Sharing GB education with USA

[USAlearners]

Hi. My wife and I are now retired (career in education) and are looking to learn a bit more about education in Great Britain before eventually venturing over for a visit in a year or so. Several years ago we knew we wanted to one day visit GB. We emailed a church there, asking if they knew of another couple who might want to be email pen pals with a couple in the USA. From that we became wonderful friends with a couple (they are not in education careers however) in England and communicate regularly. In fact we have gotten along so well that they have planned a trip here to visit next spring. At any rate, we are looking to learn about teaching and education in GB and would enjoy communicating with another couple who might be able to share with us about your system

I’m single, so may not be who you are looking for, but I’m a recently retired teacher. Send me a direct message if you’d like to correspond.

Well to start with Scotland has a totally different system

Different areas have different systems with some places having grammar schools and others not.

Also some areas have primary then secondary education and some have first, middle and high school.

So you are going to either be corresponding with a few people or just learning about the system in one area.

Thanks. So a more clear simple question to start. In Great Britian (or England if asking about GB may be too difficult because of differences in region) how many years does the typical education run and what is the progression? In the USA most children begin school at age 4 called pre-K, then a year in Kindergarden, then attend Grades 1-12. The exact grades assigned elementary school, middle or Jr. high, and high school may vary slightly by location but typically elementary is pre-K through grade 6, Middle school is grades 5-8, and high school is (always) grades 9-12. High school is where course credits recorded on your transcript (academic record) begin to be recorded that count toward a high school diploma. Also colleges use your transcript to determine if they will accept you should you go to college.

I've taught in the US and in England (nearing retirement). The system is very different in Scotland, and a tiny bit different in Wales & Northern Ireland.

For my money, the single biggest difference is that in England, the last four years of secondary schooling are broken into two two-year chunks. In the first (Year 10 and Year 11, which are 9th and 10th grades) students take 7-10 two-year classes.

In the second (Year 12 and Year 13, sometimes called Lower and Upper Sixth Form, which are 11th and 12th grades) students take only 3-4 subjects in much greater depth. (OWLs and NEWTs in Harry Potter are based on this system...)

The most common courses in 10/11 are "GCSE" courses; nearly everyone takes those. In 12/13 there are various options, including "A-levels" (which tend to be more academic, a bit like beefed-up AP classes) and BTECs and T-levels which tend to be more vocational.

Each two-year chunk ends with high-stakes standardised final exams. (A few courses don't follow this pattern.) In a lot of courses, 100% of the final grade depends on performance in these exams, which is as brutal as it sounds and is very different from the USA. Progression to the next stage depends on those exam-based grades, as does progression to university. ("School" in the UK nearly always means "high-school" and not university. "College" in the UK can mean about three different things!)

I wrote more than I had intended but I hope that helps!

There is a whole knock-on effect due to the fact that the final grades are only available after universities have decided who to accept, which leads to a very complex and stressful system of "conditional offers," and "insurance offers," and... it is crazy. Happy to explain if you're interested. A lot of the education discussion boards here will make no sense without that context!

To add to @PhotoDad's excellent explanation, something a lot of people don't know is that less than half the age cohort take A-level (Advanced level - the two year course that qualifies you for university; roughly equivalent to an AP course) yet there is less funding and much less discussion of the other "vocational" qualifications. Guess which qualification the politicians and their kids take? Bet you can't...

I have unfortunately become an expert in Special Educational Needs (SEN or sometimes SEND with the D being disability) over the last four years.

You can't understand the English educational system without knowing that the SEN system set up 10 years ago is failing. Many thousands of children cannot attend school at all (and their parents cannot work) because there are no suitable school places.

The level of SEND has gone up too and no-one is sure why but factors may include:

• Push for inclusive education without the necessary funding
• Better diagnosis (e.g. recognition of female presentations of autism and ADHD)
• Better medical care for pre term babies meaning higher survival rates
• Assortative mating
• Fewer low skilled jobs meaning academic qualifications are more important
• A more academic curriculum (politician Michael Gove made a big change 10 years ago claiming there was a "soft bigotry of low expectations")
• Lower trust in the school system meaning Covid era absences haven't returned to pre 2020 levels
• Higher levels of poverty exacerbating other problems (schools having to run food banks and wash students' clothes)
• Cutbacks in key services such as school nursing, paediatrics, child and adolescent mental health, social services etc meaning no-one to deal with family issues except the school

I wanted to respond to photodads comment on my thread. Is this how that is done or what button do you hit to do so?

Worth being aware that ‘public’ schools in the U.K. are a small group of (founded a long time ago) private schools. Then there are private schools (of which public schools are a subgroup) and state schools.

