System, in the United Kingdom!

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So, in the UK, in England specifically where we live, we have gone through the British

educational system.

[Singing] Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. So, if we are

going to start at the very beginning. Pre school, or as we call it 'Nursery' in the

UK, is where a child would go from age three... Well you can actually start earlier, if your

parents are full time working you can put your child into nursery from one years old.

All the way up until about four when you start school. You don't have to go, it's not a legal

requirement. It tends to be for parents that are like Lia said, are either working or if

you want to get your child a bit integrated and used to being away from you, and being

around other kids.

Then, at age four you go to primary school. Or elementary school as I believe some people

call it. Not here, we don't call it that. I'm just trying to touch all the bases. American

etc. I don't know what elementary school might be called in other places in Europe but just

primary school is what we call it here. You go from the term before your fifth birthday.

Anyway, it's around late four to five (years old) is when you start. You start by going

into Reception or year R. Reception is what we call it. It's so sweet. So reception is

the first year in school and that's the cutest year. You start, year one, year two, year

three, all the way up to year six. By that point you should be age 11. You have exams,

I think they are called SATS that determine what set you will be in (at secondary school).

Set one, set two, set three, when you go to high school. Based on how clever you are.

When you turn 12 you go to big school. Big school, which we call secondary school. So

it might be referred to as high school but over here we call it secondary school or informally

we might call it big school because you've just come from little school - where you were

a big fish in a small pond and you go to be a small fish in a big pond.

Yes so in my school, my primary school, there were 30 people or less in the year [in comparison

to my] secondary school, there were 150 in every year group. I know there's a school

near me where there is a 1000 in each year group. It's huge! Massive!

So every secondary school has their own specialism as well in the UK. The one I went to was a

performing arts specialist school so all their facilities were amazing, based around the

arts. But you can get sports based schools, you can get science based school. What was

yours? Ours was a technology specialist school. So you probably had loads of great computer

systems. Amazing stuff! That [secondary school] is between ages 12 to 16.

Some people might call the year group 'grades' in the US. But their grades don't match our

year groups. So year six isn't necessarily grade six. That's why it's confusing. You

go all the way through from year 8, 9, 10, 11. In year 11 you have exams. Yep, GCSE's.

Then you have choices to make. You can decide to stop your education. In the UK you can

stop school at 16, you're ok to just go straight into work. Do whatever you like. Or you can

go on to study, and from there you either go sixth form or college. Sixth form or college

or an apprenticeship which is the same as going away to work. But you have choices.

We both chose to go to college.

So the main difference between college and sixth form is that traditionally, a sixth

form is attached to your secondary school. So you would do year 7, 8 , 9, 10, 11, sixth

form, sixth form. So you'd do two years of sixth form [year 12 and 13].

But a college is a completely separate institution. So you'd go year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 at [secondary]

school, and then you'd go to a completely different place and you'd do two years at

the college. But both of our colleges called themselves a sixth form. Even though they

weren't attached to a school. Bizarre. England need to sort that out. It's not clear.

I prefer saying sixth form to college. Sixth form sounds a little bit more posh. The reason

being is because at a college in England you can choose to study things like hairdressing,

plumbing, vocational studies. Things that aren't academic might be offered at a college

whereas at sixth form it would just be a - levels which are Maths, English, Sciences, Languages.

[Joel] I did English Language, Psychology, History and Theatre Studies.

[Lia] My a-levels were Maths (which I dropped at AS level), English Literature, Theatre

Studies and Media Studies.

Which was a nice mix.

When you've finished college, obviously you go onto university. University is not for

a set amount of years. Whereas school and college is. University can go on for years

and years. Depending upon the subject you choose to take. So as a rule, at university

your course will be three years long. Also you will pick your subject before you go which

I found out from my old American flatmate. That, in America you don't do that. You just

go to college which is their version of university and you sort of take loads of different modules.

So you could do a module in art, you could do a module in science and you can do a module

in this. You end up getting your path towards what you want to do, whereas in the UK, you

chose your subject and then thats it.

So after going to drama school, I chose to study English and Linguistics at university

and thats what my degree was. But in the US you can just choose loads of different little

bits [before choosing what you actually want to do]

I would prefer that. Then I might have actually gone to uni. It's very hard to pick one thing

that you want to do for that amount of time - nothing interested me that much to want

to want to go and do it [for three years]. Other than doing, well Joel and I went to

drama school and that obviously really interests me so that's why I did it. It's expensive

too, the fees of going to University in the UK are 9,000 a year. A few years ago it was

only 3,000 a year. But we can't complain because I know that in some countries you pay tens

of thousands per year and they don't have student loans either.

The [UK] government will pay for us to go to University but then we have to pay them

back but it gets taken out of your pay when you get a job. £20 a month could come out

of your bank account to pay off your [student] loan.

So education in the UK, in England specifically, on the whole, can be done for free. Up until

you get to university because then it's a choice. Going to university isn't [compulsory].

I didn't go! If you do want to go it's 9,000 pounds a year [or a student loan]. So, additionally

you can pay to do college and school if you choose to go private rather than comprehensive.

I know it can be really confusing when you're talking to someone about education and they

might say "Oh i'm in grade.. blah blah" or "I'm a sophomore at college".What does it

mean? It's really confusing.

Also with the whole public school private school state school thing. In the UK, public

school means private school, and so does private school. But in the US, public school means

state school. Yeah, free. The word public school here means they've paid. Neither of

us went to public school because public school means like, Harrow, Eton, etc. It's very correct.

I don't have the words to explain it. Neither of us went. I'd say we went to private school

rather than public school. Because public is slightly different.

So I hope that's made it a little bit more clear, especially for people who are trying

to understand what the education system is like over here. I think it's really interesting,

do let us know if it's like that where you're from. I don't think it is, it's going to get

so confusing. The comments are gonna get confusing. But we will end it there!

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