Around 1994 our local Comprehensive School (1,000+ pupils) in a small market town had a bad reputation for shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. The new head teacher called a well attended meeting of parents who voted to institute school uniform. It turned out that the local £27k - £30k pa non-uniformed, pupils of a local "progressive" private school were responsible for most of the misdemeanors. This happened to be about the time when kids were derided for not having expensive "designer label" clothes and shoes! Grants were available for those who could ill afford school uniform and outgrown uniforms were donated for sale to anyone who was not too proud to buy them.
Yeah, when I moved to the US it was very obvious how immature the teenagers were compared with those in the UK - it was quite embarrassing, frankly. They seem to be totally molly-coddled.
@@captainprice814 Yes, I do think that. In my view, US kids have no sense of self-responsibility and few life skills. TBH, US adults also have little or no concept of responsibility and expect to be protected from everything; they blame everything that goes wrong for them on someone else, instead of taking (at least some of) the blame themselves. Yeah, that's a huge generalisation, but that's what I think from my observations.
I personally loved wearing school uniform. It also saved the hassle of having to decide what to wear everyday, incase, God forbid, you wore the same clothes twice in one week
In academic achievement, all-girl schools in the UK have traditionally outperformed mixed comprehensives by spectacular margins, though the same is not so true of all-boy schools.
English school uniforms: a few years ago, boys at a coed school in Exeter protested the requirement that they could only wear long trousers and not shorts, as it was very hot. They adopted skirts because there wasn't any rule against it. I believe the school reconsidered allowing shorts in the following term.
lol when I was in 6th form grammar we protested also not being allowed to wear shorts. They relented and allowed us to wear Callots - below the knee only! It was the 90s though and these were in fashion so that was acceptable to us then. Now I see girls from the same school wearing barely a skirt to school! shocking.
The term Public School. Goes back to the early days of schools. All education had to be paid for, most schools took pupils from the local area. Public Schools would take any pupil from the public that could afford the fee. Wherever they came from. Hence the term Public School.
It's the same way private companies are designated Public Limited Companies (PLC). Completely open to the public to buy shares, or places in the school, provided you're rich enough.
Public schools are fee paying schools as are private schools non fee paying schools are state schools there are a few grammar schools which are state schools
I went to an all girls school!! I absolutely loved it & wouldn’t change it for the world!! My partners children go to a mixed school & the stories I hear, just reiterate the fact that I loved it........................ boys were never a mystery. I had friends that were boys. Just not at school. Xx
My school's houses were named after the peoples that historically invaded the UK: Romans, Saxons, Normans and Danes. I was a Roman, but what have the Romans ever done for us? 😉
Kent and Buckinghamshire are amoung the few counties with state funded Grammar schools, very few other counties have them and counties are forbidden from creating new state funded Grammar schools. Some counties have private grammar schools. Basically you were living in Kent. Most of the county is nostalgic for the 1950s.
wendy kelly Parts of Lincolnshire have grammar schools. Lincoln is comprehensive, and has been for a long time. In the 1970s, I went to Boston Grammar School for two years, and then we moved to Lincoln and I went to a comprehensive there, there were no grammar schools. The comprehensive was a better school in terms of the all round experience. IMO Boston Grammar School had a much higher opinion of itself than it ought to have had.
You do know that british schools have uniforms so it don’t show wealth against poverty. Grammar schools were done away with in 1975ish. They’ve only come back into recently. You do not have to take the 11+ if you don’t want to. It’s only pressure from parents that put kids through the stress.
Has the 11 Plus come back then? I know certain (as in a few) schools have always had it but I was under the understanding that it was basically done away with. I know it's been many moons since I was at school but there wasn't the slightest hint of it. I certainly don't know of anyone actually taking it. The first official test I ever did was GCSE's, for which I was part of the original guinea pig year (yes, I'm that old).
Grammar schools still existed, I went to one in the 1990’s in London. There was just a law created that a local education authority couldn’t create any new ones. Alana was based in Kent when in the UK which has a very large Grammar School system and has done so for years. You are right the 11+ is optional but when I was at primary school most kids took it as it was during school time. I think they changed it to a Saturday now so less kids do it now.
The 11 plus and grammar schools are still very much a thing and always have been in Kent where she lived. The uniform thing does nothing to hide the wealth gap. Nothing does.
@@lwaves I must be older then: When I did Chemistry 'O' Level it was called "Chemistry 16-Plus" and was a trial for the concept of GCSEs a few years before GCEs and CSEs were officially merged. I think they did it the same year in Geography, and a few other subjects. So lucky me: I got an O Level in Chemistry and a Grade 1 CSE in Chemistry to go with it! whoopy-bloody-do!
When I was at school there were two suppliers of school uniform, one was a local shop and the other the Coop. The Coop ones were much cheaper and it wasn't long before it showed but I don't remember it ever being a thing.
Uniforms are worn in our schools for a number of reasons. To instil a level of discipline. To create a sense of community. To stop any bullying as a result of any disparities in children's quality of clothing. To get children used to dressing smartly/wearing a uniform when they leave school and start work. It also helps identify where a child should be/where they've come from when they're somewhere they shouldn't be. To name a few.
Congratulations on getting your videos sponsored Alanna, that really is quite an achievement & a testament to what a star you've become! Keep the videos coming, they just keep getting better! 👍
57 years ago I remember one of my 11 plus questions. Ten crows are sitting on a log and a farmer shoots one. How many crows are left on the log? I answered none. One was shot and nine flew away. I went to grammar school.
AA has: Three frogs are sitting on a log. One decides to jump off. How many frogs are left on the log. A: Three. Nothing happens until you take action!
I remember "Where does a dog live? A bowl, a stable, a kennel, a hutch." I couldn't believe some of my classmates didn't pass the exam. It puzzles me to this day. I wonder if successful pupils were chosen on neat handwriting? That's just a guess though
Oh we had a question like that. I got into a private school though and i started in September 2020. But we had a question where there was no clear answer because it said, how did john get to the bay? But there were 2 bays. I still got in with a scholarship and bursary though.
I was a prefect! The best part was being inside during winter “monitoring” the door. There was a HUGE radiator that you could sit on! Of course my friends were always allowed in!😉
@Freddie Mac At the time of releasing this video, Alanna has 68,800 subscribers. I know some channels with over a million subscribers... that'll be a lot of people who are yet to discover our Canadian friend and learn her name!
I remember once, we had no school uniform form for a week and the pressure to wear something cool was daunting. I prefer wearing a uniform and some of them are really pretty. Loved my primary school logo and secondary school colours.
Some background info on Wikipedia - 90% of pupils go to non selective comprehensive school (primary, secondary, upper schools) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_school 3 out of 70 counties plus ~75 individual schools use the eleven plus selective system - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven-plus I don't see religious schools as sinister these days - originally the church saw education as vital, there weren't enough schools, so it set them up - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_school#United_Kingdom
Someone tried to introduce American School buses to the UK some time ago and imported several. Then they discovered that the entrance/exit door is on the wrong side 🙄🥱 Doh!
When I visited Canada, I went on a group outing to a local attraction and we were taken there on yellow school buses. Some of the group got out to take photos before we moved off.
North American school buses are functionally kind of dumb: they're built on a chassis derived from those used for delivery trucks (like those used to deliver your new refrigerator or stock up the local store with Coke) meaning the floor is like 4 feet in the air, so we get all these poor toddlers trying to climb these steps that are themselves about a foot high. On top of that the driver's cab is set behind the massive forward engine, so there's an enormous blind spot out in front just where short kids are crossing. There were enough injuries and worse over the years that the buses now deploy a swing arm to direct the kids to cross further forward. The rear of the bus is also cantilevered some distance beyond the rear axle, so going over a large bump at speed is enough to catapult small kids into the air, especially if the kids (usually boys) are ready for the bump. About the only thing going for them is that they're dirt cheap, which is probably why we don't use urban transit bus chassis for school buses. The shorter 30 footers are a bit better though - they're built on lower chassis (a longer version of that used for many ambulances, as it happens) and the engine is considerably shorter, so much less of a blind spot. Also no catapulting.
@Martyn Adams. My friend had one of those and converted the inside for a variety of mobile catering. It was a big hit at events such as classic car shows, bank holiday markets etc, and standing in rural villages with no chippy or takeaway.
I was in high school in New Zealand and every high school had uniforms. I was at a Boys’ High School and there was a Girls’ High on the other side of the city - miles away. I agree with you -it was an unnatural environment. I didn’t learn a damn thing about girls except the dumbass lewd things my friends would smirk about at lunchtime. When I went to university and finally came into close quarters with girls at age 19 I was totally unprepared to deal with them. Those strange but entrancing creatures were to me both enormously appealing but bloody terrifying and mystifying at the same time . Speaking of entrancing, I’m sorry if I seem creepy I don’t mean to be but you are exactly that, young lady. Entrancing, appealing and highly entertaining. Another gem, Alanna, another gem!!! Thank you so much
There is 2 types of school over here in the UK , We have the first school that you will ever go to and that's called Primary School , then after you get to year 6 age 11 you will move up to secondary school after you get to year 11 age 16 you have the choice to go and work or go to college and then university.
the 11+ officially phased out around 2008, though still in operation, after a fashion, today. the individual Counties of the UK got to decide whether to keep it, or drop it. only a handful kept it with testing along the lines you mentioned, and i believe Kent is one who retained it. you were a little harsh re comprehensives, unintentionally i'm sure. they were meant to be all encompassing, and inclusive of all abilities. you made it sound a little like it was for the 'divvies'. i was at a comp and in my class alone we turned out: 2 chemists, a medical doctor, a computer engineer, and 1 guy i believe who's now a professor of anthropology at Oxford Uni. not too shabby. interesting to hear Canada's take on education though.
Yeah, I suspect either the comps in Kent are almost universally terrible OR most of the Brits Alanna spoke to went to private/grammar schools because she's come away with a very one-sided view.