It's a quirk of Mumsnet that "reply" doesn't actually reply to a comment, it just puts a new message at the end of the whole thread. Instead you use "quote." Or you can alert another user that you are replying to them by typing "@" and then their username. @USAlearners.

Here:

Nursery class (non-compulsory) age 3-4
Reception class (non-compulsory) age 4-5
These are ‘Early Years’ or ‘Preschool’ classes. They often form part of a Primary school, but children could also attend a separate pre-school, if parents prefer.

Years 1-6 (compulsory) ages 5-11 are in Primary School.

Years 7-11 (compulsory) ages 11-16 are in Secondary School. During year 10 and 11, pupils study GCSE curriculum and sit exams at the end of year 11 in approx 10 subjects.

At ages 16-18, pupils have many options. They can stay at secondary school for Year 12-13 (often known as sixth form) to study A Levels in 3-4 subjects. Or, they may attend a local college to study for their A Levels, or alternative qualifications. They might also decide to follow an apprenticeship in a trade, with one or two days a week in college.

This is the most common system, but there are some regional variations:
In some areas you will find Primary schools are split into Infant schools (Nursery - Year2) and Junior schools (Year 3-6).
Some areas also have middle school (Years 5-8, age 9-13).

In the private education system Primary schools are often known as Prep Schools, and pupils stay there until the end of Year 8 (age 13), whereupon they move to their Secondary school for Year 9.

The term ‘College’ is very confusing, and can be used to refer to;

• Further education institutions offering A Levels among other qualifications for pupils age 16+

• A branch of a university to which students have membership.

• It is sometimes in the name of a secondary school (Eg Eton College), but people will probably still say they are ‘going to school’, not college.

The term ‘School’ is always used for pupils aged 3-18 (never for university).

Hope this helps!

Reception isn't optional for most children. Children are required to be in full time education from the term following their fifth birthday. However, in practice the vast majority of children begin school in the Reception class in September at the start of the year in which they will turn five. Summer born children can request deferral for a year. It's not a good idea to start Reception part of the way through the year as they start immediately on reading and writing and a child who does this will miss a lot of groundwork.

Also prep schools are not all up to 13 since lots of private day schools begin at 11 just like state schools. Even the ones that don't (eg boarding schools or the older day schools) often do most of their pre-entry testing at 11+ in order not to exclude children coming from the state sector.

"School" is a tricky word. If you ask a Brit, "where did you go to school?" then they will always answer about their high-school. But some universities ("colleges" in the US sense) or departments within universities are called schools! These include a lot of art/drama places, and some other institutions (LSE, SOAS, and LSHTM come to mind).

You could do worse than dip in and out of the education boards here on MN. It will give you a flavour of the issues.

In the UK, children progress every year regardless of attainment. Kids are not accelerated nor held back. There us slight flexibility for young in year and fee paying schools also might be more flexible but only by a year.

No pledging allegiance to flags or crowns.

So you are saying there that the universities are telling students they are accepted to attend, but only if the scores on the major tests they have taken but not yet received the result of come back as passed. Yes, I can see that causing some stress. Here, most universities do not send an admittance letter until after they receive your scores on either the ACT or SAT college admissions tests. Those tests carry huge weight with most universities.

It's not just passing the tests! Here, A Levels are graded from A* down to E. Anything below that is a fail (U which means unclassified). A very high ranked university such as Oxford or Cambridge may want two or three A stars whereas a less academic university might be happy with three C grades. There are a whole range of universities for different abilities and interests, just like in the states. An A star grade is hard to get - only the top 5% or so will receive this grade.

Some people choose to apply the following year after they have their grades already and take a gap year during which they might travel, or work and save money, or do something that will help them in their future career plans.

Applying to schools is a whole other topic. It varies per area and some state schools can be selective on ability or religion. We live in a 3 tier system (first school, middle school and high school). Nursery for children aged 3 to 4 years old. For the nursery class you apply directly to the school in our area they tend to be under subscribed and people prefer to use childcare instead as they run all year round not just term time. Until recently 3 to 4 year old were given 15 funded hours of education/childcare. This has recently changed and some people are able to get 30 hours. Then for reception year you apply to the local education authority and say which schools you prefer, giving 1st, 2nd, 3rd preference. It differs per area but general children who are LAC (looked after, so in foster care or adopted from care) will be asigned school, then im different order are children who parents are in armed forces, children in catchment area or some times it’s distance and have a sibling in the school, then just catchment and then out of catchment. Houses a few streets away can be vastly more expensive because they’re in catchment area of a particular school. Then we do the whole application again for middle school and high school.

The only exception is children who have send who have a legal document called and echp and it names a particular school as the only one which meets their needs in which case they have to be given a place.

