I’m moving to the UK soon and I tried learning about the education system but it confuses me to the point when I stop thinking and sit in silence because I’m used to elementary and high school (at any age if it’s public school) but I don’t get the year 3 or 10 or levels or these capital letters put together and I wanna cry I’ve never felt this stupid.
Like, I’m in grade 10 and I’m going to London. Do they have textbooks? Can I get them online (for free haha)? I want to study it before going there. Do I choose what I want to learn? Please explain it calmly and in detail dissected please
In: Other
In most of the UK, school is split into primary (age 5 – 11) and secondary/high school (age 12 – 16). The actual grades are called “years”, and kids go from Year 1 to Year 11.
At the end of Year 11, at age 16, you sit your final exams of secondary school. These are called GCSEs, and you sit one exam (plus coursework) for every subject you’re studying. Certain core subjects are mandatory for all students (English and Maths are always mandatory at every school), but in Year 9 (age 13/14), kids choose which subjects they want to do at GCSE level and drop the rest. You have to take a minimum of 5 subjects, but most students take 9. There’s no upper cap.
After your GCSEs, you’re required to stay in some kind of school until you’re 18, but you have a choice about exactly what kind of schooling you want to do for your last two years. There are a few options, but the most popular ones are:
* Stay on at school for another two years and sit another set of exams, called A-Levels. This is the most straightforward “academic” option, and usually what people pick if they want to go to university afterwards.
* Start an apprenticeship. This is usually for people who want to go into a trade, like plumbing. It lets you start working while training.
* Do some kind of vocational course, like a BTEC, at a community college.
What options will be available to you will depend on how you did on your GCSEs. For example, if you wanted to do a English A-Level, you would have needed to get a decent grade on your English GCSE.
Hope that helps.
In America, during high school you’ll do your SATs then go to a 4 year university.
In the UK, during year 11 you’ll do your GCSEs. Once you’ve done your GCSEs, you can take a few different paths in your life. Generally if you’re trying to go to university you’ll then go to college for your A levels.
At A-levels you’ll take 3-4 subjects. This is your year 12 and 13.
Once you’ve done your A-levels you’ll go to university, which for a bachelors is generally 3 years.
I went to school in the UK, I left about 5 years ago so I might be a little out of date for how it works, but basically;
– Start primary school at the age of 5, and they are then in ‘year 1’ (think of year groups like American ‘grades’)
– each July the school year ends and school holidays begin, the following September kids go up a year (e.g year 1 goes into year 2 etc)
– in year 6 (age 11) you take the first standardized tests – the SATs (Standardized Assessment Tests). You have SATs in each subject.
– Years 7-13 are ‘secondary school’ – think middle school and high school put together. Secondary schools look at a kids SATs scores to see whether they want the kid. Some schools have entrance tests, but not always.
– in year 7 (age 12) you normally do pre-chosen subjects by the school, but when you get into year 10 (age 15) you start learning for the next group of big exams – the GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education). You have to do GCSEs in certain subjects, maths, English, but this is where students first get to choose – if they want to drop history and religious studies, and pick up a new language for example. In total I think you need to do 11 subjects, but it’s been a while for me so it might be more/less.
– GCSEs are taken in year 11. Everyone has to do GCSEs, and stay in education until they turn 18, but after GCSEs you can choose to start an apprenticeship (basically paid to learn a job, which can be anything from building to carpentry to accounting), or you can stay in school to do AS or A levels (or BTEC but i don’t know much about those)
– AS levels – you normally pick 4 subjects, and they can be anything (as long as your school has teachers for it). Some schools have what’s called “Sixth Form” (which is just an old timey way of saying year 12 and year 13) where you’ll do AS levels, or A levels (which are a bit harder so you only do 3 subjects)
– universities will look at the grades your teachers predict in year 13 for your A level or AS levels. and give you an offer for a degree if you want to go to uni
In general the system is very standard and the same across the country. If you have any questions about what I’ve said (or fellow Brits want to correct me, I’ve been out of school for a while) just ask! It can be a confusing system even for kids who grew up in it.
As for textbooks, yes you can get them, I’d recommend looking on Google for that – I think the BBC has a lot of online resources for everything up until year 11.
The UK has a bunch of different education systems. And some wonderfully confusing terminology.
There are separate, government-funded systems in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, each with their own terminology, rules and levels. Because these systems change every so often there are schools using older systems and ones using newer systems.
This includes some publicly-funded religious schools, and an increasing number of privately-operated but publicly-funded schools (many run by multi-school trusts). Some of these schools are selective (only let some students in), most are oversubscribed.