My old Secondary School used to be a boys grammar until the changes in the 70s removed most of the grammars, thereby turning it into a comprehensive (i.e. mixed).
Jfergs. Cool - re the successful students. What's a divvie? It's interesting hearing someones observations and interpretations, then getting more "comprehensive" info... from the term for all inclusive (girls and boys mixed, vs grammar, which I assume is all either all boys or all girls...??) from people who experienced it personally, giving more details & making things a little clearer Australian school education, by comparison to the English public, (or "state" as someone explained) school system, at least in my experience, seems rudimentary, at least non private - whether Christian or Catholic religious, or all girls/all boys or general, you just get the idea those teachers are happy to be at work teaching, where parents pay good money, rather than at a job acting like keepers at a zoo, constantly trying to keep a handle on the naughty rowdy kids (where no money is enough, I'm sure!) I like the Christian aspect as part of the education in UK schools
SATs (11+ whatever you called it) doesn’t decide if you go to a private school, you only go if you can afford it or if you even want to go (you have to take another set of exams if you want to go to private school I think)
I’m British and I’ve never heard of these grammar schools we just go straight to secondary schools but we have to do tests to see what set we are in for the secondary school
British trainee science teacher here - Ok just to remove some misconceptions; our education system is divided into; 1 Early years (Foundation stage) years 0-5 2) Primary (key stages 1 &2 ) 5-11 years 3) Secondary KS3-4 (Including GCSE at the end of KS 4) 11-16 years 4) Further education (KS5) 16-19 Years Higher education 18 years + The types of school we have here are; Maintained schools (overseen by the local education authority (LEA) Community schools which are controlled and run by the LEA Foundation and trust schools (controlled and run by a governing body) Voluntary aided schools which are faith based and run by a governing body similar for voluntary schools, but run by the LEA. We also have academies which are sponsored (usually underperforming schools as per inspection by OFSTED) Academy converters - which are high performing schools which have opted out of LEA control Free schools which are independent, free from local control and set up by a community group. Then we have grammar schools which select on academic ability, and independent schools which are fee paying, and are governed and operated by the school itself. Lastly we have City technology colleges, which are independently managed secondary schools and are geared toward science and engineering and offer GCSEs and A levels as well as vocational qualifications. Lastly we have special schools which are for children who have learning and/or physical disabilities which would not be able to be catered for in mainstream schools. as for uniform, pretty much all schools have a uniform and unless it is a "faith school" prayers are not done becuase they tend to be both secular and inclusive of all faiths and beliefs. However primary schools tend towards being more faith based, but in secondary schools it's not a thing. Prom was not a thing when I was at school in the 80's/early 90's but we did a "dinner and dance" near the end of school , however we do not "graduated" we only graduate from university.
Hi Alanna, thanks for the clickbait image of you!😂 11+ is optional. Grammar schools don't necessarily attract bright students, the amount of thick people I've encountered from them is staggering.
I went to a mixeds school and I enjoyed it, but a friend's son and daughter both went to single sex schools as teenagers and enjoyed it, developed in a balanced way and went to universities where they did all the things you were talking about (i.e. getting to know the opposite sex by studying, working together, etc.). It works for some kids - and it depends on the timing when single sex education is best.
I grew up in wales (In the UK), and i've never heard of half of this stuff, never heard of a grammar school, or gender separation. We did take a test at age 11 in primary school ( ages 3-11), which decided the difficulty of our classes for secondary school (ages 11-16). We do have catholic schools, but they aren't heavily based on religion. You leave secondary (comprehensive) school at 16, which from there you can do what you want, you can continue school until you're 18 which is called sixth form, you can go to college or just start working. Yes we had houses our schools houses were local welsh beaches ( Langland, Caswell, Rhossili, and Oxwich) I was Langland and we always won lol, we were yellow.
You've genuinely never even _heard_ of a single sex school ? I get not going to one (I didn't either), even not knowing anyone that has (I _think_ I know one person that did) but not even having heard of them seems a bit unusual. (you've got both single sex _and_ grammar schools in Wales BTW, though nothing like as many as in England)
Technically you can leave school at 15 in the UK. This is because if your 16th birthday, falls anytime within the schools six weeks summer holiday, you are not obliged to return to school after the six weeks holiday.
I’m disabled and went to a school for the physical disabled which had age range from 4 to 19, but I also went to a comp. for my O Levels / GCSE’s & A Levels. Best of all worlds
I went to one like a Primary Sprcial School from 3 till 11, then went to another 11 till 16, about 3 years into the second one. The council had decided once we all left they were gonna close the school, so every year the numbers got less
The 11+ is alive and well all over the country - it's very controversial in Birmingham (The Second City) where there are eight grammar schools but they are all clustered in one part of the city and they implement catchment areas. So, not only are you (as a child) selected on your academic ability at the tender age of 11, but you are only allowed to go to one of the grammar schools if you live close to one. You guessed it, all the grammar schools are in the "rich" part of the city.
My school house was Saint Francis. I went to a Catholic school. We had to pray every morning before school , before every lesson , at the end of each lesson , before lunch , and at the end of the day. If we were studying a language the prayer had to be fluently done in whichever language you were studying. That is excluding the whole school mass and assembleys. Each prayer was different and specific to the time of the day. We would be told to go to confession with the priest to admit our 'sins' on a monthly basis. We were only given 5 minutes to travel to the next lesson and if you went over that time and were late you were given a detention. You were not allowed to wear your coat indoors. Your top button had to be done up, Girls work a kilt which had to be knee length and your blouse had to be tucked into your kilt and not showing. You had to wear black shoes with black tights or white ankle socks. You couldn't wear jewelery and you could not dye your hair or have a quirky hairstyle. If you got caught out on any of these you would be given an after school detention. Catholic schools are strict.
Some while back it was seen girls weren't doing so well so the style of teaching changed to suit them better. Unfortunately that had the obvious effect of then putting the boys at a disadvantage.
Wasn't there some study done that showed girls got a better education in girls' schools but boys did better in mixed schools? I have to say, this video is the first time I've heard them called single gender schools - they were always single sex schools in my experience.
There's also private schools as well. Grammar schools and secondary schools are free. Private schools charge usually. Sometimes private schools cater for a specific special need.
In the UK, a 'public school' would refer to a fee paying independent school such as Eaton. They are generally charities. They can often charge tens of thousands of pounds a year in fees.
I know one thing that often blows the mind of most of the American side of my family and friends when we've talked schools before is the difference in scoring for tests and exams on both sides of the pond. In the US at least (is it the same in Canada?) there's a standardised letter grading system that goes through all schools and colleges/universities with As being the best and F for failure and these all contribute to a numerical Grade Point average (or GPA). In the UK, it goes all over the place. From "Levels" for the national SATs we take in the 3 major stages of education (not quite the same as the S-A-Ts taken in your teenage years in the US), to letter grades at GCSE (end of school qualifications) and A Levels (end of 6th form or academic college qualifications), to levels again for the vocational qualifications and numbered classes at University. That said, UCAS is nice for some sort of consistency getting into university in the UK (apart from Oxford/Cambridge who have their own rules). Edit: GCSEs changed their grading system a couple of years ago to descending numbers, just to make it more confusing.
My wife is British but lived in Montreal, Quebec for 6 years. She went to MacDonald High which is just like what you see on TV. The students wear their own clothes, have lockers in the corridors and are treated like adults. When she returned to the UK at age 14 and going to an all girls grammar school she was shocked at the archaic attitude, I guess you can imagine that. They even complained that her French wasn’t proper!! Needless to say she hated that grammar school.
I started at a private school this year. I am 11. I am 1 of the 108 who got in this year. Usually there are around 120. I passed the 11+ exam. But there is a difference between private schools and grammar schools. Let me explain: Grammar schools: You don't necessarily have to pass the exam to get in. You can pay the full fee if you want to. That means you dont have to get in based on smarts, but you can get in based on money. Private schools: You HAVE to pass the exam to get in, you cannot buy your way in. It is based on how smart you are. Now, I got into my school with an academic scholarship and a bursary, and i wouldnt be going to the school if i hadnt because we wouldnt be able to afford it. But yeah, its based on smarts not money. So yeah, if you want to brag about money, go to a grammar school. If you want to brag about smarts, go to a private school. But if you dont care, go for the private school. I have only been at my school for 4 months but it feels like ive been there for years.
I love your videos, Alanna! Always lots of knowledge to be gained and funny anecdotes. You're such such bright, positive person/positive influence. Keep up the awesomeness! A week's wait for every one of your videos always feels like forever but it brightens my day when a new one pops up on RUclips! :)
Just to confirm it is comprehensive school not compulsory.... you have grammar and secondary schools. Comprehensives are a combination of both, all the schools have streams, where they group people of similar levels into classes.
Grammar schools used to take the students who showed a greater aptitude for learning and it taught them in a way which maximised that potential, the idea being that if you have a range of ability in a body of students the quicker and or brighter learners will be held back in their learning and may become disengaged by a need to teach at the pace which the slower learners understand. If you separate out the quick learners then you can keep them engaged and teach them faster and potentially to a greater degree. It didn't mean that those going to comprehensive schools were thick, it just meant they may learn slower or simply display less motivation for learning. My dad went to Grammar school in the 1950s despite growing up on a council estate, he went on to get a degree in Chemistry at a time when going to university wasn't an expected norm for most people like it seems to be today. My Uncle went to comprehensive school at the same time and he too managed to get good grades and eventually a degree. He turned out every bit as smart as my father. People learn at different rates. The old grammar school system was slowly phased out from the mid 1960s. Some will say the grammar school system is skewed towards the wealthy and that may well be the case now but it shouldn't be confused with the old system which worked far better than many will admit.
I see you more as a Slytherin - although I doubt any of them would ever say 'So without further ado let's go' 😂 - Please do a compilation of 'Further ados' 😏🤔 past introductions.
