Schools

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 17 Mar 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

raeanne	17 Mar 2002
Hi all, In another thread, Diana was explaining a bit about the schools in the area of Switzerland where she lives. I have also heard others talk about “A level exams” and stuff that doesn’t make much sense to me. In my graduate classes, someone said they taught astronomy and physics in a grammar school. In the USA, grammar school is 5-12 year old children! In the country where this person lives grammar school is for 16-18 year old students. (I about had a heart attack over that one!) So, I was wondering, what is the school system like in your area? Who is allowed to go to college and who isn’t? What restrictions are there on education? What is the cost? How do you progress from one grade/level to the next? Do you have to take a test to move on?

Malachite	17 Mar 2002
UK system:.... Primary School:...4yrs to 11yrs old, roughly... Some private schools require entrance exams...I'm not sure if there are private schools for kids this young, but there might be... Secondary School:..11yrs to 16yrs... Ends in GCSE courses, forming the last two years, with exams at the end....end of compulsory education. Private secondary schools usually require entrance exams. State schools do not. Sixth-Form/Higher Education College: 16-18yr olds.. Sometimes attached to the secondary school. Mine is. Used to be a two-year A-Level course, now two One-year courses which together count as an A-level. A single-year course is an AS. My year group was the first through the new system. Most students do about three courses at this stage...the new system allows you to take more than you need, and drop what you don;t like after the first year...I did one year of chemistry class, for example... Thats the basic school system...there are schools which take students from 10-14, and other weird private establishments... Generally, there are no actual limitations on what you can achieve, but there is some lee-way for schools to do it themselves... For example, when I was doing GCSE maths, which is one of the three compulsory subjects, there were 5 or 6 groups, streamed by ability, so that teaching could be done fairly, which has some merit...its no use teaching a class where the bright kids are getting bored, and the dumb/uninterested/disadvantaged kids can't keep up....However, the GCSE exam papers came in three levels....Higher, Intermediate and Lower tiers...the mark schemes were staggered, so that if you entered on a higher paper, you could get grades A*, A,B,C, and if you didn't get C grade, you were failed. An intermediate paper ran from B-D, and a lower tier from C to G....intermediate-paper entries were therefore exluded from getting an A-grade, even though it might have been within their ability... who was entered for what paper was a decision made by the teacher and student, but it still annoyed a couple of people who weren;t confident that they could get a c-grade on the higher paper, but still wanted a shot at fluking an A-grade... Another example is the GNVQ course, which is an alternative to the A-level...it takes about twice as much teaching, and counts as two a-levels, but its the courses offered are vocational...like 'Health and Safety', or 'Travel and Tourism'...*it's basically to do something with those students who managed to get good enough GCSE grade to enter college, but who probably couldn;t manage an A-level*...basically, if you do those courses, you're being taught how to work in a dead-end job for the rest of your life... University entry depends on getting good grades at A-level...each grade has a value in points...some universities ask for grades, others for points, from a certain number of courses...ie: 240 points from a maximum of three courses...which was my offer for Archaeology and Ancient History from Lampeter University...it works out at three B-Grades at A-level...or ABC, or AAD, or whatever else adds up right... Basically, you right off to up to 6 places...they are not required to give you any kind of offer...some genius students get unconditional offers straight up, but most get offers requiring certain grades, like the above...some require interviews as well, before deciding whether to offer...Once all your choices have given you offers/declined etc, you can pick two...one as your main choice...if you then get the grades, you're going to that uni...the other is allowed in case you fail to meet the conditions for your first choice... If you dont get the grade for either, or if you didn't get any offers, there's a kind of first-come-first-served process called Clearing, where the universities hand out any spare places they have going...I don't know if you still need some kind of qualification to get in that way.... And then of course, going to different universities will get you different priority later in life....Cambridge or Oxford second-degrees will probably get you a job over a first from anywhere else, for example...

The Schools thread was originally posted on 17 Mar 2002 in the Chat board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Chat, or read more archived threads.