How Your School works

Daenerys

Daenerys

The Last Dragon
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I've noticed that many English people don't get how american schools work, and vice versa. so in this topic explain how your school works.

For me my secondary school works like this :

for the first three years we have to do

3 hours of english per week
3 hours of maths per week
3 hours of science per week
2 hours of PE History and Geography per week
3 hours of french per week
1 hour of Art Drama Music and ICT per week
1 hour of woodwork
1 hour of Cooking / sowing
1 hour of RE

Then at the end of our 3rd year - called Year 9 - we get to choose 5 optional subjects.

We have to keep English Science Maths PE and RE. i chose:

Double science - which means we have 5 hours of science per week instead of 3. We also get a double GSCE or something
History
Geography
French (Worst decision ever)
Drama

so that means we have 2 weeks now. week 1 goes like this

Monday - Maths, english, French, Re, Science
Tuesday - Maths, Drama, Science, Science, PE
Wednesday - French, History, History, English, Maths
Thursday - English, Science, Pe Theory, History, Drama
Friday - English, Geography, Geography, French, Science

and week 2


Monday - Maths, english, French, Re, Science
Tuesday - Maths, Drama, Science, Science, PE
Wednesday - Drama, History, History, English, Maths
Thursday - English, Science, Pe Theory, Geography, Drama
Friday - PE, Geography, Geography, French, Science

Theres also an option to do Media studies on a monday after school for i year and i did that too.


so how does your school work? I bet it's less complicated than mine =]
 
Eh, I'm in college now.

I'm currently taking three courses.

Monday: from 1:00 pm to 5 pm Humanities and from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Philosophical latin aphorisms

Tuesday: from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm Philosophy of Education

Wednesday: Free

Thursday: Same as monday

Friday: Same as Tuesday

College uses credits, The Humanities course I'm taking is worth 6 credits and the other two courses are worth 3 credits each.
 
It's not just America and England that are different; as a matter of fact, Scotland and England are very different, too. Ridiculously different. I'm not really fond of the way my system works, but there we go.

We start with Nursery at about age 4 or 5, and that's just basically a cheap creche. There wasn't much for us to do there; although, back in the day, some pedal-bikes with 10 stabilisers on either side and a sand-pit was more than enough for us.

Incidentally, my Nursery was built as an extension to the Primary School. At about age 5 or 6, you go into Primary 1, all the way to Primary 7 at about age 11 or 12. There's not much variety in Primary School and there wasn't much of a definitive course for us to follow. Although, looking back at my age now, there must have been SOME kind of schedule to follow.

We then pop off to high school, still at age 11 or 12. High School works in terms of years, so we're in 1st year, all the way up to 6th year. We sometimes say S1, S2 all the way to S6, short for Secondary 6.

In first year, my school had 4 compulsory periods of Maths and English every week, two perids of music, three of science (which rotated every term between Physics, Chemistry and Biology), three of social studies (which also rotated each term between Modern Studies, History and Geography). There were three periods of French/German [to this day, I'm not certain how the decide which language you have to take when you get to high school], two periods of PE and two periods of RE, three periods of Computing [ICT] and three more periods of Home Economics.

When we get into second year, it's exactly the same, except me may or may not change teachers, and Home Economics is exchanged with CDT [Craft, Desgin and Technology].

At the end of second year, we're given option forms. This is the first chance we're given to pick out own subjects, but the classes are divided into 8 columns based on ... genre? Maths and English were, again, compulsory, and so was a secondary language and a primary science, but these were multiple choice.

The columns change often, but I picked; ( [] indicates number of periods per week)
Maths [4], English[4], History[3], French[3], Chemistry[3], Business Management[3], Music[3] and Biology[3], in that order.

Two more periods of PE and RE were also compulsory, making the weekly 30 periods as per usual.

Now, for the next two years, we're stuck with those subjects because, at the end of fourth year, we're given our first set of exams, the Standard Grades. With the exception of English, graded in the typical A, B, C, every subject is graded in levels.

Level - Grades.
Credit -1 & 2.
General - 3 & 4.
Foundation - 5 & 6.
Fail - 7.

