How schools work in England

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This project was invented by the parents of the eighth-graders of our lyceum. Very talented organizers who perfectly implemented their idea. But at the time of the discussion of the idea, I was among those who did not believe.

Our teachers and children went to Oxford for two weeks, where in the morning we integrated into a state English school, and in the afternoon we walked around Oxford, London and their environs. Integrated means they broke up one by one and without friends, parachutes and translators, they lived the life of English schoolchildren or teachers.

As a result, I saw one school from the inside. Therefore, I do not pretend to be an overview of the British school system. I just want to share what surprised me and my students in one of the British schools.

We visited the state Secondary school, where children 11-18 years old study. You cannot take pictures at school. You can't even get your phone out. So prepare your imagination. The school is not a single building, but a complex of small two-story houses with narrow corridors, each with its own specialization. Due to the fact that I am a biology teacher, I only visited the administrative building and the science department. Here I watched the lessons of biology and natural science (this is such biology, physics and chemistry in one bottle). In general, all the teachers ended up only in the corps according to their profile. And the children visited all the buildings, including the sports complex.

What Russian students told

In any class in math lessons, they count on a calculator. This especially surprised the guys. One of our girls at recess entertained her temporary classmates by answering the multiplication table by heart. This fun was a great success. In general, mathematics turned out to be too old for the children: the program lags behind ours by about two years.

There are many lessons in which everyone is just having fun. In drama class, ninth graders were taught how to apply makeup. In art class, seventh-graders redrawn advertising pages from a glossy magazine into a notebook. You could choose an advertisement to your liking, put a magazine sheet under pure white and neatly circle it with a pencil. In the lesson titled "Religion", they learned that any dispute is best resolved in court. The history lesson with the theme "Dictators of the XX century" was about Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.

There is a lot of practice in science lessons. About the fact that during two weeks of staying here my eighth-graders managed to open the sheep's hearts and cut the cow's eyes, I already wrote on Instagram. And there were also experiments with electricity, soaping rulers in order to reduce friction and laboratory experiments in chemistry.

Our guys told: “In their lessons, you can do whatever you want. You would have killed for that. The category “what you want” includes: eat, drink, do not complete tasks, talk, do not listen, do not write, sleep

Our students also noted: “You don't have to go to lessons if the physical education instructor has appointed you additional sports” and “They have four lessons a day. Why can't we do this here?"

What I learned from local teachers

This is a public school. She teaches according to the state standard, but does not prepare for higher education. If parents want their child to go to university, they must send him to a private school or to Grammary school - something like a public school for gifted children. It is necessary to pass exams there and it is difficult to study there.

Everyone from the assigned territory (like our micro-site) is admitted to a regular public school. It is compulsory to study at school. But the teachers do not celebrate those present at the lesson. This is done electronically.

All teaching materials are purchased by the school. Including notebooks, pens, rulers, not to mention textbooks. Parents pay only for school and sports uniforms

It is different for all schools. Each school chooses its own corporate color, it can be diluted with white and black.

At the beginning of the academic year, each teacher is given a book in which the lesson content of his subject is described. You cannot change it. In the same book there are control and verification works for the whole year, they also cannot be changed. This is strictly controlled. These books are free for the teacher. The school orders them from special catalogs. This moment touched me the most.

Apparently, our reforms in the field of education are leading exactly to this. Standardization, with all its pros and cons. Someone who works poorly, perhaps by following the standard, will start to perform better. This is all hope. Because the one who works creatively, knows and is able to do more than is provided by the standard, selects different tasks for different classes and builds the lesson in different ways, he, I am sure, will get bored at work and will work worse. Or he will leave the profession, it is good if he will go to tutoring.

It is really possible not to go to lessons if the student has sports today. These students (up to half of the class) immediately come to school in sports uniform. And they are only in those lessons that fall in the break between workouts. If the break ends, they get up, tell the teacher: "I'm going to sports." And they leave.

Classes are mixed at the beginning of each academic year. The very concept of a class does not imply a joint study. This is the organizational structure. Every day, at the beginning and end of the day, a class meeting takes place, at which announcements are made, comments are made, directions are given for the near future. For lessons, groups are formed depending on which optional lessons who chose. And all this must be formulated into a schedule. Because of this choice, individual children may have breaks between lessons of up to one and a half hours.

Parents can only come to school twice a year at the appointed time for one-to-one discussions with the teacher. The time allotted for one family is five minutes. If there is a force majeure, parents can be called additionally. But, as I was told, this rarely happens.

What I saw with my own eyes

The teacher is not worried about the discipline in the lesson. He broadcasts his own, the disciples do theirs. The teachers I have met simply do not waste their time and energy on comments and putting things in order. For me, a zealous supporter of the army order in the lesson, what was happening seemed very unusual. And yes, thoughts of “killing” did arise.

Not everyone is in uniform. It always seemed to me, backed up by scientific data from the series, that it was only our fools who were trying to jump out of school uniforms and jump into something unregulated.

It turned out that the argument “I have my pants in the wash” is international. And some of the students really sit in sports shorts, receive some messages on the phone, get up and go to sports in rows

Now, at the Olympics, I foresee a crushing victory for the English team. And Friday here is generally a sports day. There are no other lessons, everything is in sports. Saturday is a day off.

The structure of the lessons is similar to ours. I do about the same and in about the same order. Only there is no concept of "theme". In one lesson, they study the sheet, its internal structure and functions. On the next one they study animals, for example, insects. Most likely, I just did not understand why this is so.

And still, everyone works differently. Teaching is the work of individuals. Richard, one of the teachers I met, knows how to turn any standard standard into an adventure. He himself makes presentations for the lessons, which, according to him, does not often happen with teachers, and makes them just amazing. Impeccable logic, the highest quality images, laconic comments. He explains wonderfully: scientific enough, but very understandable. At the same time, he is very artistic, he has subtle humor and frankly loves his work. He also says that leadership values him.

It can be funny to emerge from your pond and see what is there beyond the distant seas. To be surprised at something, to be indignant, to admire something. Of course, it seems to me that what I'm used to is normal, and everything unusual is striking. Apparently, unhealthy conservatism is a kind of my professional deformation. Returning to Novosibirsk by plane, the students and I decided to value each other more.