School start & leaving ages round the world 🌎

[Needanewname42]

Being curious, people always say the UK start school young compaired to other countries.

Scotland tradionally started school at 5 13 years of school. 7 Primary 6 Secondary

I think England is 15 years of school?? Starting at 4.5.

AIBU to think countries who start formal school at 6 or 7 have less years of formal school ?

Does that mean the first year of school is like nursery. How can a teacher teach 30 individuals in a class?

I suppose P1 kids read individually with the class teacher any way (or at least that was my experience of P1) I don't remember P2. But I know P3 we were in reading groups.

I’m not sure I understand your last question, OP. Aren’t there 30 individuals in a UK reception class? All with different levels of reading ability (some arrive already reading fluently, others not even knowing the alphabet), emotional maturity, ability to follow instructions, etc etc.

And Reception is quite like Nursery in the UK anyway - mostly child led and free play (as it should be).

Reading is probably a bad example.

If the teacher started teaching how to write ✍️ letters surely they do that as a class and in a set order S being first.

How on earth do you teach that if you have by the end of the year 30 kids all at different stages some further though the letters and sounds than others

Same with numbers.

It's not even like you can teach them in groups. If they all start at different times.

I actually have no idea how they do it, I’m not a teacher and haven’t sat watching the kids classes! But because kids arrive staggered throughout the year, they potentially come into a very small class of a handful of kids. Around here, you’d never see a reception class size of 30 - seems to be maximum 20 and then they get moved up to y1 as required. DS is 5 and in a class of 11 right now.

At what point do they form an actual year group?

I can see how it could work for pre-school playing games, listening to stories doing craft stuff etc . But I really struggle to see how its works on more academic stuff.

School by school I suppose - my dad was a reception teacher, and they did it in 6 month groups. DC's school is small, and they decide at the end of the calendar year who is going up and who will stay in the juniors another year. The school age year is generally about May-April and bigger oversubscribed schools tend to have hard cut off dates, but smaller schools are flexible - DD is the youngest in her year with a mid-April birthday, and I get asked every year which year we would like her to be next year.
Sorry for taking over the thread with the weird NZ school entry system! But I know DH's family have always found it confusing when we tell them about it.

Another interesting aspect would be the hours kids spend in school:

Im Irish and live in the UK. While the age of starting is similar. The time in school is v different.

For example all those talking about Ireland and preschool years - it’s typically c. 3 hours a day. Then in school itself Junior infants (Ireland’s reception year - aged 4.5-5.5ish) and senior infants (kids aged 5.5-6.5ish) are in school from 8:45 ish till 1:20. From 1st year (age 7+) to 6th year (age 12ish) school remains 8:45am to 2:30 ish in the afternoon.
Secondary school marks the move to longer school days for most.

Whereas in the UK. Dd started in her nursery classroom in a school setting (following an Early years play curriculum) aged 3. Hours are from 8:45-3:30/45 from the start and stay this way through all of primary. Reception (aged 4) is also predominantly play based learning but more formal learning starts in year 1 (aged 5ish).

I think this is what tends to differ the UK from most of the continent (who start the more formal aspects later).

I am in Ireland. Both mine started school at 5 - ds just 5 and dd 5 and 4 months.
Both did transition year in secondary school, which was an amazing experience for both (2 different schools). So 14 years in total.

The only systems I have experience of are the UK and US. UK it’s start at 4 and 3 years of uni. US it’s start at 5 but 4 years of college. So that’s 2 extra years an American has to pay for that a Brit gets for free! And that extra year of college doesn’t come cheap.

I think you mean England rather than the UK!

in Poland
primary school is for 8 years, age 7 to 15 (most children attend preschool for 2 years before).
then secondary is either 3, 4 or 5years.
the 3 year secondaries teach a job such as builder or hairdresser - no A-levels. 4 year is bit like 6th form ends with A-levels and off to university. 5 year school called technical school adds some subjects, so you get some speciality in addition to a-levels.

In most US states pre-school is 3 & 4 years mostly voluntary for children to attend. Primary to starts with kindergarten at 5 (different school systems have different age cut offs, mine is October 1) and goes to first through sixth grade. Middle School is generally 7th through 8th grade and high school 9th through 12th.
A number of communities have community and or technical colleges where where students can take classes that are transferable to colleges or university, while they are in high school. They graduate high school with about 2 years of University credits.

** I'm editing this to include one aspect of the US system is that schools, especially high schools, are highly involved with sports and activities. These generally are at minimal cost. This transfers into the college/university level as well. Activities and sports can lead to college scholarships.

Kids start primary school (Grundschule) at 6. it’s not uncommon for a child to be put back until 7. Children have a school-readiness test before being accepted where they have to say certain sounds, draw a person, and their fine and gross motor skills are tested. School is compulsory, in our case has a variable start time of either 07:45 or 08:30, a variable end time of either 12:20 or 13:15, and daily compulsory homework.

There is non-compulsory Kindergarten from age 3 (with a crèche from 1). Quite a few kids go 3 hours a day from 9-12. Longer hours are available. There are no letters taught before school and you as a parent are strongly discouraged from teaching your child the alphabet. Focus is on fine and gross motor skills and oral language skills.

From age 10-11 children go on to one of three types of secondary school. Hauptschule is upto age 15, Realschule until 16 and Gymnasium (grammar school) upto 18, although there are concrete moves to reraise the age to 19 in some parts of Germany. Schooling is managed on a state level and Germany is divided into 16 states. It’s very difficult to move between states once you‘re a teenager as there are recognised differences between the state education systems. I know of two sisters who had to go down a year when their family moved.

After leaving school, Gymnasium kids will probably go on to university. Unis are seen as broadly the same as each other, you tend to go to your local one.