Credit being the highest and Foundation being the lowest. Now, for the bright sparks, English isn't sat at a Standard Grade, we're often stuck in either an Intermediate I or an Intermediate II class, Int. 2 being the highest.

So we sit our exams at the end of fourth year, but not before choosing five subjects for 5th year - where we get our Highers, the qualifications, which allow us into Universities and whatnot. We get six periods of every subject, which works out as every class, every day and a double-period of each class every day. I think mines works out as double Music on monday, double Maths on tuesday, double Chemistry on Wednesday, double English on thursday and double Biology on friday.

The only compulsory subject to take in 5th year is English. Even RE can be dropped at this stage. We can pick which levels we want to sit, too - Highers, Intermediate II's or Intermediate I's, Highers being the highest.

I'm currently in fifth year (or, at least, I will be when the summer ends on Tuesday), but I know how sixth year goes, mostly. English can finally be dropped and we have to take a minimum of three classes and have the oppurtunity for free/study periods if we don't want to fill the final 12 periods. I believe the levels are 'Higher Still' and 'Advanced Higher,' AH being the highest.

We'll see :P
 
It varies here as well. Every state has their own Education Standards and codes. For example, most states are trying to push for math and science to get introduced earlier, whereas the state of Alabama thinks the concept of fractions is unnecessary.

For my particular high school in California, we had a set of requirements to fill, but we could choose to fulfill them whenever we wanted to with the exception of the classes that where required every year (like English).

Our school's days were cut into six class periods of about one hour each, and each period was designated with a certain class. So you'd have six hours of a certain class per week always at a certain time slot. These periods (Period 1-6) was the required school day that we had to attend.

Most extracurriculars were done either during "zero period", the class time slot right before the start of the official day, or during "seventh period" which is the time slot right after the official day ends.

Basically the requirements were:
-4 years of English
-2 years of History (1 of World, 1 of US)
-1/2 year of Economics
-1/2 year of US Government
-2 years of Mathematics (must reach at least Algebra 1 proficiency)
-1 year of Fine Art
-2 years of Physical Education
-2 years of Foreign Language
-2 years of Science (1 of Bio, 1 of Chem)

And generally the rest of your schedule can be filled in with elective classes, such as Graphics, Interior Design, Human Anatomy/Physiology, etc.

Basically we change our schedule every year (sometime semester).

Class years:
1st - Freshman
2nd - Sophomore
3rd - Junior
4th - Senior

Generally most people will try to fulfill their requirements during their first two years, so that their junior and senior year can be filled with more electives and only a few required courses that they couldn't take as freshmen or sophomores (such as 4th year English).
 
My school as corrupt teachers, student bandits and a very good Social Education Program.

It means that when you do something bad you have to go to the Social Education class for some the rest of the school year.

Besides that we have about the same program as other people already posted.
 
Riku said:
It's not just America and England that are different; as a matter of fact, Scotland and England are very different, too. Ridiculously different. I'm not really fond of the way my system works, but there we go.

We start with Nursery at about age 4 or 5, and that's just basically a cheap creche. There wasn't much for us to do there; although, back in the day, some pedal-bikes with 10 stabilisers on either side and a sand-pit was more than enough for us.

Incidentally, my Nursery was built as an extension to the Primary School. At about age 5 or 6, you go into Primary 1, all the way to Primary 7 at about age 11 or 12. There's not much variety in Primary School and there wasn't much of a definitive course for us to follow. Although, looking back at my age now, there must have been SOME kind of schedule to follow.

We then pop off to high school, still at age 11 or 12. High School works in terms of years, so we're in 1st year, all the way up to 6th year. We sometimes say S1, S2 all the way to S6, short for Secondary 6.

In first year, my school had 4 compulsory periods of Maths and English every week, two perids of music, three of science (which rotated every term between Physics, Chemistry and Biology), three of social studies (which also rotated each term between Modern Studies, History and Geography). There were three periods of French/German [to this day, I'm not certain how the decide which language you have to take when you get to high school], two periods of PE and two periods of RE, three periods of Computing [ICT] and three more periods of Home Economics.

When we get into second year, it's exactly the same, except me may or may not change teachers, and Home Economics is exchanged with CDT [Craft, Desgin and Technology].