We may not have the yellow school buses. But we do, or at least we did back when i was in school, have the lime green double decker leviathan of school transportation, the "bright bus". A magnificent thing to behold.
My high school had Houses named after north west areas in Lancs such as rivers and hills. They were Hodder, Calder, Kemple & Pendle. Each house had a North and South class.
Since the 1970's our schools in Western Massachusetts also have technical schools. Where a 9th grader can choose morning classes in their town's High School. Then travel per school bus to their afternoon technical school. This is where they learn how to become a mechanic, chef, carpentry, Cosmetology, machinist, landscaping etc. There was no fee for this extended sill learning. However, the kids got home later than regular school, about an hour later. Lower Pioneer Valley Career Technical Education Center. (CTEC).
I saw someone below say that most of the UK does not have grammar schools anymore, but everywhere I have lived does, although that's always been in the South or Southwest. All schools that teach students from 11-16 are secondary schools, whether they are state schools, grammar schools or public schools. The secondary refers solely to the age group they are teaching, which is considered secondary education, after primary education which is from ages 7-11, although most primary schools also include infants, which are 4-6 years old. Comprehensive, not compulsory, schools, generally refers to mixed gender schools. These are the schools that are least likely to have uniforms, although many, if not most, still do. Our public schools are what you would call private schools. They are called public schools here, because they are funded by the public, rather than the state. As such the "normal" schools are called state schools, because they are funded by the state (government). It is possible for particularly gifted students to get a scholarship for a public school, so all their fees are paid by the scholarship. Public schools are almost always boarding schools, like in Harry Potter, where the kids live at the school 24/7 during term time. They also, don't usually have half term holidays, but have longer breaks for Christmas, Easter and Summer. Some of them have a mixture of boarding students and those that come and go each day. The boarders are allowed to go home at weekends, but often don't, that's generally a family decision. In terms of religion, it is also illegal in the UK to prioritize a single religion in state schools. They have a subject PSRE, which covers religion and other social topics, but it is supposed to give equal time and importance to all main religions. The other parts like hymns during assembly, nativity plays, etc. are theoretically illegal, if they are not countered with similar time spent on other religious customs, but I don't see any effort to enforce this. The gender segregation is a historic thing that many schools have not given up on yet. As far as I am concerned, the damage it causes outweighs any potential benefits and there isn't even any evidence to suggest that the benefits exist. Much worse than the mystifying of the opposite gender is that it makes students see them as different and many students leave gender segregated schools with an inability to relate to the opposite sex. Rather than seeing them as people, they see them as something different to them and don't know how to talk to them or how to treat them. It doesn't seem like the best approach to reach sexual equality, if you are teaching children from a young age that boys and girls are so different that they have to be separated. In terms of uniforms, there are benefits and down sides. Obviously cost is a big down side for many families, although often in the poorest areas schools do not have uniforms, but not all families are well off in other areas, so it is a problem for many of them. On the plus side, it creates a sense of belonging, makes students more easy to identify and to some extent reduces the issues of the poorer kids not being able to afford the fashions that other kids may where, so it can be more inclusive from that perspective. Most schools that have prefects also have a head boy/girl. They are basically the top prefect. From my perspective, at the schools I attended, it was little more than a badge of honour and most of the "cool" kids saw it as the opposite. This does seem to have changed to some extent since I was at school, as being a top student and being cool no longer seem to be mutually exclusive. School bus situations vary from school to school. When I was in secondary school, I spent the first two years taking a train to school, because I was outside the school bus catchment area. We then moved house and I used a "contract" bus, which was a bus specifically for school kids, privately hired by the school from a local bus company, but it mainly stopped at normal bus stops, although did make a couple of extra stops for the odd students that weren't near stops. Another year later the school stopped using the contract buses and just gave students bus passes, so we were on the normal public transport. This had the advantage that we could also use the bus passes outside of schools times. My kids on the other hand went to a school that always used school buses. This was in a more rural area, so public transport was not as good. This situation was very similar to North America, other than the buses were grey. When we moved out of the school catchment area and the kids wanted to stay at the same school, they used the train, but we were able to buy term time train passes at a reduced rate through the school. Other things that may be different. At least when I was at school, teachers usually addressed students using their surname. This was probably more of a convenience thing, because there would be multiple students with the same first name, but fewer with the same surname. Students generally refer to teachers as Sir or Miss. Schools start and finish times are generally different in the UK to some countries. Most schools here start between 8:30-9:00, which was done so that the parents could get to their 9-5 jobs after dropping the kids at school. It has been proven that most kids do not learn well this early in the day, but the government are more concerned with their parents being productive.
I completely agree with you on gender segregation in schools here in the UK. Shying and keeping kids away from things in their inquisitive years is a really bad idea.
One of the most prestigious schools in the world is a boy's only boarding school (Harrow) there's plenty of time to get to know girls and mingle when your in Uni. Personally I don't there's anything wrong with the segregation, the kids like coming to school and learning, for the sake of bettering themselves. Rather than obsessing over girls and then leaving school with terrible grades and terrible prospects in life.
The 11+ exam is offered by some primary schools for parents aiming to get their kids into grammar schools. Otherwise children in year 6 take SATs which is really a indicator for the secondary school as to what ability set you will be in.
@@AdventuresAndNaps I can't tell you my house names because they were pretty unique (and therefore identifiable!) but they were named after people who were scientists/inventors etc. I'm so glad we had that rather than saints! Just in primary school though, my secondary school didn't have houses.
Not only can you leave UK schools at 16, with parental permission, you can join the military, and do a couple of years for the queen (The period of service before your 18, doesn't count towards your time served).
I was lucky enough to pass the 11+ and go to a grammar school about 100 years ago(it seems that long anyway) but it was never seen as a big deal then. Besides, some kids who didn't pass but were found to be too clever for secondary modern school had the chance to be transferred to a grammar school when they were about 13. I remember one such boy who came late to our school and went on to get a scholarship to Oxford and a first class honours degree whereas I left at 16 with a few 'O Levels!
@@glastonbury4304 I think they suddenly had a space free at the grammar school and had to fill it. Perhaps they looked at teachers' assessments and reports of pupils who were unable to take the test and my Mum had the best one? This was shortly after WWII.
Grammar schools are only selective in England, not the rest of the UK. They are being phased out in England and since 1998 there has been a ban on creating new Grammar schools.
I had 3 young kids in Christian School (US) for awhile, and Yes, even with their "simple" uniforms clothing was quite expensive at the beginning of the school year. Here, in the late-90's/early-2000's many public schools adopted "uniforms", which usually meant you could only wear certain colors (ie. white, blue, tan, black), no prints, and polo shirts.
We live in Quebec and my daughter attended a private high school Trafalgar School with actual Scottish kilts ( had to be a certain length)and blazers and ties and specific style shoes. (aged 12-17) and she had “houses” and she was in Cumming house. She now attends a private coed cégep ( ages 17-19) and she is loving it although there is no uniform. Having a uniform made getting ready for school quick and easy but she was soo happy to finally wear regular clothes to school at the age of 17! I see a difference in her confidence. My son goes to a coed secondary school ( ages 12-17) and his confidence is not the same as my daughter’s considering his classes have 25-30 students whereas my daughter’s had 10. I am not sure if in the rest of Canada but Quebec students have to take exams at the middle and end of that school year from the ages of 12-17- testing children is only testing their memory not their knowledge and stresses them out.
I left school at Easter 1958 aged 15 yrs and 2 months. An 11+ failure and just a year later was in the Royal Navy and into the University of Life. Thank goodness for the availability of books and pleased to have missed the nurturing of modern popular culture.
CANADA and the USA education systems seem to have much more in common with each other vs the UK systems. One reason is that although the English have "freedom of religion" they do have an "established" state religion, i.e. the Church of England, which has been an active part of their society in all aspects of life for centuries.
Some schools use a 'diamond' structure, where they separate largely for the 'pubertal' years (for major subject classes) but remain co-ed for all the other years, and retain social and sporting contact. Not sure if its really any better, but one can imagine it might help?!
Brave to take on this topic! I could write an essay about why things are the way they are in the UK. Grammar schools were intended to be for kids who were more academically inclined and aimed at university entrance. This was before the number of universities increased and the numbers going into further education greatly expanded. Secondary Modern schools were intended to provide a wider range of more practical skills. Unfortunately people thought of them exactly as you referred to them. Germany has this system, with less stigma for kids less interested in academia. When I was at school in Norfolk a long time ago, there was also a 13+ & 14+ for entrance to grammar school and therefore less of an issue for 11 year olds. Totally agree about mixed schools.
@@jackoo3689 Probably true, there was a choice of two middle schools in my home town, one was religious (sort of), the other wasn't. The religious one was closer so I went there, beyond some hymns in the morning and the odd bible story religion wasn't very present most of the time. It was CofE though and that's one of the fastest declining religions in the world right now.
@@jackoo3689 I didn't, it was optional, just did it up until year 9. I didn't mind it really we had an unpleasant teacher at first but when they swapped over with this older dude he was cool he would show us films like Ghandi and Walkabout. Didn't have to do any RE exams at all, my sister did for some reason though, she got a B, she is now an atheist 😂
My house had a yellow tie and a yellow pe kit, it was called St.francis. (the houses mainly happen in Catholic schools, each house is named after a Saint and has a different colour!)
I’d say 99% of UK schools have uniform, although some are more formal than others and some are more strictly enforced. My grand daughter, when deciding which secondary school she wanted to go to, ruled one school out because when she went for the open day some of the students were wearing trainers instead of “proper” school shoes.
Oh yeah, at Catholic comprehensive school we had uniform, houses, a school hymn, holy days of obligation (A day off when your parents were supposed to take you to church- but they didn't). No prom in the 90s. No graduation. Took my last exam at 16 and walked out never to go back.
