Not in the early 1980s at least. You're put in a school year based on birthday, the school year starting in September. You then started at school on your 5th birthday.
It may be different nowadays; it would make way more sense to have everyone start in September. I live in The Netherlands and here kids start as soon as they turn 4. They then spend two-three years in the young kids class depending on maturity.
UK 100% back to school now. Hope it will continue that way as life is a lot easier for us and them at the moment and they seem a lot happier and will learn more effectively.
> Yup, it's the part of UK school that happens post compulsory education (so after 16yrs old).
*English & Welsh school. It's also used at the top of many UK private schools — both prep schools (at around 13, where historically it was the sixth "grade") and the public schools (which are, just to confuse everyone, not state schools).
In Scotland education beyond sixteen continues on at secondary school, with no separate institution involved. (Though many in England and Wales have sixth-form colleges attached.)
> Neil describes his pre-university education as “High School”. We don’t have “High School” in the UK - we call it “Secondary School”
Not true at all I'm afraid. Where I'm from (Norwich) we had First / Middle / High School / (Sixth Form or college) splits, alongside other schools that did the Primary / Secondary / 6th split.
The effect of school could be isolated by comparing different countries with different cutoff dates. I believe the American and UK systems are based on age when the school year starts, so the youngest in the class were born in August. Sweden groups classes by birth year, so the youngest were born in December. The Japanese school year starts in spring.
From what little I know about the UK school system, there's actually a natural stopping point at 16 after the GCSE. Between 16 and 18 one would study for "A-levels", or not as the case may be.
I am Bulgarian. I moved to the UK when I was 12. I had to join primary school halfway through Year 6 (the last year of primary school).
The level of mathematics shocked me. They were still learning factorisation, something I had learned years ago. It was a breeze.
Of course, in secondary school (ages 12-18) the content eventually caught up with me. Part of me wishes I could have somehow kept studying the Bulgarian way.
What is surprising even still is that school in Bulgaria was from 07:00 to 13:00. In the UK it's 07:00 to 15:00. You had more time to do homework in Bulgaria and more time to be a child.
Sorry - yeah - I'm in the UK. We have "high school" from 11-16 or 11-18 depending on whether you take A levels (we did).
UK state school system (at least where I went to school) looks something like:
4 or 5 --> about 8 == infant school
8 --> 10 == junior school
11 --> 18 == secondary school / high school
As a UK citizen who attended a straightforward city primary school and secondary boys school your experience is completely alien and fascinating to me.
I had no idea such schools existed, even 20 years ago.
Yup, it's the part of UK school that happens post compulsory education (so after 16yrs old).
Basically post-16 you can go out and work, or learn a trade, go to a trade-school, or continue with your more formal education at 6th Form level at either your school or a college (and we treat colleges as different to a university).
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