The British school system has changed a lot since I used to go. Good luck adapting. I'm sure time and your new school friends will help you through the experience and make it enjoyable.
The two years leading to GCSEs at 16 are intense. The two in 6th Form leading to (typically) A Levels are even more so. Having a gap before three more intense years is very sensible.
Well, l never found the period leading up to my O levels or A levels as particularly intense and neither did my sons leading up to their GCSEs and A levels.
@@billythedog-309 Lucky you. As to me, "O"s were just intense over the exams. My kids, the 2 years of continuous assessment leading to GCSEs and the 2 more left a toll.
Sixth form being called sixth form is a hangover from a previous numbering system. In the non middle school system you would have 5 years at secondary school. These used to be called forms and were numbered 1-5. After that carrying on was and is optional. The whole system got renamed in about 1991 to the current nursery, reception, years 1-11 then the optional year's 12 and 13 that made up the sixth form. But because the sixth form was often contained in seperate buildings or had extra freedoms the name Sixth Form has just hung around.
6th form was for students going on to university when compulsory education ended at 16. You'd do 2 years studying A levels (until you reached adulthood) which are a requirement to get on most university courses directly from school. You'd need to get good enough grades in the required subjects - if you didn't, you'd enter the clearing process run by "UCAS" to see what universities would offer you a place on which courses. It's expanded in scope now, you probably know kids can't leave school under 18, unless it's to take up other structured training, like an apprenticeship. There are alternative qualifications & A levels have also been required for some time as an entry qualification to more than degrees, like jobs in banking, medical professions.... We used to have CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) for those not following an academic path. Those that were did GCEs (General Certificate of Education. There were GCE Ordinary Levels, usually sat at 16. The Advanced level is as explained above. GCSEs resulted from merging qualifications after selective education stopped in most of the country. A levels remain: there was no GCE equivalent. The selection exam was sat in the last year of Junior School - hence it was known as the 11 plus. Kent is one place where it still remains. Education has been a political hot potato for ages. Every new government likes to tamper so it has become complicated with administration, assessment & policies.
@ethelmini Before CSE's, there were O'levels. The exams have been dumbed down since then, so more children get some sort of qualification. I left school at 16 after my O'levels in 1978.
in Scotland 5th year in the academy is when you do highers, 6th year is still at the academy not 6th form collage but it's when you can add to your highers or do an advanced subject , we used to call it 6th year studies and it involved a dissertation. Then it's uni or work
The term "Sixth Form" harks back to how schools were organised several decades ago. Back then you would do two years at an Infant School followed by four years at a Junior School. After that you would go to a Senior School of some description where you would be in the First Form for your first year, the Second form for your second year and so on. At the end of your fifth year (Fifth Form) you would take the national exams of either CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) or the higher rated GCE "O"-Levels (General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level). These were combined several years ago into GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). With me so far? 😉 If you stayed on at school to do higher qualifications, perhaps because you needed them to go to University or to enter a job that required them, you would then enter the Sixth Form for two years (actually called the Lower Sixth in the first year and the Upper Sixth for the second year) and take your GCE "A"-Levels (General Certificate of Education Advanced Level) at the end of that time. Whilst we now refer to Year One, Year Two, etc we still refer to those taking "A"-Levels as being in the Sixth Form. Hope that clears things up for you guys. 🙂
Back in the 70s, we did half our GCEs in the Fourth Form, the rest in the Fifth - and if anyone failed and had to resit, they went into the 'Remove' (like Billy Bunter and his chums!).
@@wessexdruid7598 I took my English Language GCE "O"-Level "early" in the November of the Fifth Form as did all of us in the top group for that subject. It was good to get that one out of the way before the mass that I took the following Summer.
@@andypandy9013 At my school it was mandatory to take Maths, English, French & Geography in the July of 4th Form. Then the Jun/Jul of the following year you took the additional 5-7 O'levels you'd actively chosen - sciences, other languages, Art, History, etc.
Sixth form is after they take GCSE’s at 16. It is for the next two years when they take an advanced level GCSE. Some schools still have sixth forms but in lots of areas there are sixth form colleges where because of their sheer size have the ability to run a lot more different and diverse courses. It’s still school, but no uniform and they are treated like more mature adults. GCSE by the way is the General certificate of secondary education.