Hi, British secondary school student here, in year 11. There are a few things that are misinformed so here is my take on things. There are such huge differences between schools here and north america. 1) the 11+ exam is awful and I hate it. It is kinda stressful but doesn't affect your future too much. you have to take SATs around the same time you take your 11+ as well 2) Most schools are mixed and aren't separated. Only some are. I go to an all girls school because I personally wanted to. It's a decent school so why not. A lot of my friends went there because their parents are religious or don't want their kids to have boyfriends but its not actually that bad. One of the plus sides is if you are ever on your period and have ran out of sanitary products, there is always someone to save you. Also a lot of us are gay soo... 3) School kids on normal busses really piss off the rest of the people on it just trying to go to the shops. Also busses are always late and it is so annoying. The teachers don't care that your bus didn't turn up. 4) I like uniforms. They are expensive tho. And some of the rules are ridiculous, like I can wear the wrong color socks. What??!! My secondary school doesn't have houses but my primary school did. We used it for our sports day colors. I do know some secondary schools with houses tho. Also I am a prefect and I do literally nothing. I just got a badge and a thing to say in my sixth form interview. 5) Some schools are religious, some aren't. My primary school was church of england, my secondary isnt religious but a lot of people there are muslim (bc its an all girls) so we do have a prayer room and stuff. And we have to go to church at christmas with the school even if you are not christian. 6) I missed prom because of covid :( 7) Yeah you leave secondary at 16, when you finish your GCSEs but leave education at 18. After secondary you go to sixth form which is an extra 2 years of exams. Or you can go to college which is mostly for vocational courses and can last longer than 2 years but not always (also college is not university, they are not the same thing) or of course an apprenticeship but most people go to sixth form to take A-levels.
My London Comprehensive School in the 1980s had previously been a Grammar school, but had charitable status so had kept all of its anachronistic old Grammar School traditions - School uniforms, Latin school motto, School Houses, Odd Year names (the "Remove" was between the 4th and the 5th years), Prefects, Sixth Form common room, streaming by academic ability, Combined Cadet Force, Old Boys Association. The main sports were cricket and rugby, though we also had Fives courts and the headmaster had a croquet lawn! My wife's Grammar School in Kent was equally anachronistic and had rules for the girls' uniforms, the lengths of their skirts (measured each term from ground to the hem to check), School Houses, Prefects and "Deportment Girdles" for the girls with the best poise and posture. Things are different these days.
The distinction is Grammar School and Comprehensive School (not Compulsory School). Grammar Schools are not that common now- only in a few selective areas. There are two schools of thought on this: the prevalent one is that all children should have an equal education (Comprehensive); the second is that by having a one size fits all education, the focus is on those less capable and the brighter pupils do not get pushed to their full potential. What we have ended up with is "grammar schools by the back door". There is fierce competition to get into 'good' schools. This involves moving to a schools catchment area (not surprisingly property in the catchment area of a 'good' school is more expensive) and the schools only accept a limited number - usually through an interview. This favours children from better off backgrounds. At least the 11+ exam did not discriminate on social background - if you passed you got into grammar school. I did, and went to grammar school even though I was from a single parent household (my mother was a widow).
Our school was arranged into forms, sets and houses. Everyone was in one of 6 houses. Within the houses were sets where students of the same house of all ages except the first and second years met in the morning for registration. All students were in year forms for education up to 3rd year and you had subject lessons with same age students from all other sets. First and second year students met as one form in the morning for registration and stayed together for all lessons. 6th form could meet as lower sixth and upper sixth in their last years. Simple. There were approximately 2000 students in a boys only comprehensive school.
Primary education 5-12, Secondary 12-18, Tertiary University. Secondary schools are either none selective "comprehensive" in selective counties secondary schools are splint between "secondary modern" & "grammar school". There used to be technical schools as well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_System_of_education_in_England,_Wales_and_Northern_Ireland
It isn't compulsory schools - "comp" stands for comprehensive (non-selecting). All state schools are comprehensive with the exception of grammar schools or faith-based schools (kind of privately funded, but with some state funding). Private schools can be mised sex but a lot of the secondary schools aren't. Oh yes and I believe the distinction between Private (Independent) schools and Public schools is that while both are fee-paying schools, Private schools were (and are) more exclusive, whereas Public schools were open to anyone who could pay the fees, irrespective of background, location, religion or profession.
There are very few grammar schools in the UK and the 11+ exam doesn’t happen in all primary schools, only those near grammar schools… and it isn’t compulsory… you only take it if you parents want to try to get you into the grammar school.
Not all uniforms are like this. Most secondary schools are polo shirt and sweatshirt, but quite a lot are blazer and tie. Independent schools might have blazer and tie and additional gowns and scarves but only for the very posh.
Hi, In England I went to a Roman Catholic Secondary School, we had a full uniform, blazer with school patch on top pocket , shirt/blouse, school tie, trousers/skirt and shoes. We had boys and girls but separate stairs and playgrounds. Everyone was split into 4 houses, Mathew, Mark, Luke and you guessed it John. One house was alphabetically A to F, then G to something and so on. We had 5 years and a Church nearby that we had to attend on religious school days like Ash Wednesday. We had school coaches not buses but I lived within walking distance. We also had dinners at school but as I lived near I never once in five years had a dinner in there, so I never knew what a school dinner tasted like. After playtime (15 minute break, one in the morning) you had to line up and be lead in one year one house at a time. Sometimes we had to run the gauntlet, the 5th years went in first and would line the corridors you had to pass, then as each year, house came in, got kicked and hit all the way up the line. I only remember that happening a handful of times, but they were fun. Also one kid put a stink bomb into another kids top blazer pocket, punched him to break the stink bomb and ran.....happy days We never had a prom, it was 1982 and we left and that was it. I went on to college but look back on my school days as great times.
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For everyone telling me that the 11+ was phased out decades ago - thank you! It's still alive and well in Kent.
Best county does things best 👌
Still alive in Cheshire and Lancashire as well
Portsmouth as well
I don't think I ever did 11+...and that was the '70s.
@@glastonbury4304 I never did it in my school in Lancashire.
I loved wearing a school uniform, it doesn’t segregate children based on money and designer clothes.
Agreed. It also gave me a sense of belonging, and I liked the ritual of putting it on in the morning; a bit like pulling on a team sport kit.
@@ftumschk yeah you also have to put the tie on the wrong way, at least where I was xD "the cool kids way of doing it"
@@tomhazzard538 Our thing was to wear the tie very short. God knows why... perhaps it was an hommage to Oliver Hardy :)
Around 1994 our local Comprehensive School (1,000+ pupils) in a small market town had a bad reputation for shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. The new head teacher called a well attended meeting of parents who voted to institute school uniform. It turned out that the local £27k - £30k pa non-uniformed, pupils of a local "progressive" private school were responsible for most of the misdemeanors.
This happened to be about the time when kids were derided for not having expensive "designer label" clothes and shoes! Grants were available for those who could ill afford school uniform and outgrown uniforms were donated for sale to anyone who was not too proud to buy them.
At the time it was the smartest clothes I owned and the uniform was well looked after
Yeah, when I moved to the US it was very obvious how immature the teenagers were compared with those in the UK - it was quite embarrassing, frankly. They seem to be totally molly-coddled.
I moved to Australia earlier this year and the kids are very immature. Even the 14/15 year olds in one of a daughters years.
That's true. Our public school system has fallen far below what would even be considered "standard." Very sad.
Man the UK isn’t any better
Haha you think us kids are more immature than uk, they always mess around and mess up the bathroom and talk back
@@captainprice814 Yes, I do think that. In my view, US kids have no sense of self-responsibility and few life skills. TBH, US adults also have little or no concept of responsibility and expect to be protected from everything; they blame everything that goes wrong for them on someone else, instead of taking (at least some of) the blame themselves. Yeah, that's a huge generalisation, but that's what I think from my observations.
The sense of pride when you are in year 6, and you get to sit on the wooden benches during assembly. Before that, it was the cold hard floor for you.
Omg yes
Nice to see that was a universal standard xD.
So true omg
I felt like a queen and all the lower years were peasants lol
I waited my whole life for those benches lol
I personally loved wearing school uniform. It also saved the hassle of having to decide what to wear everyday, incase, God forbid, you wore the same clothes twice in one week
People don't care about what you wear as much as u think
Me too!
@Lol ???
@Lol how did you get that from them saying they like uniforms???🤣🤣🤣 dumbass
@Lol actually i am from a place where you have to wear uniforms and that is something so weird to judge people by😭 i just know youre miserable.
Alana - "I'm pretty sure that most children grow"
Yes, Alana - but only if you make the mistake of feeding them...
Never after midnight!.
When she said that I laughed, I was like shit someone should of told me, I got to 5'2and stopped.
@@fauxpastea4169 And for god's sake don't get them wet.
🤣
I think Proms were pretty much unheard of in the UK until about 2000. When I was at secondary school in the '80s we had the occasional school disco.
I think I first heard about them in 2005-10. I don't know if they're common now but I think started to become a thing about 10 years ago
@@sie4431 I am pretty sure that my sister's children (twins born 1995) had them.
Yeah we had the odd gangster disco, but nothing which requires boys to have frilly neckties :)
I'm afraid Proms are a thing here now, much like Halloween ;-(
We just had a trip to Alton Towers at the end of the 5th Year (Year 11) when I left in 1989 😂
In academic achievement, all-girl schools in the UK have traditionally outperformed mixed comprehensives by spectacular margins, though the same is not so true of all-boy schools.
There are houses in like 99% of schools I was always in one. Also our ties had the corresponding house colour on them.
fr, it’s like a tradition lmao
in first school i was kingfisher (blue)
in middle school i was Austin (yellow)
in high school i am Vernon (blue)
We didn't have our own separate ties. If it wasn't for house football matches, I wouldn't know which house most kids were in.
I swear my school is the only one that doesn’t do this
@@scruffytheseagull doesn't have houses, you mean?
