British childhood/schooling versus elsewhere in Europe. Is it really so bad?

I was raised in Spain. In primary school, we had a 3 hour lunch break, during which we could go home.
In secondary school, it started earlier but finished at 1pm, and we could leave the school grounds at break time. We also had 3 month long summer holidays. So yes, we did get much more free time outdoors, with thanks to the good weather.

We were both raised in England, my husband hated English education, poor grades due to dyslexia and a lack of support. I was ok with English education. Mainly due to my husbands experience he didn't want our kids to go through school in England, he spent some time in Denmark when he was younger and loved it. So we moved to Sweden.

I am happy with their schooling system/education so far though our youngest is still in preschool (more like English nursery really, all play based, no formal teaching, he only did 15 hours a week until January when I requested he do more to help prepare him for school and learn Swedish better).

Our eldest is in 'primary' school, they start the year they are due to turn 6, which is reception year, so they have shared tables and a more formal setting than preschool but still more play based than fully formal. So truly formal schooling starts the year they are due to turn 7, which we are very happy with as we do think formal schooling begins too young in England, our personal opinions.

School days are shorter than in England according to OPs post (we've long forgotten how many hours we attended primary school for), they seem to get a bit longer (maybe half an hour) each year, so in year 1 he started school 8.15 and finished at 1pm, 4.45hrs a day, now he finishes at 1.30 so 5.15hrs a day (except Mondays where he starts at 9 so only does 4.30hrs). He does do after school a few days a week for a couple or hours at a time, but that's through choice to help him with his Swedish.

The reading/writing late thing can be downright dangerous.
Privileged children start their first year (age 6) able to read, write, do basic maths (year 1 level about).
Less privileged children often can’t do any if these things.

Streaming decisions don't start to happen here til grade 7 (age 12) and are not set in stone until year 9 (age 15). And even then, even if a child doesn't get a place in gymnasium (academic focused high school leading to university) they can go to a less academic high school for a year and then transfer, if they are prepared to work hard. So the opportunity is there to go wherever you want, if you are prepared to work hard.

Some kids start school already able to read and write, some don't. Nothing to stop kids who want to learn earlier, the resources are there for them to pick it up at pre-school if they show interest, but no-one pushes it. None of mine were literate when they started, but they all kept up fine in 1st grade, because it is pitched at a level that assumes they don't know yet. The main danger here is that kids who can already read are going to be bored in 1st grade.

Having streaming decisions made after just 3 years of school definitely sounds dangerous! That's not enough time to know if a child is academic or not. Much prefer the system in Finland where it doesn't split until 15/16 years old and the decision is a collaboration between student, teacher and parents - if the student doesn't have the necessary grades to get into academic high school they can do an extra year of comprehensive to get their grades up. And its possible to do both academic and vocational at the same time (double degree) or do vocational after academic (can also do the other way round but its a bit more complicated but you can do academic high school at any point in your life at an adult high school). So there's so many opportunities to change your track.

Constant school holidays? Really?!

British kids out the door at 7am?? We are not even awake by 7am! I don’t know any school in the UK that starts so early! Most school start 8:45-9:00 and finish around 3:00!

As for getting outside, it depends on the parent rather than the country. My kids go out daily, they have after school activities they enjoy they’re certainly not cooped up for days on end!

The reading/writing late thing can be downright dangerous.
Privileged children start their first year (age 6) able to read, write, do basic maths (year 1 level about).
Less privileged children often can’t do any if these things.
3 years later decisions on university streams are made. Who do you think will get into this streams? only children from a privileged background, how clever they are is pretty much irrelevant as their starting point is often years beghibd.

If we’re talking about primary school:
We got up about 7.30, left the house about 8.15 - if not raining or really cold we walked to school (20 minutes).
Play in playground before the bell.
In nursery/Reception loads of outdoor play in the school day,
Three break times outside (inc lunch)
PE twice a week.
I did usually drive to pick up as they were tired at the end if the day. Sometimes they’d have an active club too like drama or football.
We took them to loads of parks/soft play etc at weekends and holidays.
Both v slim throughout their childhood.

I went to school in Scotland, but my children (aged between 7and 14) go to school in Slovenia (normal, state run school not private/international school). There are plenty of differences, pluses and minuses of both systems.

I don't think education is perfect anywhere right now - the world has changed so much in the last few decades and I don't think any of us really know what sort of future the next couple of generations are going to be dealing with.