This is for England.

Just to add to the confusion some areas have Grammar schools, these are usually state and in order to attend you have to take and pass the 11+.

Most of the country ditched them in favour of comprehensive schools that you don't need to pass a test to attend.

We also have state faith schools, mostly they are Roman Catholic or Jewish but there are also C of E, Muslim, Sikh and a smattering of others eg Buddhist.

Faith schools can and most do select their pupils by faith and also they can recruit teachers of that faith.

Not everyone (me included) is happy about this. Ofsted is the organisation that supposedly visits and ranks schools but for faith schools they do not inspect religious teaching that is done by an inspector of the faith the school belongs to.

If you want to dive deep in to reasons for and against then the National Secular Society have some good resources, they are, obviously on the side of wanting to get rid of faith schools.

https://www.secularism.org.uk/

We also have boarding schools, the majority are private and some take children who are quite young, 6 or 7 I believe.

But there are also state boarding schools, the state provides the education just as it does at other state schools but the parents pay for the boarding element.

As an addendum to @Litlgreyrabbit's explanation, we live in a middje school area, where middle school is Years 6-8!

@TheRainItRaineth has provided a great answer to this! By the end of the application season, a college-bound student will normally be holding onto two conditional admissions offers, a "firm" and an "insurance." As an example, it might be "You can come to Leeds University if you get A*AA, or to Lancaster if you get ABB, as final A-level grades." There is then a week of chaos when the grades are released (on "results day" in mid-August) especially if that student has not achieved the required grades. (There's a process called 'Clearing' to match up students with vacant places.)

Some institutions have a slightly different procedure. Music/drama/art schools tend to require auditions/portfolios rather than caring about the standardised grades. Elite schools sometimes have their own admissions tests on top of the normal bunch.

The other huge differences from the US university application system are that (with a tiny number of exceptions) students apply through a central system called UCAS, with only five application slots, and that students have to declare their course/major at the time of application rather than deciding it once they're there (and different courses have different entry requirements). Medicine and law are both undergraduate degrees, unlike the US.

The one thing that can be said for the UK system is that it certainly prevents "senior slump"! (For UK folk; US university offers tend to be unconditional, and so a lot of kids stop bothering about school once they've found a place.)

Thank you. This is exactly what I was hunting. Since you say college can mean many different things, you mind sharing what you mean by college in your 4th paragraph (age 16-18). Does it mean university? Many thanks,

16-18 is '6th form college' and is not university level.

Near me, someone could in theory do:
Winchester College y9-y11 (private school)
Then
Peter Symonds College (state 6th form)
Then
Jesus College, Cambridge University (uni)

In the UK when you are doing your post-16 education, whether A Levels or a BTEC, it can take place either at a school sixth form or at a college of higher education, also known as a sixth form college or just college.

A school sixth form tends to be much more like school, albeit perhaps with some privileges eg maybe no uniform or a dress code instead of uniform or being able to leave the school grounds or go home early if you have no more lessons. A college is much much bigger, so may be a few thousand students unlike a school where there might be a few hundred in each school sixth form. It will also be unlikely to have restrictions on what people can wear and leaving the site - probably all you will need to do is turn up for your actual classes and registration once a day.

You’re welcome. College in that context is an alternative to sixth form, where students aged 16+ can study for qualifications up to and including A Levels (they can do courses at lower levels too, like re-sitting their GCSEs for example). This level of education is known as ‘Further Education’

University is Higher Education (degree level) typically for ages 18+ (17+ in Scotland).

Many students go to college first at age 16, then university afterwards at age 18.

…. I never realised just how complicated it all is until now!😅

Oh yes, sorry. I meant college of further education!

Interestingly, A-levels (whether completed at a college or 6th form) are equivalent to the first year of US university education.

So, a British person moving to the US between A levels & university will enter into the 2nd year of American university rather than the first.

On the point of primary & secondary education, we actually have two difference school systems in the UK.

One is:
Primary school (reception, then years 1-6)
Secondary School (years 7-11)
College (a levels) (years 12-1r)

The second is:
Primary school
Middle School (year ? to year 8)
High school + 6th form (years 9-13)

I don't know at what age middle school starts because I never went to one, but it takes children through to year 8.

High school starts in year 9 and in my experience will generally include 6th form. Regardless of whether students are in a college of 6th form, you may hear them refer to themselves as being in years 12 or 13.

(6th form is called such because it's a hang over from my parents generation and before when instead of years 1, 2, 3 etc academic years were called 1st form, 2nd form, 3rd form etc.)

Until recently, compulsory education finished after GCSEs, which is why there's a division between secondary education & college/6th form. Only students choosing to go onto university would generally take A levels in years 12+13.