I was a house Captain three consecutive years 💁♀️, wasn't so fun🧍♀️
English school uniforms: a few years ago, boys at a coed school in Exeter protested the requirement that they could only wear long trousers and not shorts, as it was very hot. They adopted skirts because there wasn't any rule against it. I believe the school reconsidered allowing shorts in the following term.
lol when I was in 6th form grammar we protested also not being allowed to wear shorts. They relented and allowed us to wear Callots - below the knee only! It was the 90s though and these were in fashion so that was acceptable to us then. Now I see girls from the same school wearing barely a skirt to school! shocking.
@@MelsTableTalk In America we call those "knee buster shorts"
The fact you keep saying you want to come back to a place you consider home is not annoying. Hopefully your application gets processed soon 😊❤️
Thank you so much!!
@@AdventuresAndNaps At this point it would feel wrong if you didn't say. Keep saying it and it will happen. :-)
SATs what you take when you're 11 isn't really a big deal, tbf. Like in the moment: it is but after, it's like wtf was I worrying bout?
In the U.K. Public schools are known as State schools, and Private schools are known as Public schools!?!............ Just to mess with your mind!
Just said something similar in my own comment but you said it better.
The term Public School. Goes back to the early days of schools. All education had to be paid for, most schools took pupils from the local area. Public Schools would take any pupil from the public that could afford the fee. Wherever they came from. Hence the term Public School.
It's the same way private companies are designated Public Limited Companies (PLC). Completely open to the public to buy shares, or places in the school, provided you're rich enough.
🤣🤣🤣Jamie Smith...,true
Public schools are fee paying schools
as are private schools
non fee paying schools are state schools
there are a few grammar schools which are state schools
I went to an all girls school!! I absolutely loved it & wouldn’t change it for the world!! My partners children go to a mixed school & the stories I hear, just reiterate the fact that I loved it........................ boys were never a mystery. I had friends that were boys. Just not at school. Xx
Agree
My school's houses were named after the peoples that historically invaded the UK: Romans, Saxons, Normans and Danes. I was a Roman, but what have the Romans ever done for us? 😉
Well, the roads obviously. But other than the roads ... 😎😎
Londinium, Colchester, Roads, etc.
Something like cities, roads, baths, literature and culture. Mind that all city names ending with -chester come from roman military settlements.
It's out of Monty Python's Life of Brian. That was what Mr. Powell was alluding to with his question. Peace!
Our houses were named after rivers in the town
Kent and Buckinghamshire are amoung the few counties with state funded Grammar schools, very few other counties have them and counties are forbidden from creating new state funded Grammar schools. Some counties have private grammar schools. Basically you were living in Kent. Most of the county is nostalgic for the 1950s.
Paul Rice....We got 5 in one borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester
wendy kelly
Parts of Lincolnshire have grammar schools. Lincoln is comprehensive, and has been for a long time.
In the 1970s, I went to Boston Grammar School for two years, and then we moved to Lincoln and I went to a comprehensive there, there were no grammar schools. The comprehensive was a better school in terms of the all round experience. IMO Boston Grammar School had a much higher opinion of itself than it ought to have had.
Essex has 5 I think
Most of the country hates grammar schools
You do know that british schools have uniforms so it don’t show wealth against poverty. Grammar schools were done away with in 1975ish. They’ve only come back into recently. You do not have to take the 11+ if you don’t want to. It’s only pressure from parents that put kids through the stress.
Has the 11 Plus come back then? I know certain (as in a few) schools have always had it but I was under the understanding that it was basically done away with. I know it's been many moons since I was at school but there wasn't the slightest hint of it. I certainly don't know of anyone actually taking it. The first official test I ever did was GCSE's, for which I was part of the original guinea pig year (yes, I'm that old).
Grammar schools still existed, I went to one in the 1990’s in London. There was just a law created that a local education authority couldn’t create any new ones. Alana was based in Kent when in the UK which has a very large Grammar School system and has done so for years. You are right the 11+ is optional but when I was at primary school most kids took it as it was during school time. I think they changed it to a Saturday now so less kids do it now.
The 11 plus and grammar schools are still very much a thing and always have been in Kent where she lived.
The uniform thing does nothing to hide the wealth gap. Nothing does.
@@lwaves I must be older then: When I did Chemistry 'O' Level it was called "Chemistry 16-Plus" and was a trial for the concept of GCSEs a few years before GCEs and CSEs were officially merged. I think they did it the same year in Geography, and a few other subjects. So lucky me: I got an O Level in Chemistry and a Grade 1 CSE in Chemistry to go with it! whoopy-bloody-do!
When I was at school there were two suppliers of school uniform, one was a local shop and the other the Coop.
The Coop ones were much cheaper and it wasn't long before it showed but I don't remember it ever being a thing.
Uniforms are worn in our schools for a number of reasons. To instil a level of discipline. To create a sense of community. To stop any bullying as a result of any disparities in children's quality of clothing. To get children used to dressing smartly/wearing a uniform when they leave school and start work. It also helps identify where a child should be/where they've come from when they're somewhere they shouldn't be. To name a few.
Congratulations on getting your videos sponsored Alanna, that really is quite an achievement & a testament to what a star you've become!
Keep the videos coming, they just keep getting better! 👍
Thank you very much!
57 years ago I remember one of my 11 plus questions. Ten crows are sitting on a log and a farmer shoots one. How many crows are left on the log? I answered none. One was shot and nine flew away. I went to grammar school.
AA has: Three frogs are sitting on a log. One decides to jump off. How many frogs are left on the log. A: Three. Nothing happens until you take action!
I remember "Where does a dog live? A bowl, a stable, a kennel, a hutch." I couldn't believe some of my classmates didn't pass the exam. It puzzles me to this day. I wonder if successful pupils were chosen on neat handwriting? That's just a guess though
Oh we had a question like that. I got into a private school though and i started in September 2020. But we had a question where there was no clear answer because it said, how did john get to the bay? But there were 2 bays. I still got in with a scholarship and bursary though.
I was a prefect! The best part was being inside during winter “monitoring” the door. There was a HUGE radiator that you could sit on! Of course my friends were always allowed in!😉
😂 that's awesome!!
Alanna - you always start with ‘for those who don’t know me!’ Everyone knows you!!!!
😂
@@AdventuresAndNaps And if they don't know who you are, then they have homework to do right. 😊❤️
@Freddie Mac At the time of releasing this video, Alanna has 68,800 subscribers. I know some channels with over a million subscribers... that'll be a lot of people who are yet to discover our Canadian friend and learn her name!
@@MS-19 They give a RUclips award plaque when you pass 100,000 subscribers, then 1 million is the milestone to get the next award. 😁😁
MS19 well I don’t know any of the million plus channels - they clearly need to get their names out a bit more. I was only joshing with Alanna anyway!!
I remember once, we had no school uniform form for a week and the pressure to wear something cool was daunting. I prefer wearing a uniform and some of them are really pretty. Loved my primary school logo and secondary school colours.
Some background info on Wikipedia -
90% of pupils go to non selective comprehensive school (primary, secondary, upper schools) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_school
3 out of 70 counties plus ~75 individual schools use the eleven plus selective system - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleven-plus
I don't see religious schools as sinister these days - originally the church saw education as vital, there weren't enough schools, so it set them up - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_school#United_Kingdom
Suprised you didn’t notice how depressed we are; just started my GCSE, and it is daunting.
Good luck!!
Someone tried to introduce American School buses to the UK some time ago and imported several. Then they discovered that the entrance/exit door is on the wrong side 🙄🥱 Doh!
Where I lived, being mostly rural some school buses also take ordinary passengers but only on school days they don't run at other times.
When I visited Canada, I went on a group outing to a local attraction and we were taken there on yellow school buses. Some of the group got out to take photos before we moved off.
Oh nooooo! 😂
North American school buses are functionally kind of dumb: they're built on a chassis derived from those used for delivery trucks (like those used to deliver your new refrigerator or stock up the local store with Coke) meaning the floor is like 4 feet in the air, so we get all these poor toddlers trying to climb these steps that are themselves about a foot high. On top of that the driver's cab is set behind the massive forward engine, so there's an enormous blind spot out in front just where short kids are crossing. There were enough injuries and worse over the years that the buses now deploy a swing arm to direct the kids to cross further forward. The rear of the bus is also cantilevered some distance beyond the rear axle, so going over a large bump at speed is enough to catapult small kids into the air, especially if the kids (usually boys) are ready for the bump. About the only thing going for them is that they're dirt cheap, which is probably why we don't use urban transit bus chassis for school buses.
The shorter 30 footers are a bit better though - they're built on lower chassis (a longer version of that used for many ambulances, as it happens) and the engine is considerably shorter, so much less of a blind spot. Also no catapulting.
@Martyn Adams. My friend had one of those and converted the inside for a variety of mobile catering. It was a big hit at events such as classic car shows, bank holiday markets etc, and standing in rural villages with no chippy or takeaway.
I was in high school in New Zealand and every high school had uniforms. I was at a Boys’ High School and there was a Girls’ High on the other side of the city - miles away. I agree with you -it was an unnatural environment. I didn’t learn a damn thing about girls except the dumbass lewd things my friends would smirk about at lunchtime. When I went to university and finally came into close quarters with girls at age 19 I was totally unprepared to deal with them. Those strange but entrancing creatures were to me both enormously appealing but bloody terrifying and mystifying at the same time . Speaking of entrancing, I’m sorry if I seem creepy I don’t mean to be but you are exactly that, young lady. Entrancing, appealing and highly entertaining. Another gem, Alanna, another gem!!! Thank you so much
Someone else may have said this. Grammar schools are secondary schools. The two types of state secondary education are Grammar and Comprehensive .