The massive difference school in Slovenia is that compared to the UK, private education is not really a thing (there are some international schools, but mostly used by foreigners who travel a lot) and education is standardized across the country, so all children regardless of what area they live in, or how money their parents earn, experience basically the same educational opportunities.

Here, children don't start until the September after their 6th birthday (or are very nearly 6 - the youngest children in the year start aged 5 years and 9 months) and they don't start learning to read and write until after new year in 1st grade, when they are all 6 (or nearly 7) and it seems to go really easily - I would say from what I've seen, average 7/8 year olds here read and write at the same level (or higher) as average 7/8 year olds in the UK, just spent a lot less time learning how to do it.

Language teaching is good. They all start learning English in 1st grade, by around 5th grade (age 10) most are completely fluent. From 4th or 5th grade they have the option to learn more languages.

They all do a cycling proficiency test, during school hours, at the start of 5th grade (age 9 or 10) and then get given a bike license. After that they are allowed to cycle to school on their own - and bike is how they take themselves to all activities/sports training /meeting friends /going to birth parties etc etc from that age onwards. Because most of them do it, it's normal (some parents insist on driving them everywhere, but that's a new thing).

There is kindergarten available 5 days a week from 1 year old to 6 years old, but it is optional, and payment is means tested, so you only pay if you can genuinely afford to. Most children go from around age 3 or 4, some go younger, some don't go at all, it depends on the family. It makes it a lot easier for all parents to return to work.

What I don't like... They get masses of homework, a lot of it just rote learning. There is a lot of pressure on grades from 3rd grade onwards, some parents (and consequently kids) get really stressed if they don't get top marks. A lot of life skills (being kind, being independent) are not noticed at all. If children need extra help, it is up to parents to do it at home or find and pay for extra tuition outside of school.

The school day starts very early - some days at 730, some days 8.15. It's fine when they are little but gets harder when they are teenagers - especially for high school (aged 15/16 onwards) as most high school classes seem to start around 7.30 and if you have to travel to get there it gets very hard for some of them to get enough sleep, especially as they are expected to work/study a lot in the evenings.

They finish around 12 or 1pm though, so another positive thing at primary school (which goes til 9th grade, aged 15) is that there is lots time after school for unstructured play or sports/music training every day.

Rote learning = memorising facts and knowledge.

I trained a teacher educated in Sri Lanka and she said their system is all like that. UK came as a shock.

PISA scores - International standardised testing. England does quite well.

I've voted that you're being unreasonable for believing what you read/see on Instagram!

We've got a different educational system to other European countries (well they differ from each other too). Hell, we've got a different system to Scotland, a nation in the UK! I'm sure we've got broad things in common and that there are differences due to culture and climate.

A friend has brought her children up in Switzerland and from what I can see there are upsides but also downsides. There are aspects that seem better to an outsider for sure. But it seems to be very much a one size fits all system. I know people say that about England, but despite the government's best efforts we do have a bit of choice in the system if the local school doesn't seem suitable.

Definitely pros and cons everywhere but whenever I tell my DD about school in Britain she declares that she's so glad she doesn't have to go to school there! Strict rules and uniforms seem to be her biggest issue with it, or the dressing up as different things days in primary school (she refused to partake in similar things in her primary school but they were just once a year)

@notthedogsfault there is a huge difference between schools in affluent areas, and schools outside in my home country . Combined with an early selection grammar school system (after 3 years of primary - only children from involved backgrounds stand a chance), social mobility is pretty much zero - much, much worse than in the UK

I'm in Austria. Kids age 1-6 can go to kindergarten where the lead staff have to have degree equivalent qualifications. The kids have autonomy but strict boundaries so the behaviour is frankly excellent. They are outdoors every day but not in the rain!

It is a black box though, there is nothing like these apps in the UK recording every bowel movement, just a parents meeting once a year.

Big difference is that parents have a legal right to work part-time until their child is 5 so most kids are picked up at 3pm and/or don't go every day.