@@haasfamfarm You don't even need to study in a school, you can study in a sixth form college (where there are normally no students under 16) or a local technical or art college (where they often have students of academic subjects and those attending something akin to a trade school or art school). You might also just want to go to the closest place to home. You can go out and set a job at 16 while studying in the evening or one or two days per week. The only requirement is if you are under 18 and you have not reached the required standard in English or Maths you have to continue studying those subjects. One important thing if you want to go onto to study a degree that you choose options which Universities accept for entrance into their degree programs. Also if you are going to study in the UK for many degrees, you select your subject before you arrive so you will need to pick subjects that support your choice of degree. So if you want to study medicine, you will need to choose sciences, if you want to study law you will need to choose subjects where you write a lot, if you want to study engineering you will need to choose physics and maths, if you want to study sociology you will need to smoke marijuana. You can change direction part way through but this will not be easy.
When I was in sixth-form back in the 1960s I wore a school uniform, but it was different from the one worn in forms 1 - 5. The blazer was black instead of green and the school cap (an item of clothing I utterly detested) was dropped. In the early 2000s my daughters went to a sixth-form college which did not have a uniform and where they called the teachers by their first names, something that was unthinkable when I was at school.
GCSE - General Certificate of Secondary Education. This is an amalgamation of the old system of the GCE (General Certificate of Education) and the CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education). Although there is more to it I'm sure, at the time, as far as we kids were concerned, the GCE was the exam the clever kids took to gain an 'O' Level which was needed to then go on to Sixth Form to gain the 'A' Level required for University. The CSE was for the thickies who would leave school at 16 and go straight into work.
@@beverleykirby5778 I was the same mate, got a great start though with first 12 years in the RN. Also 66 but I retired early at 63 because, hey why not? Still having a fantastic life. Retirement is like being a kid again; naps, ice cream... early bedtime lol.
@@haasfamfarm Wow! You still have the 11 Plus! Where I lived (North Yorkshire) we got rid of that in 1970 - 54 years ago!! I passed mine and went to a Grammar School but can absolutely see why Comprehensive secondary schools were introduced. 🙂
Gap years aren’t usually structured. Unless you mean like putting some voluntary service in there. But it’s not usually involving studying. Australia’s favourite place to go for British kids. You can work and travel, and then you’ve got Asia on your doorstep.
GAP years weren't even a thing when I left school year ago and even now they are purely voluntary. My son did a work placement instead and by the time his friends returned from various GAP year trips he was settled into a good job whilst they struggled to find anything.
An English BA (or BSc, LLB, MB BS, etc) starts after "A" levels, which require two years of sixth form at the level of an American associate's degree, BUT you start sixth form at 16, not 18. You have to learn stuff even at school!
@@christinemarshall1366 And, what's worse, two of those four years are at the level you could study at school anywhere else. Only the last two years are at university level. On the other hand, American university students get spoon-fed as if they were still in school. Does that suit them better?
One thing about the UK systems of education (Scotland is different from England and Wales) is that the examinations are national and the teaching follows the national curriculum. Yes, there are schools that are better or worse but your educational achievements are directly comparable across the country. The same goes for colleges.
Primary school up to 11, Secondary up to 16, college 16+ but if you do your college-level course at your (or another) Secondary School that would be 6th form - I think that largely applies to paid schools though. University is 18+* * General rules, some kids do get held back or advance - there's the odd young teen that's been in Uni, but they're prodigies. I'm pretty sure my mathematics is correct there.
So basically you have •nursery: 1-3 years •preschool : 2-4 years (you can leave nursery at 2 and go to preschool or stay at nursery longer) •primary school: 4-11 years *in areas in Kent and south England they do a test called the 11+ and that decides if you go to a grammar school (which has slightly harder work)* •secondary school: 11-16 years *here you do your GCSE’s. It’s like an exam that you spend from year 8 (7th grade) to year 11 (10th grade) preparing for and it takes place in year 11 (aged 16) this exam decides which 6th form you get into. Most secondary school has a 6th form with it* •6th form (aged 16-18) *at the end of 6th form you do A levels. This decides which university or college you go to* THEN YOU GET A JOB 🤗 I can’t be bothered to check that through so if your still confused with anything I can help 😃
you actually start preparing for your GCSEs in year 10 but you do some work in year 9. Also, after GCSEs you can go to college (sixth form which is 16-18) where you can take courses of music or things like that if you don’t want to go to uni, if you do want to go to uni you do a levels.