There is 2 types of school over here in the UK , We have the first school that you will ever go to and that's called Primary School , then after you get to year 6 age 11 you will move up to secondary school after you get to year 11 age 16 you have the choice to go and work or go to college and then university.
the 11+ officially phased out around 2008, though still in operation, after a fashion, today. the individual Counties of the UK got to decide whether to keep it, or drop it. only a handful kept it with testing along the lines you mentioned, and i believe Kent is one who retained it.
you were a little harsh re comprehensives, unintentionally i'm sure. they were meant to be all encompassing, and inclusive of all abilities. you made it sound a little like it was for the 'divvies'. i was at a comp and in my class alone we turned out: 2 chemists, a medical doctor, a computer engineer, and 1 guy i believe who's now a professor of anthropology at Oxford Uni. not too shabby.
interesting to hear Canada's take on education though.
Yeah, I suspect either the comps in Kent are almost universally terrible OR most of the Brits Alanna spoke to went to private/grammar schools because she's come away with a very one-sided view.
My old Secondary School used to be a boys grammar until the changes in the 70s removed most of the grammars, thereby turning it into a comprehensive (i.e. mixed).
Jfergs.
Cool - re the successful students. What's a divvie?
It's interesting hearing someones observations and interpretations, then getting more "comprehensive" info... from the term for all inclusive (girls and boys mixed, vs grammar, which I assume is all either all boys or all girls...??) from people who experienced it personally, giving more details & making things a little clearer
Australian school education,
by comparison to the English public, (or "state" as someone explained) school system, at least in my experience,
seems rudimentary, at least non private - whether Christian or Catholic religious, or all girls/all boys or general, you just get the idea those teachers are happy to be at work teaching, where parents pay good money, rather than at a job acting like keepers at a zoo, constantly trying to keep a handle on the naughty rowdy kids (where no money is enough, I'm sure!)
I like the Christian aspect as part of the education in UK schools
The proms replaced kids leaving the school egging it on the last day.
Haha that thumbnail is awesome 😂
It's my screensaver now :)
SATs (11+ whatever you called it) doesn’t decide if you go to a private school, you only go if you can afford it or if you even want to go (you have to take another set of exams if you want to go to private school I think)
Love supporting my fellow Canadians 😊
I’m British and I’ve never heard of these grammar schools we just go straight to secondary schools but we have to do tests to see what set we are in for the secondary school
It’s only in certain areas that’s still do it. Very common in Manchester all areas have grammar schools
Can I recommend watching the old St trinians series
Yes wonderful documentaries on British schools 🤣
St Trinian's Great Train Robbery is a classic!
British trainee science teacher here - Ok just to remove some misconceptions;
our education system is divided into;
1 Early years (Foundation stage) years 0-5
2) Primary (key stages 1 &2 ) 5-11 years
3) Secondary KS3-4 (Including GCSE at the end of KS 4) 11-16 years
4) Further education (KS5) 16-19 Years
Higher education 18 years +
The types of school we have here are;
Maintained schools (overseen by the local education authority (LEA)
Community schools which are controlled and run by the LEA
Foundation and trust schools (controlled and run by a governing body)
Voluntary aided schools which are faith based and run by a governing body
similar for voluntary schools, but run by the LEA.
We also have academies which are sponsored (usually underperforming schools as per inspection by OFSTED)
Academy converters - which are high performing schools which have opted out of LEA control
Free schools which are independent, free from local control and set up by a community group.
Then we have grammar schools which select on academic ability, and independent schools which are fee paying, and are governed and operated by the school itself. Lastly we have City technology colleges, which are independently managed secondary schools and are geared toward science and engineering and offer GCSEs and A levels as well as vocational qualifications.
Lastly we have special schools which are for children who have learning and/or physical disabilities which would not be able to be catered for in mainstream schools.
as for uniform, pretty much all schools have a uniform and unless it is a "faith school" prayers are not done becuase they tend to be both secular and inclusive of all faiths and beliefs. However primary schools tend towards being more faith based, but in secondary schools it's not a thing.
Prom was not a thing when I was at school in the 80's/early 90's but we did a "dinner and dance" near the end of school , however we do not "graduated" we only graduate from university.
Hi Alanna, thanks for the clickbait image of you!😂
11+ is optional.
Grammar schools don't necessarily attract bright students, the amount of thick people I've encountered from them is staggering.
Thick but posh, or Nice but Dim 😏
I went to a mixeds school and I enjoyed it, but a friend's son and daughter both went to single sex schools as teenagers and enjoyed it, developed in a balanced way and went to universities where they did all the things you were talking about (i.e. getting to know the opposite sex by studying, working together, etc.). It works for some kids - and it depends on the timing when single sex education is best.
I grew up in wales (In the UK), and i've never heard of half of this stuff, never heard of a grammar school, or gender separation. We did take a test at age 11 in primary school ( ages 3-11), which decided the difficulty of our classes for secondary school (ages 11-16). We do have catholic schools, but they aren't heavily based on religion. You leave secondary (comprehensive) school at 16, which from there you can do what you want, you can continue school until you're 18 which is called sixth form, you can go to college or just start working. Yes we had houses our schools houses were local welsh beaches ( Langland, Caswell, Rhossili, and Oxwich) I was Langland and we always won lol, we were yellow.
You've genuinely never even _heard_ of a single sex school ? I get not going to one (I didn't either), even not knowing anyone that has (I _think_ I know one person that did) but not even having heard of them seems a bit unusual.
(you've got both single sex _and_ grammar schools in Wales BTW, though nothing like as many as in England)
Technically you can leave school at 15 in the UK. This is because if your 16th birthday, falls anytime within the schools six weeks summer holiday, you are not obliged to return to school after the six weeks holiday.
Being Disabled I went to Special School
Yes, and usually it would only have around 100 pupils and the school age range is 3 sometimes 4 all the way to 16.
I’m disabled and went to a school for the physical disabled which had age range from 4 to 19, but I also went to a comp. for my O Levels / GCSE’s & A Levels. Best of all worlds
I went to one like a Primary Sprcial School from 3 till 11, then went to another 11 till 16, about 3 years into the second one. The council had decided once we all left they were gonna close the school, so every year the numbers got less
The 11+ is alive and well all over the country - it's very controversial in Birmingham (The Second City) where there are eight grammar schools but they are all clustered in one part of the city and they implement catchment areas. So, not only are you (as a child) selected on your academic ability at the tender age of 11, but you are only allowed to go to one of the grammar schools if you live close to one. You guessed it, all the grammar schools are in the "rich" part of the city.
My school house was Saint Francis. I went to a Catholic school. We had to pray every morning before school , before every lesson , at the end of each lesson , before lunch , and at the end of the day. If we were studying a language the prayer had to be fluently done in whichever language you were studying. That is excluding the whole school mass and assembleys. Each prayer was different and specific to the time of the day. We would be told to go to confession with the priest to admit our 'sins' on a monthly basis. We were only given 5 minutes to travel to the next lesson and if you went over that time and were late you were given a detention. You were not allowed to wear your coat indoors. Your top button had to be done up, Girls work a kilt which had to be knee length and your blouse had to be tucked into your kilt and not showing. You had to wear black shoes with black tights or white ankle socks. You couldn't wear jewelery and you could not dye your hair or have a quirky hairstyle. If you got caught out on any of these you would be given an after school detention. Catholic schools are strict.
In UK schools Alanna girls outperform boys academically and some schools are teaching them separately to improve the standard for the boys.
Some while back it was seen girls weren't doing so well so the style of teaching changed to suit them better.
Unfortunately that had the obvious effect of then putting the boys at a disadvantage.
Wasn't there some study done that showed girls got a better education in girls' schools but boys did better in mixed schools? I have to say, this video is the first time I've heard them called single gender schools - they were always single sex schools in my experience.
There's also private schools as well. Grammar schools and secondary schools are free. Private schools charge usually. Sometimes private schools cater for a specific special need.
"I've never worn a uniform".... "I went to the movie premier dressed as Hermione"..... OOH! 😲 Contradiction or what?
In my defence, that's a costume!
Pictures?
And she cried when she said she never wore a uniform...that bug in the eye thing was a nice cover!
In the UK, a 'public school' would refer to a fee paying independent school such as Eaton. They are generally charities. They can often charge tens of thousands of pounds a year in fees.
I know one thing that often blows the mind of most of the American side of my family and friends when we've talked schools before is the difference in scoring for tests and exams on both sides of the pond.
In the US at least (is it the same in Canada?) there's a standardised letter grading system that goes through all schools and colleges/universities with As being the best and F for failure and these all contribute to a numerical Grade Point average (or GPA). In the UK, it goes all over the place. From "Levels" for the national SATs we take in the 3 major stages of education (not quite the same as the S-A-Ts taken in your teenage years in the US), to letter grades at GCSE (end of school qualifications) and A Levels (end of 6th form or academic college qualifications), to levels again for the vocational qualifications and numbered classes at University.
That said, UCAS is nice for some sort of consistency getting into university in the UK (apart from Oxford/Cambridge who have their own rules).
Edit: GCSEs changed their grading system a couple of years ago to descending numbers, just to make it more confusing.
My wife is British but lived in Montreal, Quebec for 6 years. She went to MacDonald High which is just like what you see on TV. The students wear their own clothes, have lockers in the corridors and are treated like adults. When she returned to the UK at age 14 and going to an all girls grammar school she was shocked at the archaic attitude, I guess you can imagine that. They even complained that her French wasn’t proper!!
Needless to say she hated that grammar school.
Btw in England you do have to stay in education until your 18 but there are different forms of it
Afternoon. Scones and tea being eaten and drunk whilst watching.
I had a large bag of chips and 2 fish cakes watching this. Classy 😋
Mat C love fish cakes from the chippy.
@@kevinthornley7659 fish cake in a bread roll 😋😉... I love too!!
I started at a private school this year. I am 11. I am 1 of the 108 who got in this year. Usually there are around 120. I passed the 11+ exam. But there is a difference between private schools and grammar schools. Let me explain:
Grammar schools: You don't necessarily have to pass the exam to get in. You can pay the full fee if you want to. That means you dont have to get in based on smarts, but you can get in based on money.