At the end of second year, we're given option forms. This is the first chance we're given to pick out own subjects, but the classes are divided into 8 columns based on ... genre? Maths and English were, again, compulsory, and so was a secondary language and a primary science, but these were multiple choice.

The columns change often, but I picked; ( [] indicates number of periods per week)
Maths [4], English[4], History[3], French[3], Chemistry[3], Business Management[3], Music[3] and Biology[3], in that order.

Two more periods of PE and RE were also compulsory, making the weekly 30 periods as per usual.

Now, for the next two years, we're stuck with those subjects because, at the end of fourth year, we're given our first set of exams, the Standard Grades. With the exception of English, graded in the typical A, B, C, every subject is graded in levels.

Level - Grades.
Credit -1 & 2.
General - 3 & 4.
Foundation - 5 & 6.
Fail - 7.

Credit being the highest and Foundation being the lowest. Now, for the bright sparks, English isn't sat at a Standard Grade, we're often stuck in either an Intermediate I or an Intermediate II class, Int. 2 being the highest.

So we sit our exams at the end of fourth year, but not before choosing five subjects for 5th year - where we get our Highers, the qualifications, which allow us into Universities and whatnot. We get six periods of every subject, which works out as every class, every day and a double-period of each class every day. I think mines works out as double Music on monday, double Maths on tuesday, double Chemistry on Wednesday, double English on thursday and double Biology on friday.

The only compulsory subject to take in 5th year is English. Even RE can be dropped at this stage. We can pick which levels we want to sit, too - Highers, Intermediate II's or Intermediate I's, Highers being the highest.

I'm currently in fifth year (or, at least, I will be when the summer ends on Tuesday), but I know how sixth year goes, mostly. English can finally be dropped and we have to take a minimum of three classes and have the oppurtunity for free/study periods if we don't want to fill the final 12 periods. I believe the levels are 'Higher Still' and 'Advanced Higher,' AH being the highest.

We'll see :P
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You missed out the fact that 5th year and 6th year are optional, providing that you are of the age of 16 or over. If you aren't 16-years-old by a certain date then you have to either stay in for 5th year or go to full-time education at a college as I left after my exams in 4th year.

I can't really remember the early parts of Secondary school but I think in 1st and 2nd year it was 4 hours of Maths and English a week, 2 hours of P.E., 1 hour of R.E. a week, 3 hours of Science, 1 hour of Home Economics, 2 hours of French & German, 1 or 2 hours of Craft & Design (Unsure but I think it might be 2 hours), 3 hours of History/Modern Studies/Geography (You never got all 3 of them at once. About 3 classes would be in History, another 3 in Modern Studies and the last 2 in Geography and it would rotate around the other classes) and 1 hour of Computing (1st year only).

In 3rd year, I picked Science, P.E. Studies, Craft & Design, Administration, History and German and then there was the non-optional ones (English, Maths, R.E., P.E.)
 
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You missed out the fact that 5th year and 6th year are optional, providing that you are of the age of 16 or over. If you aren't 16-years-old by a certain date then you have to either stay in for 5th year or go to full-time education at a college as I left after my exams in 4th year.
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Not if the Government get their way; they want to increase the compulsory leaving age to 18, ergo, all of the twats we lose after 4th year have to stay on. But aye, you're right at the moment.

Someone's from Scotland xD[/FONT]
 
Yup, pretty shit that the government want us to stay till we're 18...apparently it will stop as much neds (Scotland's version of american "gangsters" except they are retarded) from drinking, abuse and what-not.
Yup, neds are evil, abusive to all and damage for fun.

That's Scotland that we live in today America, but hey my friend is getting an anti ned army up and running...yay. but moving on

In my school we have 6 years of secondary. 4 years are compulsory depending on your age. you can stay till 6th year max to study higher and advanced higher subjects. periods are split up into 50 minutes and there is 6 in one day. so, in 1st and 2nd year you get...
English [4 periods], maths[4], social subjects, french/spanish, science[3],RE and PE[2], Home-economics/art, construction/graphics and communications/design, music[1]
(Home ec and art switch over after a number of weeks, the same goes for contruction/design/graphics and comms)

Exact same happens in second year. In 3rd year you pick your subjects. You pick 5 out of every subject, but english maths and the other language is compulsory.
Now depending on how smart you are you get put into a level in standard grade such as standard grade, Intermediate 1 and Int2 (standard grade=worst, Int2=Best)
All except english which is either Foundation, general or credit(Foundation=Worst, Credit=Best)
You get these subjects for 2 years then you get your exams which determine what you do in life, If you get good grades you can continue on with higher in 5th year and then advanced higher in 6th year. you can leave between the end of 4th year and the end of 6th year, however, you can only leave depending on your date of birth.