But as a sophmore (aged 16). UK sixth form is the junior / senior years of US high school (ages 17 and 18), and getting your A levels from 6th form (aka "college" in the UK) is the direct equivalent of graduating an American high school. Getting your GCSEs is only equivalent in that you can now leave full time education to look for a job.
It is quite common to do a gap year in the UK after sixth form and completion of A-Levels (which you can broadly consider to be a preparation for college/university and the main qualification used to assess suitability for particular subject courses and universities). Maybe a bit like SAT, ACT, or PSAT although generally more specialised/narrower and deeper. You might even view them as a bit like a first year at college, albeit the take two years. UK university courses tend to be a lot more specialised than US colleges, with the latter being broader based. UK undergraduate degrees tend to last 3 years, not 4 years. Incidentally, the sixth form (which usually lasts two years - a lower sixth and an upper sixth) also conveys a subtly different status. It's something closer to being a you adult than a child and might come with some extra responsibilities. Being in the sixth form also coincides with other things in society, which includes reaching the age of consent (at least in the UK), your can learn to ride a moped at 16 (lower sixth), open a bank account at 16 (with parental consent), get a national insurance number, drive a car at 17 (upper sixth) Gap years are fairly common aged 18 before entering the university system, albeit such students tend to have a place already lined up. Scotland is a littler different in this respect.
@@haasfamfarm I now live in the Cotswolds, in a tiny town called Charlbury to the north-west of Oxford. It's not far from Blenheim Palace if you know where that is. So, not so very far from Bishops Itchington and, by American standards, almost next door.
Sixth form means you can stay on at that school for an extra two years ages (16 - 18) and study A-levels, which is a qualification you usually require to attend University. You can also join a Sixth form at a lot of different schools if you wanted, some schools have very sort after sixth forms and in addition to that there is sixth form college, independent from the school system. There is an upper sixth (1st year) and lower sixth (2nd year) the student has a lot more responsibility and independence because of their age.
Nursery school (4 y/o) = Kindergarten Primary School (5-10 y/o) 1st-6th grade Secondary School (11-16 y/o) 7th-10th grade-GCSE courses 9th10th grade. Can leave school at age 16 . NOT considered "dropping out" Sixth Form is optional - 11th 3:17 & 12th grade-A Level courses= college prep. Total 13 years of school. Most batchelor's degrees take three years, foreign languages & some sciences take four.
@@haasfamfarm Sixth Form, because my school had one. Sixth Form Colleges came about because some secondary schools only went to Year 11 (10th grade) which is the limit for compulsory education. Colleges take pupils from several secondary schools, whereas the traditional Sixth Form (Lower & Upper) is a hold-over from the older “Grammar School” model where pupils entered at age 11 and stayed at the same school until age 18. Traditionally, brighter students attended academically rigorous Grammar Schools and everyone else attended Secondary Modern schools which emphasised practical academics and vocational subjects. In the 1970’s there was the great Comprehensive experiment which was supposed to end the academic inequalities of the old system. After 20+ years, it was replaced by the current system.
What hard to understand? Its the sixth class / year theyll have been at the school and theyll be 16. Schools have made up a complicated number now🙄 but sixth form is self explanatory.
I am a recently retired high school teacher (32 years!) and was going to explain the sixth form to you but I see others have already done it. So I'll comment on something else. I think probably schools vary hugely from school to school and area to area in both countries especially in the USA being such a huge country. So you can end up in a great school or a not so good one in either country. From what I've read American schools have much better sports facilities and programmes. What really strikes me from my research though is funding. The UK school system has been damaged by over a decade of underfunding and a system that is discouraging young graduates from going into teacher training and therefore there is a teacher shortage. So we are far from perfect. But from what I understand, in the USA the funding is structured locally in such a way that schools in better off areas actually get more money than schools in poor areas. This seems the wrong way round to me. School funds in the UK are set by central government and there are things in place like the 'pupil premium' funds to give extra money to schools in areas with higher levels of deprivation.