There is a healthy(ish) private school system that runs across the country. These are schools that are privately-run and privately funded, with fees for the students. As these are private they run on a mix of the different systems.
On top of that there are the “public schools” which are a group of elite private schools, which mostly do their own thing.
Some of these schools are boarding schools where students live at the school, there are mixed schools (some boarders, some day students), and there are single-gender schools and mixed-gender schools. It is all a giant mess. And – as with much of the UK – the system is crumbling. Some schools are doing great with plenty of money and resources, some schools are literally falling apart (there is an on-going scandal involving a particular kind of concrete used in older school buildings that has a habit of crumbling).
————–
So, you are in US Grade 10, and going to London. In the main English system that would be Year 11 (in Scotland it would be S4, in Northern Ireland Year 12).
In the state-regulated (so publicly-funded) school system Year 11 is the 5th year (and sometimes final) year in “Secondary school.” Year 11 is the second year of “Key Stage 4”, which used to be the final level of compulsory education in England. In the “public school” system it would be 3rd year of school.
Key Stage 4 ends with national “public exams” called GCSEs. Students sit 5-9 of these (maybe more if they are keen), including in English, Maths, some form of science, and usually some foreign language. The courses are set by the Government, but the exams are run by private organisations or exam boards. Individual schools choose which exam board to go with for which subject. Students tend to get some choice in which options they study (beyond the compulsory ones), but the schools may limit that (depending on which teachers they have available). Some subjects (and exam boards) require course work, but almost all have exams that are sat in May-June, at the end of the school year.
Rather than simply graduating school as you might do in the US, academic success is measured based on how many GCSEs you get, and what grades (in England they are graded 9-1, with 9 being the best, and 5 and above being a good pass).
Joining a school in Year 11 is going to be awkward as you are joining in half-way through the courses. You may have to do some extra work to catch up in some subject (although you’ll also be ahead in some others).
———-
Year 12 and Year 13 are Key Stage 5, sometimes called Sixth Form. Some secondary schools cover these years, or there are dedicated schools that just do sixth form, called “colleges.” At sixth form students generally pick 3-5 subjects to study for “A-levels”, more advanced versions of GCSEs, which they sit at the end of the two years. Getting decent A-levels is generally needed for going to university (which generally have 3-year undergraduate courses, or 4-year in Scotland – and cover just one subject). University applications are done at the start of Year 13, but offers are usually conditional on getting certain results.
————
Text books will be provided by the school, and will depend on the subject and exam board. A lot of the material is available online – [BBC Bitesize](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/secondary) is a great resource for the basics, but there are plenty of websites with information. Also /r/GCSE
The school year is generally split into 3 terms, September-December, January-early April, late April-July, usually with a one-week “half term” break in the middle. Many schools will have school uniforms, they will have compulsory sports or physical education (but generally not examined), and the school day tends to run from about 9am to 3pm, but this will vary from school to school.
I’m a fellow student in the UK
You are in high school from year 7 to 11, in year 11 you finish your GCSE’s (11 – 16)
After that you move to college 16 – 18 and then basically you are free from education, unless you wanna go to university
You start school in the UK during the first September after your 5th birthday. Typically, kids start at an infants school (kinda like kindergarten in the US). Three years later, kids go to a primary school (sometimes called a junior school) for four years.
Finally you do five years at a more advanced school. These are usually called comprehensive schools (or comps for short) but other arrangements exist, especially for religious and private schools.
*Note that the fanciest schools in the UK are called public schools which are very different from state schools, despite the name. These places cost a lot of money per year.
Grades in the UK are called years. During year nine (the third year of comp) students do exams called SATs. In year 10 and 11 students study for their main qualifications, called GCSEs.
Some GCSEs are mandatory (such as maths and English). You get to pick the rest.
When I left school in 2004 you could quit education at 16. These days, some sort of education is mandatory until 18.
The most common form of post-school education is college, which is kinda like high school in the US, but it’s a bit more like a junior university. Some schools have their own post-16 education department, called a sixth form. Confusingly, some colleges call themselves a sixth form even though they don’t have a school attached to them. Such as the college I attended.
In all the schools I attended, textbooks were provided by the teachers on a lesson-by-lesson basis (i.e, they’d be handed out at the start of lessons and collected at the end). Some additional text books could be bought fairly cheaply.
Lessons usually last one hour. The school day tends to be from 9am to 3 or 4 pm. Many schools finish specifically at 3.20, for some reason.
Latest Answers