Now, I'm only in 4th year and am gonna stay on till 6th year to get advanced higher grades but as I hear you pick your subjects again in 5th year and once again in 6th year and they will be the only subjects you do and you get them 5 periods a week. i think someone said you also have to take english as a compulsory subject so i suppose that all adds up.

Thats the basics. anything else just ask.Yup, pretty shit that the government want us to stay till we're 18...apparently it will stop as much neds (Scotland's version of american "gangsters" except they are retarded) from drinking, abuse and what-not.
Yup, neds are evil, abusive to all and damage for fun.

That's Scotland that we live in today America, but hey my friend is getting an anti ned army up and running...yay. but moving on

In my school we have 6 years of secondary. 4 years are compulsory depending on your age. you can stay till 6th year max to study higher and advanced higher subjects. periods are split up into 50 minutes and there is 6 in one day. so, in 1st and 2nd year you get...
English [4 periods], maths[4], social subjects, french/spanish, science[3],RE and PE[2], Home-economics/art, construction/graphics and communications/design, music[1]
(Home ec and art switch over after a number of weeks, the same goes for contruction/design/graphics and comms)

Exact same happens in second year. In 3rd year you pick your subjects. You pick 5 out of every subject, but english maths and the other language is compulsory.
Now depending on how smart you are you get put into a level in standard grade such as standard grade, Intermediate 1 and Int2 (standard grade=worst, Int2=Best)
All except english which is either Foundation, general or credit(Foundation=Worst, Credit=Best)
You get these subjects for 2 years then you get your exams which determine what you do in life, If you get good grades you can continue on with higher in 5th year and then advanced higher in 6th year. you can leave between the end of 4th year and the end of 6th year, however, you can only leave depending on your date of birth.

Now, I'm only in 4th year and am gonna stay on till 6th year to get advanced higher grades but as I hear you pick your subjects again in 5th year and once again in 6th year and they will be the only subjects you do and you get them 5 periods a week. i think someone said you also have to take english as a compulsory subject so i suppose that all adds up.

Thats the basics. anything else just ask.
 
This is how my WELSH, I repeat, WELSH NOT ENGLISH primary/high school worked.

Right:

PRIMARY SCHOOL

Playgroup - age 2-3 (not actually part of the school, but we had one on the grounds in a different building)
Nursery - age 4 (my nursery was an extension of my primary school)
Reception - age 5
Year 1 - age 6
Year 2 - age 7
Year 3 - age 8
Year 4 - age 9
Year 5 - age 10
Year 6 - age 11

We basically did the lessons we were told to do :P

HIGH SCHOOL:

Year 7 - age 12
Year 8 - age 13
Year 9 - age 14

From Year 7 - 9, you have to do every lesson offered in the school. Compulsory subjects like Maths, Science, English (My school is *unfortunately* a Catholic school, so RE was manditory). Side-subjects were offered too, like ICT, Art, French, Music, Resistant Materials.

At the end of Year 9, we choose to take on 3 side-subjects for our GCSE exams. We drop all the others. We have to keep our manditory subjects too.

I chose:

Art, Product Design (essentially Resistant Materials), and French.

Aerith Gainsborough said:
Double science - which means we have 5 hours of science per week instead of 3. We also get a double GSCE or something
History
Geography
French (Worst decision ever)
Drama
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You too?! Do we go to the same school? XD

Then the GCSE years are two years long. You take the GCSE exams at the end of the second year, Year 11.

I've just done my GCSE exams and will get my results in about 4-5 days ... I'm really hoping for an A* in English :P but I doubt it.