Private schools: You HAVE to pass the exam to get in, you cannot buy your way in. It is based on how smart you are. Now, I got into my school with an academic scholarship and a bursary, and i wouldnt be going to the school if i hadnt because we wouldnt be able to afford it. But yeah, its based on smarts not money.
So yeah, if you want to brag about money, go to a grammar school. If you want to brag about smarts, go to a private school. But if you dont care, go for the private school. I have only been at my school for 4 months but it feels like ive been there for years.
I love your videos, Alanna! Always lots of knowledge to be gained and funny anecdotes. You're such such bright, positive person/positive influence. Keep up the awesomeness! A week's wait for every one of your videos always feels like forever but it brightens my day when a new one pops up on RUclips! :)
It is strange that many schools are founded on religion when only 3% of people in the UK are regular church goers...
Just to confirm it is comprehensive school not compulsory.... you have grammar and secondary schools. Comprehensives are a combination of both, all the schools have streams, where they group people of similar levels into classes.
the only yellow buses in the uk are american imports that get converted in to campers
Grammar schools used to take the students who showed a greater aptitude for learning and it taught them in a way which maximised that potential, the idea being that if you have a range of ability in a body of students the quicker and or brighter learners will be held back in their learning and may become disengaged by a need to teach at the pace which the slower learners understand. If you separate out the quick learners then you can keep them engaged and teach them faster and potentially to a greater degree. It didn't mean that those going to comprehensive schools were thick, it just meant they may learn slower or simply display less motivation for learning. My dad went to Grammar school in the 1950s despite growing up on a council estate, he went on to get a degree in Chemistry at a time when going to university wasn't an expected norm for most people like it seems to be today. My Uncle went to comprehensive school at the same time and he too managed to get good grades and eventually a degree. He turned out every bit as smart as my father. People learn at different rates. The old grammar school system was slowly phased out from the mid 1960s. Some will say the grammar school system is skewed towards the wealthy and that may well be the case now but it shouldn't be confused with the old system which worked far better than many will admit.
I see you more as a Slytherin - although I doubt any of them would ever say 'So without further ado let's go' 😂 - Please do a compilation of 'Further ados' 😏🤔 past introductions.
"So with much ado, let's go."
I find myself saying that in my normal life now, including the little gesture with the right arm.
We may not have the yellow school buses. But we do, or at least we did back when i was in school, have the lime green double decker leviathan of school transportation, the "bright bus". A magnificent thing to behold.
My high school had Houses named after north west areas in Lancs such as rivers and hills. They were Hodder, Calder, Kemple & Pendle. Each house had a North and South class.
Secondary schools aren't called high schools and my school didn't have houses.
I went to an all girls' grammar school.
That squirrel at 19:04 got his 11+.................of nuts that is!
I have a Masters Degree, but when I was 11 years old I was very hyperactive and couldn't sit still for 10 minutes. Made my teachers crazy...😖
Since the 1970's our schools in Western Massachusetts also have technical schools. Where a 9th grader can choose morning classes in their town's High School. Then travel per school bus to their afternoon technical school. This is where they learn how to become a mechanic, chef, carpentry, Cosmetology, machinist, landscaping etc. There was no fee for this extended sill learning. However, the kids got home later than regular school, about an hour later. Lower Pioneer Valley Career Technical Education Center. (CTEC).
I saw someone below say that most of the UK does not have grammar schools anymore, but everywhere I have lived does, although that's always been in the South or Southwest. All schools that teach students from 11-16 are secondary schools, whether they are state schools, grammar schools or public schools. The secondary refers solely to the age group they are teaching, which is considered secondary education, after primary education which is from ages 7-11, although most primary schools also include infants, which are 4-6 years old.
Comprehensive, not compulsory, schools, generally refers to mixed gender schools. These are the schools that are least likely to have uniforms, although many, if not most, still do. Our public schools are what you would call private schools. They are called public schools here, because they are funded by the public, rather than the state. As such the "normal" schools are called state schools, because they are funded by the state (government). It is possible for particularly gifted students to get a scholarship for a public school, so all their fees are paid by the scholarship. Public schools are almost always boarding schools, like in Harry Potter, where the kids live at the school 24/7 during term time. They also, don't usually have half term holidays, but have longer breaks for Christmas, Easter and Summer. Some of them have a mixture of boarding students and those that come and go each day. The boarders are allowed to go home at weekends, but often don't, that's generally a family decision.
In terms of religion, it is also illegal in the UK to prioritize a single religion in state schools. They have a subject PSRE, which covers religion and other social topics, but it is supposed to give equal time and importance to all main religions. The other parts like hymns during assembly, nativity plays, etc. are theoretically illegal, if they are not countered with similar time spent on other religious customs, but I don't see any effort to enforce this.
The gender segregation is a historic thing that many schools have not given up on yet. As far as I am concerned, the damage it causes outweighs any potential benefits and there isn't even any evidence to suggest that the benefits exist. Much worse than the mystifying of the opposite gender is that it makes students see them as different and many students leave gender segregated schools with an inability to relate to the opposite sex. Rather than seeing them as people, they see them as something different to them and don't know how to talk to them or how to treat them. It doesn't seem like the best approach to reach sexual equality, if you are teaching children from a young age that boys and girls are so different that they have to be separated.
In terms of uniforms, there are benefits and down sides. Obviously cost is a big down side for many families, although often in the poorest areas schools do not have uniforms, but not all families are well off in other areas, so it is a problem for many of them. On the plus side, it creates a sense of belonging, makes students more easy to identify and to some extent reduces the issues of the poorer kids not being able to afford the fashions that other kids may where, so it can be more inclusive from that perspective.
Most schools that have prefects also have a head boy/girl. They are basically the top prefect. From my perspective, at the schools I attended, it was little more than a badge of honour and most of the "cool" kids saw it as the opposite. This does seem to have changed to some extent since I was at school, as being a top student and being cool no longer seem to be mutually exclusive.
School bus situations vary from school to school. When I was in secondary school, I spent the first two years taking a train to school, because I was outside the school bus catchment area. We then moved house and I used a "contract" bus, which was a bus specifically for school kids, privately hired by the school from a local bus company, but it mainly stopped at normal bus stops, although did make a couple of extra stops for the odd students that weren't near stops. Another year later the school stopped using the contract buses and just gave students bus passes, so we were on the normal public transport. This had the advantage that we could also use the bus passes outside of schools times. My kids on the other hand went to a school that always used school buses. This was in a more rural area, so public transport was not as good. This situation was very similar to North America, other than the buses were grey. When we moved out of the school catchment area and the kids wanted to stay at the same school, they used the train, but we were able to buy term time train passes at a reduced rate through the school.
Other things that may be different. At least when I was at school, teachers usually addressed students using their surname. This was probably more of a convenience thing, because there would be multiple students with the same first name, but fewer with the same surname. Students generally refer to teachers as Sir or Miss. Schools start and finish times are generally different in the UK to some countries. Most schools here start between 8:30-9:00, which was done so that the parents could get to their 9-5 jobs after dropping the kids at school. It has been proven that most kids do not learn well this early in the day, but the government are more concerned with their parents being productive.
I completely agree with you on gender segregation in schools here in the UK. Shying and keeping kids away from things in their inquisitive years is a really bad idea.
I got to a gender segregated school and I don’t think it’s bad as people think it actually allows to me to focus a bit more.
One of the most prestigious schools in the world is a boy's only boarding school (Harrow) there's plenty of time to get to know girls and mingle when your in Uni. Personally I don't there's anything wrong with the segregation, the kids like coming to school and learning, for the sake of bettering themselves. Rather than obsessing over girls and then leaving school with terrible grades and terrible prospects in life.
The 11+ exam is offered by some primary schools for parents aiming to get their kids into grammar schools. Otherwise children in year 6 take SATs which is really a indicator for the secondary school as to what ability set you will be in.
My school house was Campion and we had three other Southworth, Fisher And Moore. They are all English Saints,
I went to a small school and we had Fisher and Moore house! I was in Moore.
I love hearing about everyone's houses!!
@@AdventuresAndNaps I can't tell you my house names because they were pretty unique (and therefore identifiable!) but they were named after people who were scientists/inventors etc. I'm so glad we had that rather than saints! Just in primary school though, my secondary school didn't have houses.
My coastal primary sch had local admirals.
Not only can you leave UK schools at 16, with parental permission, you can join the military, and do a couple of years for the queen (The period of service before your 18, doesn't count towards your time served).
I was lucky enough to pass the 11+ and go to a grammar school about 100 years ago(it seems that long anyway) but it was never seen as a big deal then. Besides, some kids who didn't pass but were found to be too clever for secondary modern school had the chance to be transferred to a grammar school when they were about 13. I remember one such boy who came late to our school and went on to get a scholarship to Oxford and a first class honours degree whereas I left at 16 with a few 'O Levels!
Exactly, I was transferred
My Mum missed her 11+ through illness but then got a place at a grammar school.
@@trickygoose2 never heard of that, would be interested to know how?
@@glastonbury4304 I think they suddenly had a space free at the grammar school and had to fill it. Perhaps they looked at teachers' assessments and reports of pupils who were unable to take the test and my Mum had the best one? This was shortly after WWII.
@@trickygoose2 sounds possible 👍...not sure that happens now due to the few that are left and always over subscribed
Grammar schools are only selective in England, not the rest of the UK. They are being phased out in England and since 1998 there has been a ban on creating new Grammar schools.
I had 3 young kids in Christian School (US) for awhile, and Yes, even with their "simple" uniforms clothing was quite expensive at the beginning of the school year. Here, in the late-90's/early-2000's many public schools adopted "uniforms", which usually meant you could only wear certain colors (ie. white, blue, tan, black), no prints, and polo shirts.
Ah Kent I see. That explains a lot haha. Please don't take that as the norm.
