Chapter 5

I.                 BRITISH EDUCATION

1.    School attendance

-          Age of compulsory full time school education:

+ Full- time education is compulsory up to the middle teenage years. (5-16)

+ Education is free

       + The academic year begins at the end of summer.

       + Three recognized stated:

The first stage (primary): At the age of five, last until they are eleven

The second stage (secondary): at around the age of eleven or twelve

The third stage (tertiary): is ‘further’ education at university or college.

-          School year:

+ Schools usually divide their year into three terms, starting at the beginning of September

·        Autumn term: Christmas holiday (about 2 weeks)

·        Spring term: Easter holiday (about 2 weeks)

·        Summer term: Summer holiday (about 6 weeks)

·        In addition, all schools have a ‘half- term’ (= half- term holiday), lasting a few days or a week in the middle of each term

+ The older children get, the more likely they are to be separated into groups:

·        according to their perceived abilities

·        sometimes for particular subjects only

·        sometimes across all subjects

+ Some schools teach all subjects to ‘mixed ability’ classes

-          School life

+ There is no countryside system of nursery (pre- primary) schools.

 ·     In some areas, primary schools have nursery schools attached to them, but in others, there is no provision of this kind.

    + Children do not begin full- time attendance at school until they are five       and start primary school.

      + Almost all schools are either primary or secondary school only

      + Schools work five- day week, with no half- day, are closed on Saturdays

      + The day starts at or just before nine o’clock, finishes between three and four, or a bit later for older children.

      + The lunch break lasts an hour- and- a- quarter

·        Nearly two- third of pupils have lunch provided by school

·        Parent pay for this, except 15% of poor people

·        Others go home for lunch or take sandwiches

     + There is a balance between formal lessons (with the teacher at the front of the classroom) and activities (in which children work in small groups round a table with the teacher supervising).

·        In primary school: Teacher teaches all subjects

·        At age of seven and eleven: take national tests in English, math and science

·        Secondary school: different teachers for different subjects with regular homework

  2.    Curriculum

-          The national curriculum is being introduced gradually and will not be operating fully in all part of Britain until the end of the 1990s

-          There are three national curricula: for English and Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland

-          The organization of subjects and the details of the learning objectives vary slightly from one to the other

-          Subject-matter of teaching:

·        At the lower primary level: emphasis on three Rs (Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic (số học)

·        At the higher levels: emphasis on science and technology

3.    Organization

-  There is comparatively little central control or uniformity.

- Education is managed not by one, but by three, separate government departments:

·        The Department for Education and Employment is responsible for England and Wales

·        The Department for Scotland

·        The Department for Northern Ireland

     - Role of these central authorities:

·        No much control over the detail of what actually   happens in the country’s educational institution

·        Ensure the availability of education

·        Dictate and implement overall organization

·        Set overall learning objectives up to the end of compulsory education.

 -          Central government:

·        Does not prescribe a detail programme of learning or determine what book and materials should be use >>> Only offers occasional advice about how schoolchildren should learn

 ·        Does not dictate the exact hours of the school day, holidays or age at which a child must start in full- time education

 ·        Does not manage an institution’s finance >>> Only decides how much money to give it

 ·        Does not itself set or supervise the marking of the exam which older teenagers do

 -          In general, as many detail as possible are left up to the individual institution or the Local Education Authority (LEA, a branch of local government)

-          Reason for this level ‘grass-roots' independence: the system has been influenced by the public-school tradition that a school is its own community