education in uk

[grumpygriselda]

Hello
We are now living in Spain (no, it´s freezing here, too) and I have been asked by my ds (8) teacher to give a talk to the class on what school is like for a typical 8 year old in UK. I haven´t got a clue. Could someone please help me out? Plan B is to use DS´s William books. Thanks.

Check out the national curriculum websitey things.
Don't know if you have any access to any tefly kind of books, but there are some good ones on British Culture which cover the education system. The one I use is called Focus on Britain Today which gives a rundown on ages/subjects/rules etc.

(In Italy and it's brass monkeys here as well )

What type of things do you want to include?

Is it just about a typical day like : starts at 9.00 finishes at 15.30 , most children eat in school but have a choice between school meal and own lunch from brought from home....?

thanks Bucharest. Yes, I´ll look but btw are the tefl books available to look at online do you know?

well, yes, normal day stuff, and maybe something funny, or maybe current playground games?

Ok, in /dcs school (local state primary) they start the day doing a register and then have about 1 hour work. after that they have what is called "assembly" where the entire school (all the classes at the same time)assemble in the gym hall to talk about a topic of interest for the school (bullying, friendship...) or have a guest from a charity or something.

-break time: the children play outsie if the weather is fine .Our play ground is really nice with even a bit of woods the children are alloved in but all schools have different things, most do have climbing frames nowadays. If the weather is not good they stay inside the school for "wet play"(believe it or not it happens quite a bit here!)were they play with board games and such.

-Lunch time : children eat in the gym hall (on tables) school cooked lunch or home packed lunch and then have a play outside (they also have sport coaches who play with them and teach them games)until the afternoon session.

After school, a lot of schools have free clubs run by teacher, there are sports clubs, cookery clubs, sawing/craft club, board games...

scribd.com

Not everything in print is there, but there's a heck of a lot!

British Council.org site is also good, as is the Cambridge esl site.

gorionine, thanks, that´s great. Are teacher still Miss and Mr or first names? Thanks again bucharest I will look at them. Oh Gawd, so much to do, so little time ....

Teachers are still Mrs, Miss and Mr (many more female teachers than male in primary school)

Oh and they school week is from Monday to Friday without a break on Wednesday (I know that France & Switzerland have) is it the same in Spain?

Message withdrawn

grumpy why don't you quickly list what a typical day in your Spanish school's like, then we'll tell you what's different? Even on the few posts here it shows the variety in the UK - for eg, our at our primary school, the children call their teachers by their first names, don't wear uniforms and play outside pretty much regardless of the weather.

Incidently, I would be interested in knowing what spanish schools are like

just spotted another contradiction - our primary has more male teachers than female.

smee where about are you? I have never seen a primary school without uniform arround here.

OK, well mine go to a private school which costs around 330 euro pcm, going up as they get older. They accept kids from babies up to 16. Starting times are different, for infants and primary it´s 9am to 5pm with 90 mins for lunch, which is a serious business, 3 courses, little song before they eat, from primary all ages mixed together (7 to 16) at the table and each have their little task (carry the water, bread, cutlery, clear away etc). Teachers are first names. Assembly at 9 for primary. Older lot (12 upwards) start at 8am and finish at 3 or 4. Football, basketball, ceramics, bible class or choir after school if you want. Lots of holidays (20 June to 12 Sept), 2-5 weeks for Christmas and Easter, countless days off in between. Infants have their own playground, primary have more freedom as they get older, i.e. access to more areas. No problem with bullying, that I´ve heard of, as it´s nipped in the bud and pupils encouraged to be cohesive and inclusive. What else?

No, no uniform but school sportswear whicfh isn´t mandatory. Mainly female teachers here too.

I'm in north east London gorionine. Quite a few have uniforms, but I can think of at least three that don't.

grumpy the lunch sounds wonderful. Ours is a scrabble, as they have to eat before they can play, so they literally seem to throw it in as fast as they can! Not sure if others are the same, but our school has termly or half termly projects, so everything's based round that - this term's transport, so maths, literacy, art, science, everything's linked to a theme and that ties in with a school trip to a bus garage.

Smee, yes it´s a bit like that here too. DS class was all about the sea last term and dd (5) is doing a homes and cities project. I do like their approach to nosh here. It seems to be just the Brits who don´t value lunch as an important part of the day. Are there still seasons of games in UK, like marbles and whatever?

There was some health and safety nonsense that meant things were banned; conkers for example. Not sure about marbles. Skipping's big in our playground at the moment; boys and girls. Might amuse the Spanish children to know that people eat so poorly here that each primary school child gets a free piece of fruit each day. Or do they get that there too?

Every week a different class presents assembly - this morning in DS's school they presented it as 'Class 4's Travelling Show', with acts, poems, songs, dances (Spanish, as it happens) demonstrating how each person is special, each differnt, but all equal. They sang Brass In POcket.

They learn Spanish...it may amuse Spanish children that UK children learn spanish.

They have no uniform, and call thier teachers by their first names!

Really, a free piece of fruit? They don´t get that here but most Spanish families do eat quite well balanced meals. Btw, kids don´t learn to read until 6 here but after 3 months they´re pretty good. Have to go out now for bit, but thanks to all for the help for now. ¡Hasta pronto, chicas!

Blu, thanks. Sounds lovely. How old is your DS and when do they start learning Spanish? They would love tohear that and all seem so keen to learn English. Loads of them seem to spend their hols over there too (Yorks, Wales, Scotland and of course London being faves). gorra run.

gg - he's 8, too!
At his school they start Spanish in Yr 1, I think (so, at 5). they only get a 30 or 40 min lesson each week, though. After the assembly this morning, the Head teacher told them they were 'estupndo!'. In his class there are 2 children who speak S American Spanish, from Columbia, and also children who speak French (Cote D'Ivoire) and other languages at home. So the children learn bits from each other when they do projects.
Sometimes the school lunches are based on festivals such as pancake day, halloween, harvest festival, christmas, diwali, eid, etc, with special foods. But mostly the children complain about the lunches, and some take a packed lunch

(I think it's nice to give children some detail about other schools).