6th Form = High School College = University Gap years are usually between end of 6th form and before University, however there are no hard and fast rules on this. Great that you're giving your kids a global education. 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I hope the la k of armed guards and police at the entrances aren't to offputting for you, or the lack of shooter drills wont make you insecure. Neither will you be taught to run in zig zags to make a harder target, mor hit the deck at any loud noises. You wont have to pledge allegiance to King Charles iii, the Union Jack nor Comrade supreme leader Sir Liar Starmer ( yet).
When I was at school 6th form was when you stayed on at school after GCE’s to sit A Levels in order to attend university.
The British school system has changed a lot since I used to go. Good luck adapting. I'm sure time and your new school friends will help you through the experience and make it enjoyable.
I hope so too!
There isn't a "British" system, Scotland has it's own school system.
The two years leading to GCSEs at 16 are intense. The two in 6th Form leading to (typically) A Levels are even more so. Having a gap before three more intense years is very sensible.
Well, l never found the period leading up to my O levels or A levels as particularly intense and neither did my sons leading up to their GCSEs and A levels.
@@billythedog-309 Lucky you. As to me, "O"s were just intense over the exams. My kids, the 2 years of continuous assessment leading to GCSEs and the 2 more left a toll.
@@jonathanwetherell3609 They're just exams and no reason to ruin your life over.
@@billythedog-309 I know that but try saying that to a teenager.
Prince william worked with Raleigh international on his gap year i think they have projects worldwide,maybe look for an organisation like that.
Oh, I’ll have to tell Ella!
Sixth form being called sixth form is a hangover from a previous numbering system. In the non middle school system you would have 5 years at secondary school. These used to be called forms and were numbered 1-5. After that carrying on was and is optional. The whole system got renamed in about 1991 to the current nursery, reception, years 1-11 then the optional year's 12 and 13 that made up the sixth form. But because the sixth form was often contained in seperate buildings or had extra freedoms the name Sixth Form has just hung around.
Interesting! Where are you in the UK?
@haasfamfarm
They started copying the American system by calling it years 1 to 11. They also introduced SATs. Oh, and they started having Proms.
@@haasfamfarm
They started copying the American system by calling it years 1 to 11. They also introduced SATs. Oh, and they started having Proms.
6th form was for students going on to university when compulsory education ended at 16. You'd do 2 years studying A levels (until you reached adulthood) which are a requirement to get on most university courses directly from school. You'd need to get good enough grades in the required subjects - if you didn't, you'd enter the clearing process run by "UCAS" to see what universities would offer you a place on which courses.
It's expanded in scope now, you probably know kids can't leave school under 18, unless it's to take up other structured training, like an apprenticeship. There are alternative qualifications & A levels have also been required for some time as an entry qualification to more than degrees, like jobs in banking, medical professions....
We used to have CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) for those not following an academic path. Those that were did GCEs (General Certificate of Education. There were GCE Ordinary Levels, usually sat at 16. The Advanced level is as explained above.
GCSEs resulted from merging qualifications after selective education stopped in most of the country. A levels remain: there was no GCE equivalent. The selection exam was sat in the last year of Junior School - hence it was known as the 11 plus. Kent is one place where it still remains.
Education has been a political hot potato for ages. Every new government likes to tamper so it has become complicated with administration, assessment & policies.
@ethelmini
Before CSE's, there were O'levels. The exams have been dumbed down since then, so more children get some sort of qualification.
I left school at 16 after my O'levels in 1978.
in Scotland 5th year in the academy is when you do highers, 6th year is still at the academy not 6th form collage but it's when you can add to your highers or do an advanced subject , we used to call it 6th year studies and it involved a dissertation. Then it's uni or work
Well considered thoughtful answers from Ella…..but……but all those pegs….thats all the pegs every one….😂😂
😂😂
The term "Sixth Form" harks back to how schools were organised several decades ago.
Back then you would do two years at an Infant School followed by four years at a Junior School. After that you would go to a Senior School of some description where you would be in the First Form for your first year, the Second form for your second year and so on. At the end of your fifth year (Fifth Form) you would take the national exams of either CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) or the higher rated GCE "O"-Levels (General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level). These were combined several years ago into GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). With me so far? 😉
If you stayed on at school to do higher qualifications, perhaps because you needed them to go to University or to enter a job that required them, you would then enter the Sixth Form for two years (actually called the Lower Sixth in the first year and the Upper Sixth for the second year) and take your GCE "A"-Levels (General Certificate of Education Advanced Level) at the end of that time.
