English School Systems and Teaching requirements

[jboulet4648]

Curiousity has me....

How is the school system set up in England? What levels correspond to US high Schools? What levels correspond to college? I teach at a community college here in the states, basically freshman and sophmore year, does the UK have a similar system?

What requirements are needed to teach at the high school level or intro college level, in terms of certifications needed or degrees needed? Is it the same for private schools and public?

Thanks
Judah

 

[PaulDG]

Curiousity has me....

How is the school system set up in England?

Parents are required to arrange an education for all children from the school term in which they have their 5th birthday to the end of the school year in which they turn 16. There are currently proposals to extend this to 18.

They do not have to attend state schools (or any schools, actually) to achieve this, but the vast majority do.

Many children begin school in "Foundation" at around age 3.

School years are counted as follows:

--------- Primary School -------------
Reception: School year of 5th Birthday
Year 1: 6
Year 2: 7
--------- Middle School ---------------
Years 3 - 6 (age 8 to 11)
--------- High School -----------------
Years 7 - 11 (age 12 to 16) Options to extend to 18
--------- College or University ---------
Vocational Qualification, Higher Study or Degree
(typically until around 21 - longer for "professions" such as medicine, etc.)

What levels correspond to US high Schools? What levels correspond to college? I teach at a community college here in the states, basically freshman and sophmore year, does the UK have a similar system?

Our school age transfers are different to yours see above.

What requirements are needed to teach at the high school level or intro college level, in terms of certifications needed or degrees needed? Is it the same for private schools and public?

To teach in state schools, a specific teaching qualification is required which is essentially post-graduate. Generally a teacher must have a Degree in a "National Curriculum" Subject. The Independent sector (what you'd call Private Schools but we call "Public Schools" for historic reasons) can employ on whatever basis it wants.

Oh and everyone in the UK who works with children - as a school teacher or like many of us on this site as volunteers doing such things as refereeing the occasional schools rugby match - has to be checked against our central "Criminal Records Bureau" ("CRB Enhanced Disclosure") to ensure they have no record of any offences or even suspicions of involvement with child abuse.

There a lot more here:

Becoming a Teacher:

http://www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit.aspx

The English "National Curriculum"

http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/Default.htm

 

[jboulet4648]

thanks much

 

[OB..]

In 1976 I went to the USA for three years with children aged 4 and 7. In 1988 I had a second tour - children now 16 and 19 obviously. I thus have a fair range of personal experience with moving from one system to the other, and could bore you for hours about it.

But I won't.

Small anecdote. When we arrived in 1988 our daughter started at the local High School, and we chatted to the counsellor to find out what classes she needed to take. (She did not enjoy having to join the 9th graders for Americana!) Mathematics was a thorny problem. Basically in the UK it is treated as one subject whereas in the US the bits are separated into arithmetic, algebra, geometry etc. The counsellor's question was, "How many courses has she done?" I tried to explain how that did not make sense in UK terms, so she looked at the GCSE certificate and said, "Well she must have done at least two, because it says here 'maths', and that's plural."

 

[PaulDG]

I Mathematics was a thorny problem. Basically in the UK it is treated as one subject whereas in the US the bits are separated into arithmetic, algebra, geometry etc.

Ah - that explains a lot. As a kid I always wondered why the TV shows the US inflicts on us usually had a kid in them who'd "hate algebra".

I didn't even know what algebra was. It wasn't until much later that I realised that "maths using letters to represent numbers you don't actually know yet" was "algebra" - and it's only from the above that I now know Americans treat it as a disconnected subject.