The other school leavers go onto a 2-3 year traineeship at a company. This may be a retail company, it may be a corporate environment, a bank, or a trade. It could be a nursing home or a Kindergarten. The company employs you during the traineeship, but wages are not enough to self-support. Once you have finished the company takes you on full-time and you have earned the right to call yourself by your job (in Germany you say what you are, not what you do). It’s almost impossible to get a job without at least a traineeship and equally difficult to change jobs without retraining.

Similar in Canada

canada from about 5 to 18.
you can start at 4+ if your birthday is before december 31st.
quebec is slightly different ending at grade 11 vs 12, they also offer two free years in a college setting called cegep. some programs such as nursing, dental assistant, policing were fully offered at cegep at minimal cost not sure what programs are currently offered. quebec also pays much higher provincial taxes to support such programs.
i'm of the impression however (i use to know) that the amount of teaching hours in canada (per year) is quiet low. british columbia hours; 823 kindergarden, 848 elementary and 952 high school.

Queensland, Australia. Children start prep (reception) on average at 5 years old. Intake for the year is 1 July to 30 June although the academic year begins in January, so some children turn 5 the year before starting school and the rest turn 5 the within the first 6 months of starting school.
You can also choose to hold your child back and start prep a year later if you wish. There seems to be a bit of a trend with the younger boys being held back.

Sorry for taking over the thread with the weird NZ school entry system! But I know DH's family have always found it confusing when we tell them about it.

I guess it works okay - it was the same when I started school in 1964!

Austria school is from age 6-15/18. I think everyone is supposed to be in education until 18 now, but that can be an apprentice or similar the last 2 years.

Kindergarten is 2-6 years. The last year is compulsory. It’s also very cheap (basically free for mornings, and you just pay for lunch if longer). They don’t teach any reading or writing at kindergarten. It’s all play based and fine and gross motor (Ds spends at least 1/2 time outside)

School is always right the way through only until lunchtime, depending on ages and school most finish 11.30-1pm. School starts around 7.30am

From a child perspective I love the idea of kindergarten til 6 as it seems lots of countries on this thread do.

A proper resourced play based setting where parents can still take kids on holiday in term time if they want to and where kids are not pressured to sit all day and get kept in at break for not doing xyz would be better.

However lots of these countries are finishing at lunchtime too (ireland for example)

Is it less common for both parents to work? In my area (in England) it's very uncommon for both to work full time but I'm aware that's not the case across mumsnet and going forwards it's more common for both to work. How does it work if you're picking up at lunchtime me?

From what I know of the victoriana system in Australia it makes far more sense than our high stakes gcse where you have to perform in end of year tests /memories 4 years worth of everything you do. To have it just be a few subjects makes more sense and just at the end rather than for the last 4 years of school removes so much pressure.

And I've seen he push towards getting 8s and 9s just drive more rote memorisation and mental health pressure here which isn't a good thing. Changing the narrative would help so much.

Half-day school in Germany does make it harder to work. There is a commitment in several states towards ‘all day school’, which means at least one school within a certain area needs to offer childcare until 4:30pm. You can request a school out of catchment on this basis.

In our village school, a group of SAHMs, grandparents and students offer an after-school club until 2pm with a homework club directly afterwards until 4:30pm. They also fully cover the holidays at €10 a day…

Term time includes a three course meal cooked by the local nursing home. The school provide the rooms and free bus travel for trips. The club does the most amazing crafts and is a space for children to be children. There are hordes of them running on the fields or climbing trees outside.

Workwise you have to be clever. Once you’ve got your secure job and are through the probation period you can drop to 50%. I only got mine because a) it was a very niche set of skills and I knew the competition wouldn’t be strong and b) my (male) boss at the time had children the same age as mine. I primarily work from home (and DH is fully WFH). I am now up to 28 hours, with an agreement I don’t need to fully work standard hours. I was however turned down for a department move on the basis I couldn’t do afternoons…

Here in the country, realistically grandparents pick up a lot of the slack. My DS spent the afternoon yesterday at a friend’s grandparents and I’ve done a few play dates with kids’ grandparents. If you don’t have that it’s really difficult, even at part time.

@GeneralMusings - most schools offer afternoon care, just like after school clubs in uk.

So you finish school at 12, but can pay for child to take lunch and have there and then play or do homework until a later time. I think the school here is until 4.30-5pm maybe for extra care.

But we just use kindergarten until lunchtime. Both dh and I are self employed so flexible, and I work part time now. Also rural where we are lots of families live in multi generation housing, so grandparents take over afternoon care, especially at school age (6-10 years) when they aren’t toddlers anymore for pretty self sufficient but need someone at home.

Also, because school and kindergarten starts early, using 7am drop off onwards, so does work. It’s very normal for standard full time office hours working for the council for example to be 7.30-3pm. And any government job finishes at lunchtime on Fridays. I think many only one parent works full time and the other part time or not at all

In Ireland most children go to childminders, afterschool clubs or grandparents as most parents work. There's not as many SAHP as there used to be.

I think afternoons to play at school sounds perfect.

And yes not having to have both parents work full time would also be good. I do wonder whether England is worse than other countries for that looking at mn threads as it's not common here but women's careers suffer because of that.

Often one parent works part time though. Or both parents try to work from home at least part-time, so they can do the school run etc, then work later to make up. A lot of juggling goes on. Depends on the age of the children too, as older ones can more or less mind themselves while parents wfh but still need someone in the house.

That's sounds more like school to 15 then subjects we would do in college / uni.

And actually I can see a lot of sense in that set up.

Primary schools here tend to have a class teacher to teaches everything.
Is Poland the same?