Whilst we now refer to Year One, Year Two, etc we still refer to those taking "A"-Levels as being in the Sixth Form.
Hope that clears things up for you guys. 🙂
@@andypandy9013 great explanation! Thank you!
@@haasfamfarm
A pleasure. 😃
Back in the 70s, we did half our GCEs in the Fourth Form, the rest in the Fifth - and if anyone failed and had to resit, they went into the 'Remove' (like Billy Bunter and his chums!).
@@wessexdruid7598
I took my English Language GCE "O"-Level "early" in the November of the Fifth Form as did all of us in the top group for that subject. It was good to get that one out of the way before the mass that I took the following Summer.
@@andypandy9013 At my school it was mandatory to take Maths, English, French & Geography in the July of 4th Form. Then the Jun/Jul of the following year you took the additional 5-7 O'levels you'd actively chosen - sciences, other languages, Art, History, etc.
Sixth form is after they take GCSE’s at 16. It is for the next two years when they take an advanced level GCSE.
Some schools still have sixth forms but in lots of areas there are sixth form colleges where because of their sheer size have the ability to run a lot more different and diverse courses. It’s still school, but no uniform and they are treated like more mature adults.
GCSE by the way is the General certificate of secondary education.
@@jackierice4254 oh really, no uniform?
@@haasfamfarm You don't even need to study in a school, you can study in a sixth form college (where there are normally no students under 16) or a local technical or art college (where they often have students of academic subjects and those attending something akin to a trade school or art school).
You might also just want to go to the closest place to home.
You can go out and set a job at 16 while studying in the evening or one or two days per week. The only requirement is if you are under 18 and you have not reached the required standard in English or Maths you have to continue studying those subjects.
One important thing if you want to go onto to study a degree that you choose options which Universities accept for entrance into their degree programs. Also if you are going to study in the UK for many degrees, you select your subject before you arrive so you will need to pick subjects that support your choice of degree. So if you want to study medicine, you will need to choose sciences, if you want to study law you will need to choose subjects where you write a lot, if you want to study engineering you will need to choose physics and maths, if you want to study sociology you will need to smoke marijuana. You can change direction part way through but this will not be easy.
@@haasfamfarmThat's not cut and dried for sure but is often the case. There are also schools that don't have uniform at all. I went to one.
When I was in sixth-form back in the 1960s I wore a school uniform, but it was different from the one worn in forms 1 - 5. The blazer was black instead of green and the school cap (an item of clothing I utterly detested) was dropped.
In the early 2000s my daughters went to a sixth-form college which did not have a uniform and where they called the teachers by their first names, something that was unthinkable when I was at school.
GCSE - General Certificate of Secondary Education. This is an amalgamation of the old system of the GCE (General Certificate of Education) and the CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education). Although there is more to it I'm sure, at the time, as far as we kids were concerned, the GCE was the exam the clever kids took to gain an 'O' Level which was needed to then go on to Sixth Form to gain the 'A' Level required for University. The CSE was for the thickies who would leave school at 16 and go straight into work.
I was late to sign up my daughter for the 11 plus exam…,
oooh i was a thickie worked from 16 retiring in november at66 with just me state pension ,happy as larry,had a fantastic life.
@@beverleykirby5778 I was the same mate, got a great start though with first 12 years in the RN. Also 66 but I retired early at 63 because, hey why not? Still having a fantastic life. Retirement is like being a kid again; naps, ice cream... early bedtime lol.
@@haasfamfarm Wow! You still have the 11 Plus! Where I lived (North Yorkshire) we got rid of that in 1970 - 54 years ago!!
I passed mine and went to a Grammar School but can absolutely see why Comprehensive secondary schools were introduced. 🙂
@@andypandy9013 isn’t it wild? I actually thought it was national for the longest time
Gap years aren’t usually structured. Unless you mean like putting some voluntary service in there. But it’s not usually involving studying. Australia’s favourite place to go for British kids. You can work and travel, and then you’ve got Asia on your doorstep.
Yes, I mean volunteering etc
GAP years weren't even a thing when I left school year ago and even now they are purely voluntary. My son did a work placement instead and by the time his friends returned from various GAP year trips he was settled into a good job whilst they struggled to find anything.
