UK schools
#1
UK schools
OK, so when I read through all the threads about moving back, I see the school issue come up on 99% of the threads. What is the deal with the UK schools, why do they always seem to be full and why does there seem to be a whole unnecessary competition over which one is better, securing a place is always immensely hard, etc? I don't understand... In Canada you have a choice of public or catholic school, there's always a place and everyone goes to the state school, no naff about private schooling.
I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?
I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?
#2
Re: UK schools
OK, so when I read through all the threads about moving back, I see the school issue come up on 99% of the threads. What is the deal with the UK schools, why do they always seem to be full and why does there seem to be a whole unnecessary competition over which one is better, securing a place is always immensely hard, etc? I don't understand... In Canada you have a choice of public or catholic school, there's always a place and everyone goes to the state school, no naff about private schooling.
I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?
I'm genuinely interested in the climate and politics of the UK system and why it is the way it is. Is homeschooling possible in the UK? Or is it heavily regulated/banned?
Details are here..
Ofsted | Home page
People can apply to go to a school outside the cachement area, BUT these applications ae only looked at if the school has not filled it's places. Therefore parents movig would be likely to look at OFSTED gradings for thier local schools, and try to find a house in their prefered area. This does, in some cases, lead to the problem of the boundary of a cachement area running the length of a street, and house prices on the side with the better schools being higher than those on the other side of the street where the schools may not be graded so high.
#3
Re: UK schools
The league tables that were brought in more than a decade ago have effectively created a situation where parents who care about their children's education and can afford to move if the schools in their area are bad send their children to the high achieving schools. Because children in high income families and whose parents are engaged in their education tend to do better at school, the divide between better and worse performing schools has widened considerably, and most of the better performing schools are oversubscribed.
Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
#4
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 41,518
Re: UK schools
Some of it is related to the Greenwich ruling:
BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places
Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places
Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
#5
Re: UK schools
Schools get their pupils from a specific cachement area, and as in all countries some are better than others, but the UK has a organisation ODSTED, which visits all schools, looks at the building, facilities, staff and exam results, from this data they do classify schools.
Details are here..
Ofsted | Home page
People can apply to go to a school outside the cachement area, BUT these applications ae only looked at if the school has not filled it's places. Therefore parents movig would be likely to look at OFSTED gradings for thier local schools, and try to find a house in their prefered area. This does, in some cases, lead to the problem of the boundary of a cachement area running the length of a street, and house prices on the side with the better schools being higher than those on the other side of the street where the schools may not be graded so high.
Details are here..
Ofsted | Home page
People can apply to go to a school outside the cachement area, BUT these applications ae only looked at if the school has not filled it's places. Therefore parents movig would be likely to look at OFSTED gradings for thier local schools, and try to find a house in their prefered area. This does, in some cases, lead to the problem of the boundary of a cachement area running the length of a street, and house prices on the side with the better schools being higher than those on the other side of the street where the schools may not be graded so high.
The league tables that were brought in more than a decade ago have effectively created a situation where parents who care about their children's education and can afford to move if the schools in their area are bad send their children to the high achieving schools. Because children in high income families and whose parents are engaged in their education tend to do better at school, the divide between better and worse performing schools has widened considerably, and most of the better performing schools are oversubscribed.
Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
Homeschooling is completely legal in the UK and not heavily regulated.
Some of it is related to the Greenwich ruling:
BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places
Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
BBC News | Education | The scramble for school places
Homeschooling is fairly widespread.
#6
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 41,518
Re: UK schools
Okay, makes sense... Another question now - are all the schools gender separated? (Ones that are should "get with the times" IMO - like seriously?) And i'm assuming there are "public" (ie non-religious) schools in the UK. Unlike Malta, where your ONLY option is catholic schools!
Yeah. In the article Sally posted it said "gone are the days where you just send your children to the nearest school and they move on to the nearest secondary .............." - that's how it is here. Whether its any better i'm not sure.
Thanks.
Yeah. In the article Sally posted it said "gone are the days where you just send your children to the nearest school and they move on to the nearest secondary .............." - that's how it is here. Whether its any better i'm not sure.
Thanks.
'Comprehensive' schools are mixed, some areas have 'grammar' schools from the old system and they are usually (?) single-sex.
#7
Re: UK schools
I'd say from what I've seen on BE it seems pretty accurate.
Are the grammar schools gradually switching over to the new system? For some reason I thought "grammar schools" were better than normal ones?
#8
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 41,518
Re: UK schools
The comprehensive system came in right around the time I went to high school. It incorporated all children. However, some grammar schools continued.
#10
Banned
Joined: Jan 2011
Location: The REAL Utopia.
Posts: 9,910
Re: UK schools
We had no problem at all getting our 2 into a good local school. Of course like anywhere in more densely populated areas it would be harder to get places as schools dont have an endless amount of space.
#11
Re: UK schools
The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
#12
Re: UK schools
The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
With regards to the muslim stuff - that is just terrible tbh... All of them should be investigated and/or closed down if need be. Its hard to say, not hire muslim teachers, they'll cry discrimination. Although if its a catholic faith-based schools they could only hire catholic teachers?
#13
Re: UK schools
The vast majoruty of schools are mixed, i.e. not single sex, there are a few, noe very few, that are still single sex, and most of them are the 'public schools', which in the UK are private fee paying schools. There are still a few parts of the country with grammar schools, which do have entrance exams and only those that pass get to go there (me in the 50s) while at that time the schools for the rest were called 'secondary moderns', and in many places the grammar and secondary schools were in the same grounds, this made it so much easier for the authorities to amalgamate them when they became 'comprehensive'. There has certainly been a shift in recent years to 'Academies' which do concentrate on ceretain subjects. There has also been a big upsurge in 'Faith Schools' which are, as the name suggests, for people of a single faith, but the majority of these have been in Muslim areas, and there is a lot of suspicion that they are being used to foster hard-line Islam teachings, so much so that in some areas they have had the board of govenors removed and replaced by people put in by the government, and the curriculum overhauled and many teachers sacked because of their teachings.
#14
Re: UK schools
#15
Re: UK schools