The next two years are optional:

Year 12 - Lower Sixth Form, you take your AS Level Exams. It's half an A Level. You can choose a maximum of 4 AS Levels to continue, of any subject. There are no manditory subjects. You need to have at least a C in GCSE of this subject to continue it for AS Level.

Year 13 - Upper Sixth Form, you take your A Level Exams this year. A Full A Level. You do the AS exams so you have something to fall back on incase you fail these. You can drop a previous AS subject if you're taking 4, but the minimum you can take is 3.

I'm staying for Sixth Form.
 
Okay, since the California system's already been mentioned, I'll mention my Filipino schedule. :monster:

Everything is based on memory. This was a private school I attended so everything might not have been conforming to the actual law curriculum and I'm pretty sure the teachers just made up the curriculum as they went lol.

The earliest possible entry into the educational system is through Kindergarten, usually you enter at age 4 to 5 years.

Just a side note, everything is MANDATORY in the Filipino school system, which means that you are assigned classes not based on what you choose, but on what level the administrators think you can handle adequately. You can't get held back for failing classes, though most who do actually choose to hang back a grade or too, but there are a whole summer full of remedial classes that you HAVE to take because...it's mandatory. :]

Grade 1 - I remember we took all the core subjects, i.e. Science (general science, there's no chemistry, no physics, no anatomy, etc. etc.), Math, and Reading (English), there's no History yet. *tear* Add P.E. to the mix and you've got the basic curriculum.

Grade 2 - yet again same core subjects, but introduction of tougher P.E. xD

Grade 3 - addition of Geometry to Math, though the whole subject is still named Math. Addition of basic Chemistry and Physics to curriculum. Additon of Music and Art. Addition of History.

Grade 4 - addition of advanced Geometry to Math. >.< Ugh, how I hated this. Addition of more Chemistry and Physics.

Grade 5 - same as 4 with addition of difficult stuff.

Grade 6 - same.

7th Grade is also First year High School. Before I immigrated to California, I was in fact, a high-schooler already. :monster: But then I was bumped down to middle-school here on account of being too young. -_-

Also, another thing. Remember that mandatory stuff? Mandatory cheerleading. :monster: No appeal to it. :'(
 
College. I get to pick whatever classes I want. Classes can run all day, any day of the week, it's our pick. I usually try to get all my classes out of the way late in the morning, and maybe have one early afternoon class.
 
New York State

3 1/2 Years of English
3 Years of History. Two years of European and Asian History. One year of US History. (Thank god)
3 Years of Science, year of Earth science and Biology. Third class is a optional science subject.
1 Year of Fine Arts (Sadly enough, and all of the damn 9th graders destroy the art supplies.)
4 Years of Foreign Language (Spanish, Italian, French)
3 Years of Math
4 Years of Physical Education. (Yes....it's sad. The school budget goes to Physical Education and the football team but not to art and new books.)
1/2 year of Economics
1/2 Year of US Goverment

Rest was optional such as Chemistry, Physics, Drama, Music etc.

My school had 9 classes a day and had two different days. A and B days, which were just switching one class to another. Each class was about 40mins long. I'm long done with High School though.

At least I don't live in Texas. My boyfriend said in Texas you had to take a class on Texas government and history.

As for college, each college is different in the US. Depends on what the state wants as well.
 
Here in the state of Texas, in high school (usually grades 9-12), you get to choose from 3 different diplomas. Each of them has a certain number of credits for graduation and also different courses of study. Once you have chosen which diploma you want to pursue, then you have to spend the next 4 years completing the required courses to obtain enough credits to acquire that diploma. All schools are different, but here is a sample of a schedule back when I was in high school.

A Day;
1st period: English
2nd period: History
Lunch
3rd period: Phys. Ed.
4th period: Physics

B Day;
1st period: Math
2nd period: Home Ec.
3rd period: Chemistry
Lunch
4th period: Business Computer Information Systems

In college you get to pick what degree you want to pursue. Once you figure that out then you have to take all the courses required to obtain that degree. You get to choose the time and the teacher that suits your schedule.

Every semester (half a year) of a completed course earns you half a credit. High schools require a minimum of 27 credits to graduate. Colleges have different requirements depending on the degree. Hope this helps.
 
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