These stories are written by people who don’t know what they are talking about. Primary schools in the U.K. generally start at 8.45 (varies a little bit) and finish shortly after 3, if the child is going in earlier it is to optional breakfast club because the parents work (same across Europe) as for the education, my dc lives in a country often cited for their perfect childhoods starting at 7 yet in reality parents are complaining about how the education system isn’t working, kids get so behind other countries, end up finishing school older, and many more affluent are paying for private preschools from 4-6 to give them a better start meaning that the poorest kids are the disadvantaged ones, they also send them to English language preschools to give them a step up.

there isn’t a perfect system but it varies from child to child what suits them best

What is meant by 'rote learning' and PISA scores?

Also in Luxembourg it wasn't uncommon to repeat a school year if you didn't do well enough.

I remember having eczema from the fear of repeating a year!

Didn't want to be a legal adult going to school with 15-16 year olds!!

Little frolicking to be had in my tiny corner of Italy.

Even the most engaged parents have had enough of the stress by mid 2nd year of middle school. The high school parents are often trying to juggle peri menopause, knackered, suddenly less compliment + mucho hacked off knackered teenagers and increasing mountains of studying for the endless bombardment of written and oral tests.

Teachers dropping like flies.

Behaviour impossible to manage because sanctions (notes to parents, parents called, sending to the vice-president) doesn’t phase that cohort or their parents. The behaviour grade seems to get adjusted to a pass come what may. The well behaved kids get the worst of it with surprise punishment test, or whole class punishment of writing the school rules for an entire lesson while the teacher takes the Usual Suspects off to be told off.

It wasn’t great 20 years ago, but the teachers are 20 years older and tireder, the behaviour has become a bigger issue (potentially because sanctions like being held back a year, suspended seem to have been taken off the table) and teaching time gets eaten by the Usual Suspects acting up so the homework load increases to fill the gap and parents/kids find all free time sucked up into playing catch up with what failed to happen at school.

My parent/tutor coffee meet ups have required more tissues than I remember at any time other than during the pandemic. Which also didn’t help.

All feels very frolic-lite in these parts.

I don’t have kids yet so can’t comment on specifics, but as a European living in the UK, surely the elephant in the room is the UK class divide!?

To me it seems like here, the kids from well-off families have wildly different experiences to the ones from lower-income families. At least in the countries I grew up in (one in southern Europe and one in northern Europe) there wasn’t such a big socioeconomic divide to begin with, and while there were obviously differences between children’s backgrounds, there was also a lot more mixing.

I’m always surprised how little time british children spend in education!
School is 9-3 at max, with 1 hour break, that makes a maximum of 5 hours per day. Homework in primary basically nonexistent, in secondary minimal (2hours per day maximum).
My home country school is at minimum 8-1, (3:30 at least twice a week in secondary, with a 45 min lunch break ) with two 15 minutes breaks, so 4.5 hours per day, plus a minimum of 1 hour homework (early years), going up to 3-4 hours per day (secondary school). So a minimum of 5.5 (early primary) hours to easily 9+ hours (secondary)

We're in Belgium. Maternelle from 2.5 to 5. No "formal" reading and writing but very structured - with a teacher. My dd "themes" e.g. they'd learn about wheat, so they'd draw pictures, go to a farm, go to the bakery to see bread being made, do some rudimentary baking, bring baked things from home etc. Then Weather, or insects etc. I was always amazed that the teachers managed to achieve anything beyond getting 20 tiny ones to go the toilet or sit still for long enough. Nap at lunch time. Primaire from year they turned 6. I remember the teacher telling me that the kids would all learn to read and write within the first 6 months and being surprised, but it happened. Desks all facing the front. Lots of rote learning and tests. Homework. The school buildings were generally open from 7.30 to 6 / 6.30 with different staff covering lunch time and wrap round. This was very cheap. School was 8.30 to 3 or 3.30. No school on a Wednesday afternoon - usually when sports clubs / music lessons were laid on elsewhere.

Secondary school - 12 - 18. All subjects studied effectively for the the whole 6 years - even RE - but you could specialise in later years and do e.g. more languages, less maths, or doing social sciences and less chemistry / physics etc. Lots of home work and tests. If you don't pass the year, you double and do it again - this is very common.

Likely a far less lazy morning than British children! Nurseries in Finland are often open 24 hours so there will be children being woken up at 5 to be dropped off so parents can do a 6am shift start, and others who'll go late in the evening and sleep at nursery because their parents work night shifts. Its great for parents, obviously, but I imagine its pretty harsh and tiring on very small children.

I have family in Sweden- the parents work and the DC were in nursery, now school. They most certainly weren’t frolicking in the woods all morning.