects. For a lot of jobs, such as nursing, you must have four or five “O” levels.

So pupils in Britain leave school at the age of 16 with examination certificates in the individual subjects they have passed.

If you stay at school after taking “O” level, you go into the sixth form, and start working for the second main exam: “A” (advanced) level.

Most people take “A” level when they are about 18. It is quite a difficult exam, so people don’t usually take it in more than 3 subjects. Three “A” levels are enough to get you into most universities.

Exercises.