We live in Quebec and my daughter attended a private high school Trafalgar School with actual Scottish kilts ( had to be a certain length)and blazers and ties and specific style shoes. (aged 12-17) and she had “houses” and she was in Cumming house. She now attends a private coed cégep ( ages 17-19) and she is loving it although there is no uniform. Having a uniform made getting ready for school quick and easy but she was soo happy to finally wear regular clothes to school at the age of 17! I see a difference in her confidence. My son goes to a coed secondary school ( ages 12-17) and his confidence is not the same as my daughter’s considering his classes have 25-30 students whereas my daughter’s had 10. I am not sure if in the rest of Canada but Quebec students have to take exams at the middle and end of that school year from the ages of 12-17- testing children is only testing their memory not their knowledge and stresses them out.
The 11+ exam is called SATs and I doesn't decide your future at all it only helps the primary schools recordes
We have School uniform so on Red nose day, etc so then kids can look forward to non uniform day. 😄
I left school at Easter 1958 aged 15 yrs and 2 months. An 11+ failure and just a year later was in the Royal Navy and into the University of Life. Thank goodness for the availability of books and pleased to have missed the nurturing of modern popular culture.
A lot of private schools like the one I went to also require the 11+ and other selection criteria including interviews to get in 😅 no pressure.
CANADA and the USA education systems seem to have much more in common with each other vs the UK systems. One reason is that although the English have "freedom of religion" they do have
an "established" state religion, i.e. the Church of England, which has been an active part of their
society in all aspects of life for centuries.
Some schools use a 'diamond' structure, where they separate largely for the 'pubertal' years (for major subject classes) but remain co-ed for all the other years, and retain social and sporting contact. Not sure if its really any better, but one can imagine it might help?!
Brave to take on this topic! I could write an essay about why things are the way they are in the UK. Grammar schools were intended to be for kids who were more academically inclined and aimed at university entrance. This was before the number of universities increased and the numbers going into further education greatly expanded. Secondary Modern schools were intended to provide a wider range of more practical skills. Unfortunately people thought of them exactly as you referred to them. Germany has this system, with less stigma for kids
less interested in academia. When I was at school in Norfolk a long time ago, there was also a 13+ & 14+ for entrance to grammar school and therefore less of an issue for 11 year olds. Totally agree about mixed schools.
I don't know anyone who went to a religious school that is still religious
😂
People just go there not even realising and not thinking there is a difference
@@jackoo3689 Probably true, there was a choice of two middle schools in my home town, one was religious (sort of), the other wasn't. The religious one was closer so I went there, beyond some hymns in the morning and the odd bible story religion wasn't very present most of the time. It was CofE though and that's one of the fastest declining religions in the world right now.
Sam Hall u have to do RE for GCSE though😭
@@jackoo3689 I didn't, it was optional, just did it up until year 9. I didn't mind it really we had an unpleasant teacher at first but when they swapped over with this older dude he was cool he would show us films like Ghandi and Walkabout. Didn't have to do any RE exams at all, my sister did for some reason though, she got a B, she is now an atheist 😂
My house had a yellow tie and a yellow pe kit, it was called St.francis. (the houses mainly happen in Catholic schools, each house is named after a Saint and has a different colour!)
"Alanna's prom story" thats great content right there ....your welcome 😉
I’d say 99% of UK schools have uniform, although some are more formal than others and some are more strictly enforced. My grand daughter, when deciding which secondary school she wanted to go to, ruled one school out because when she went for the open day some of the students were wearing trainers instead of “proper” school shoes.
lmaooo its not "stress" we just more mature
Oh yeah, at Catholic comprehensive school we had uniform, houses, a school hymn, holy days of obligation (A day off when your parents were supposed to take you to church- but they didn't). No prom in the 90s. No graduation. Took my last exam at 16 and walked out never to go back.
Hi, British secondary school student here, in year 11. There are a few things that are misinformed so here is my take on things. There are such huge differences between schools here and north america.
1) the 11+ exam is awful and I hate it. It is kinda stressful but doesn't affect your future too much. you have to take SATs around the same time you take your 11+ as well
2) Most schools are mixed and aren't separated. Only some are. I go to an all girls school because I personally wanted to. It's a decent school so why not. A lot of my friends went there because their parents are religious or don't want their kids to have boyfriends but its not actually that bad. One of the plus sides is if you are ever on your period and have ran out of sanitary products, there is always someone to save you. Also a lot of us are gay soo...
3) School kids on normal busses really piss off the rest of the people on it just trying to go to the shops. Also busses are always late and it is so annoying. The teachers don't care that your bus didn't turn up.
4) I like uniforms. They are expensive tho. And some of the rules are ridiculous, like I can wear the wrong color socks. What??!!
My secondary school doesn't have houses but my primary school did. We used it for our sports day colors. I do know some secondary schools with houses tho. Also I am a prefect and I do literally nothing. I just got a badge and a thing to say in my sixth form interview.
5) Some schools are religious, some aren't. My primary school was church of england, my secondary isnt religious but a lot of people there are muslim (bc its an all girls) so we do have a prayer room and stuff. And we have to go to church at christmas with the school even if you are not christian.
6) I missed prom because of covid :(
7) Yeah you leave secondary at 16, when you finish your GCSEs but leave education at 18. After secondary you go to sixth form which is an extra 2 years of exams. Or you can go to college which is mostly for vocational courses and can last longer than 2 years but not always (also college is not university, they are not the same thing) or of course an apprenticeship but most people go to sixth form to take A-levels.
And there was me thinking you were gonna be in a school uniform 😂 🤐🙊
My London Comprehensive School in the 1980s had previously been a Grammar school, but had charitable status so had kept all of its anachronistic old Grammar School traditions - School uniforms, Latin school motto, School Houses, Odd Year names (the "Remove" was between the 4th and the 5th years), Prefects, Sixth Form common room, streaming by academic ability, Combined Cadet Force, Old Boys Association. The main sports were cricket and rugby, though we also had Fives courts and the headmaster had a croquet lawn!
My wife's Grammar School in Kent was equally anachronistic and had rules for the girls' uniforms, the lengths of their skirts (measured each term from ground to the hem to check), School Houses, Prefects and "Deportment Girdles" for the girls with the best poise and posture.
Things are different these days.
It is not a compulsory school, it’s a comprehensive school. Most parts of the uk don’t have middle schools or grammar schools.
The distinction is Grammar School and Comprehensive School (not Compulsory School). Grammar Schools are not that common now- only in a few selective areas. There are two schools of thought on this: the prevalent one is that all children should have an equal education (Comprehensive); the second is that by having a one size fits all education, the focus is on those less capable and the brighter pupils do not get pushed to their full potential. What we have ended up with is "grammar schools by the back door". There is fierce competition to get into 'good' schools. This involves moving to a schools catchment area (not surprisingly property in the catchment area of a 'good' school is more expensive) and the schools only accept a limited number - usually through an interview. This favours children from better off backgrounds. At least the 11+ exam did not discriminate on social background - if you passed you got into grammar school. I did, and went to grammar school even though I was from a single parent household (my mother was a widow).
Our school was arranged into forms, sets and houses. Everyone was in one of 6 houses. Within the houses were sets where students of the same house of all ages except the first and second years met in the morning for registration. All students were in year forms for education up to 3rd year and you had subject lessons with same age students from all other sets. First and second year students met as one form in the morning for registration and stayed together for all lessons. 6th form could meet as lower sixth and upper sixth in their last years.
Simple.
There were approximately 2000 students in a boys only comprehensive school.
What year is this research from???
Primary education 5-12, Secondary 12-18, Tertiary University. Secondary schools are either none selective "comprehensive" in selective counties secondary schools are splint between "secondary modern" & "grammar school". There used to be technical schools as well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_System_of_education_in_England,_Wales_and_Northern_Ireland
Expecting a Tim Horton's sponsorship for some reason
It isn't compulsory schools - "comp" stands for comprehensive (non-selecting). All state schools are comprehensive with the exception of grammar schools or faith-based schools (kind of privately funded, but with some state funding). Private schools can be mised sex but a lot of the secondary schools aren't.
Oh yes and I believe the distinction between Private (Independent) schools and Public schools is that while both are fee-paying schools, Private schools were (and are) more exclusive, whereas Public schools were open to anyone who could pay the fees, irrespective of background, location, religion or profession.
There are very few grammar schools in the UK and the 11+ exam doesn’t happen in all primary schools, only those near grammar schools… and it isn’t compulsory… you only take it if you parents want to try to get you into the grammar school.
Dude I had no idea that British schools ware those uniforms like on Harry Potter. That's awesome.
Not all uniforms are like this. Most secondary schools are polo shirt and sweatshirt, but quite a lot are blazer and tie. Independent schools might have blazer and tie and additional gowns and scarves but only for the very posh.
Hi, In England I went to a Roman Catholic Secondary School, we had a full uniform, blazer with school patch on top pocket , shirt/blouse, school tie, trousers/skirt and shoes. We had boys and girls but separate stairs and playgrounds. Everyone was split into 4 houses, Mathew, Mark, Luke and you guessed it John. One house was alphabetically A to F, then G to something and so on. We had 5 years and a Church nearby that we had to attend on religious school days like Ash Wednesday. We had school coaches not buses but I lived within walking distance. We also had dinners at school but as I lived near I never once in five years had a dinner in there, so I never knew what a school dinner tasted like. After playtime (15 minute break, one in the morning) you had to line up and be lead in one year one house at a time. Sometimes we had to run the gauntlet, the 5th years went in first and would line the corridors you had to pass, then as each year, house came in, got kicked and hit all the way up the line. I only remember that happening a handful of times, but they were fun. Also one kid put a stink bomb into another kids top blazer pocket, punched him to break the stink bomb and ran.....happy days
We never had a prom, it was 1982 and we left and that was it. I went on to college but look back on my school days as great times.