Unlike in the USA a UK bachelor's degree with honours normally takes only three years of full-time study.
@@christinemarshall1366 I know! The timelines here are so much better. A master here is only one year.
4 years in Scotland.
An English BA (or BSc, LLB, MB BS, etc) starts after "A" levels, which require two years of sixth form at the level of an American associate's degree, BUT you start sixth form at 16, not 18. You have to learn stuff even at school!
@@faithlesshound5621 I think you missed the point I was making - Americans PAY for a four year degree and university fees are high!
@@christinemarshall1366 And, what's worse, two of those four years are at the level you could study at school anywhere else. Only the last two years are at university level. On the other hand, American university students get spoon-fed as if they were still in school. Does that suit them better?
One thing about the UK systems of education (Scotland is different from England and Wales) is that the examinations are national and the teaching follows the national curriculum. Yes, there are schools that are better or worse but your educational achievements are directly comparable across the country. The same goes for colleges.
Well, let's put it this way, you won't get shot and killed in the UK school system 😊
@@jaysummers9396 exactly! Please subscribe to our channel to support our family! ❤️
Andy Murray "Hold my raquet"
@@ethelmini And that was 28 years ago, there have been 417 school shootings in America since the Columbine high school massacre in 1999...
Primary school up to 11, Secondary up to 16, college 16+ but if you do your college-level course at your (or another) Secondary School that would be 6th form - I think that largely applies to paid schools though. University is 18+*
* General rules, some kids do get held back or advance - there's the odd young teen that's been in Uni, but they're prodigies.
I'm pretty sure my mathematics is correct there.
So basically you have
•nursery: 1-3 years
•preschool : 2-4 years
(you can leave nursery at 2 and go to preschool or stay at nursery longer)
•primary school: 4-11 years
*in areas in Kent and south England they do a test called the 11+ and that decides if you go to a grammar school (which has slightly harder work)*
•secondary school: 11-16 years
*here you do your GCSE’s. It’s like an exam that you spend from year 8 (7th grade) to year 11 (10th grade) preparing for and it takes place in year 11 (aged 16) this exam decides which 6th form you get into. Most secondary school has a 6th form with it*
•6th form (aged 16-18)
*at the end of 6th form you do A levels. This decides which university or college you go to*
THEN YOU GET A JOB 🤗
I can’t be bothered to check that through so if your still confused with anything I can help 😃
you actually start preparing for your GCSEs in year 10 but you do some work in year 9. Also, after GCSEs you can go to college (sixth form which is 16-18) where you can take courses of music or things like that if you don’t want to go to uni, if you do want to go to uni you do a levels.
@@clara_goldbergoh in my school i chose my options mid-yr 8 and I started preparing right after xx
@@x.amy.14 in my school we chose on year 9 and started right after, but we start science at the start
Thank you for such a detailed explanation! Extremely helpful!
Thank you for the explanation! Really appreciate it!
Point of order the GCSE system is the same as graduating from high school
❤️
But as a sophmore (aged 16). UK sixth form is the junior / senior years of US high school (ages 17 and 18), and getting your A levels from 6th form (aka "college" in the UK) is the direct equivalent of graduating an American high school. Getting your GCSEs is only equivalent in that you can now leave full time education to look for a job.
It is quite common to do a gap year in the UK after sixth form and completion of A-Levels (which you can broadly consider to be a preparation for college/university and the main qualification used to assess suitability for particular subject courses and universities). Maybe a bit like SAT, ACT, or PSAT although generally more specialised/narrower and deeper. You might even view them as a bit like a first year at college, albeit the take two years. UK university courses tend to be a lot more specialised than US colleges, with the latter being broader based. UK undergraduate degrees tend to last 3 years, not 4 years.
Incidentally, the sixth form (which usually lasts two years - a lower sixth and an upper sixth) also conveys a subtly different status. It's something closer to being a you adult than a child and might come with some extra responsibilities. Being in the sixth form also coincides with other things in society, which includes reaching the age of consent (at least in the UK), your can learn to ride a moped at 16 (lower sixth), open a bank account at 16 (with parental consent), get a national insurance number, drive a car at 17 (upper sixth)
Gap years are fairly common aged 18 before entering the university system, albeit such students tend to have a place already lined up.
Scotland is a littler different in this respect.
Thank you for this information! Very helpful! Where are you in the UK?
@@haasfamfarm I now live in the Cotswolds, in a tiny town called Charlbury to the north-west of Oxford. It's not far from Blenheim Palace if you know where that is.
So, not so very far from Bishops Itchington and, by American standards, almost next door.
Sixth form means you can stay on at that school for an extra two years ages (16 - 18) and study A-levels, which is a qualification you usually require to attend University. You can also join a Sixth form at a lot of different schools if you wanted, some schools have very sort after sixth forms and in addition to that there is sixth form college, independent from the school system. There is an upper sixth (1st year) and lower sixth (2nd year) the student has a lot more responsibility and independence because of their age.
Thank you for the information! We finally understand now ❤️
Lower sixth is the first year of Sixth Form and Upper sixth is the second year
@@MattDunny makes sense
@@MattDunnyYes, I got it back to front. 😅
🌹🇬🇧🌹take the tea bag out 🤣
Eek you caught me!
Nursery school (4 y/o) = Kindergarten
Primary School (5-10 y/o) 1st-6th grade
Secondary School (11-16 y/o) 7th-10th grade-GCSE courses 9th10th
grade. Can leave school at age 16 . NOT
considered "dropping out"
Sixth Form is optional - 11th 3:17 & 12th grade-A Level courses= college prep. Total 13 years of school.
Most batchelor's degrees take three years, foreign languages & some sciences take four.
Did you do sixth form or college?
@@haasfamfarm Sixth Form, because my school had one. Sixth Form Colleges came about because some secondary schools only went to Year 11 (10th grade) which is the limit for compulsory education. Colleges take pupils from several secondary schools, whereas the traditional Sixth Form (Lower & Upper) is a hold-over from the older “Grammar School” model where pupils entered at age 11 and stayed at the same school until age 18. Traditionally, brighter students attended academically rigorous Grammar Schools and everyone else attended Secondary Modern schools which emphasised practical academics and vocational subjects.
In the 1970’s there was the great Comprehensive experiment which was supposed to end the academic inequalities of the old system. After 20+ years, it was replaced by the current system.
Interesting! Great idea to get a world perspective. So many of us are guilty of doing the opposite.
I really appreciate you saying that. It can be a difficult concept to explain, especially to loving family.
@@haasfamfarm good luck
@@stevel2504 thank you!
@@stevel2504 thank you
Gap year planned 👏🏻👍🏻😂.
😂😂🥰🥰
What hard to understand? Its the sixth class / year theyll have been at the school and theyll be 16. Schools have made up a complicated number now🙄 but sixth form is self explanatory.
I am a recently retired high school teacher (32 years!) and was going to explain the sixth form to you but I see others have already done it. So I'll comment on something else.
I think probably schools vary hugely from school to school and area to area in both countries especially in the USA being such a huge country. So you can end up in a great school or a not so good one in either country. From what I've read American schools have much better sports facilities and programmes.
What really strikes me from my research though is funding. The UK school system has been damaged by over a decade of underfunding and a system that is discouraging young graduates from going into teacher training and therefore there is a teacher shortage. So we are far from perfect. But from what I understand, in the USA the funding is structured locally in such a way that schools in better off areas actually get more money than schools in poor areas.
This seems the wrong way round to me. School funds in the UK are set by central government and there are things in place like the 'pupil premium' funds to give extra money to schools in areas with higher levels of deprivation.
6th Form = High School
College = University
Gap years are usually between end of 6th form and before University, however there are no hard and fast rules on this.
Great that you're giving your kids a global education. 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Understood now! Thank you!
Gosh, she's a bit young to be thinking about a gap year, isn't she?
We like to plan early. It’s more about teaching my kids there are other options. ❤️
@@haasfamfarm yes, an understanding of the school system will help.
Wot no guns..
How many pegs have you got on that bedsheet!
Apparently enough! 😂😂
I'm English, all this time i never realised you should only use a certain amount of pegs when you put clothes etc out. Wow.....
I hope the la k of armed guards and police at the entrances aren't to offputting for you, or the lack of shooter drills wont make you insecure.
Neither will you be taught to run in zig zags to make a harder target, mor hit the deck at any loud noises.
You wont have to pledge allegiance to King Charles iii, the Union Jack nor Comrade supreme leader Sir Liar Starmer ( yet).
?