Hello again and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. Hello Anlan.
Hello everybody.
So what are we going to talk about today?
So today we're gonna be talking about going to school in England.
This episode is gonna be mostly about England, Scotland and other parts of the UK, they have a slightly different system.
So first of all, when you talk about schools in English, you do mean school as in for people under sixteen, for example, right?
In British English, school just means from the ages of four, five to sixteen.
So it's essentially like, uh what we say 中學小學生，so this would be school. What's the general education system like in the UK or in England?
Is it also kindergarten, primary school and then secondary school?
Absolutely. Um. We don't normally say kindergarten though, we'll call it nursery.
Oh nursery. I've heard of that. So that's British English. Nursery, 幼兒園，so that's for kids three to five?
About three to four, three to five. It does depend. It's not compulsory in the UK.
Oh, so you don't have to go to a nursery school.
No, but you have to start school at the age of around five, that's the primary school to the age of eleven. And then at eleven you will change to a secondary school.
So far, quite the same, slightly different in terms of age, but roughly the same with primary school and then secondary school.
However I do hear a lot of different names for your secondary school. Uh for those of you who watch English TV shows, you might have heard of things like comprehensive, and also grammar school. So what's all that about?
So a comprehensive is a state school 公立學校。And a grammar school is a school which you have to pay for.
So it's like a private education.
Yeah, or get a scholarship to.
Um so comprehensive is like normal school, your ordinary school for everyone. There's a secondary school from age eleven to sixteen?
Yes that's right. So at the age of sixteen then children will do their GCSES.
GCSES, is that a certificate like a high school graduation?
Uh similar, it's an exam that pretty much all English children have to do. It stands for general certificate of secondary education.
Ah it is like high school graduation. And after that do they just go straight to university or start working?
No, they go to a six form which could be part of their school, or they go to a college. These are all between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. So they would do their A levels there. But we'll talk a little bit about that in a future episode about universities.
But anyhow college or six form is what you do after high school and then before you go into university, it's a bit like 大學預科。
Sort of yeah.
I think many people are very interested in what schools are like in the UK because we know more about universities, less about schools. What is a school like in the UK?
Okay. They tend to be a bit smaller than schools in China. There's not so many students. It's normally run by a headmaster. If It's a man or headmistress if it's a woman, or sometimes they also call them head teacher as well. We don't say principal, principal is American.
Yeah, so earlier you mentioned comprehensive, they are state schools. Is it completely free?
Uh, yes, so a comprehensive is completely free and you get into a comprehensive based on your catchment area. So based on where you live.
Ah, we talked about that in housings like 學區房，catchment area. So how big are the classes? You said it's smaller than in China.
The classes of a maximum of around thirty students and the same sort of principal, as in China you have the teacher and it's normally the same teacher that usually teaches all subjects at primary school.
At primary school, and secondary school, they're different teachers.
Secondary school, different teachers would teach different subjects.
You know one thing really interesting it's uh in China we say uh XX老師，that's why a lot of students would say teacher Lulu which is obviously not English. What do English people call their teachers in primary and secondary school?
In primary and secretary school, they would call them either MR … or Miss … , use their surnames. Or generally we'd also call them sir or miss.
Miss, even when they're married?
Even when they're married. It's just a term that we would use.
So as a habit.
Yeah. So we'll say like Sir or Miss.
Very interesting. Another common mistake people make is the difference between pupils and students because they can both be translated into 學生 in Chinese. What is the difference?
Pupils is more for school. So for example it's a difference between learn and study in English. So we say that pupils learn at school, uh they're being taught by a teacher. But students is more university because they have to study, so a lot of self-study.
Very good, so pupils learn and students study. And what is a school year like? In China we have a two term system we have summer holiday and winter holiday. What about in the UK?
In the UK, we have three terms. So we don't call them semesters that's American English. So you have the autumn term which is September to December; the spring term which is January to March.
January to March? Oh yeah and then you have Easter break.
Yeah, you have the Easter holiday, then you have the summer term which is April to July.
Actually I'm seeing a lot of holidays all year round.

Yeah that's … we do break up for a holiday. At the end of term, holidays are generally two weeks, so two weeks for Christmas, two weeks for Easter. Summer is roughly around six weeks.
Six weeks, one and half months.
But in between in the actual terms themselves we also have half term holidays. So that's a week.
So essentially that's also difficult for parents because their kids are constantly on holiday.
There's lots of holidays, but also if parents want to take their children on holiday, holidays and flights become very expensive…
Because everyone's on holiday.
Yeah.
okay. Uh and a common school day is from?
Well a common school day on average is between nine o'clock in the morning to three thirty in the afternoon. But it depends on the school itself. Some schools open earlier. Some schools finish a little bit later.
And after that do they have extra classes, extra courses or cram schools?
Not so much, no. Um lot of after school activities are quite popular, so they have lots of music clubs, dance clubs and sports as well.
So it's more like interest, more like activities rather than cramming for like math or…
Yeah, private tutoring and those sort of kind of supplementary classes, they're still quite rare in the UK.
Um. Let's talk about what you mentioned earlier that the public and private education or state and private education. Many people who watch like Harry Potter might think schools in the UK are like Hogwarts.
Well there are some schools that look a little bit similar to Hogwarts.
They'll be very expensive schools.
Yep, these are very expensive schools and these are what we call in British English: public schools.
Public school. So in the UK public school is actually not 公立學校。
No, it's private.
It's very very expensive private school. This is very confusing for people outside of the UK.
It's also very confusing for Americans as well because in America public school is what we would call a comprehensive school.
So it's more like a state school. 英國的public school they are very expensive private schools,like Eton and Harrow.
Yeah Eton and Harrow have been around for hundreds of years, so those among the most famous of the public schools. And a lot these schools are normally boarding, so students have to live there.
Is that why when English people, when they hear boarding school, you're from a boarding school, they assume is quite expensive private school.
Yeah.
Ah that's why because I went to a boarding school and when I tell people in England they're like ah your family must have lots of money.
Oh absolutely because state schools are not boarding and it's these schools that lots of politicians, lots of very important people in society, they go to these schools and this has led to a complaint or an expression that we say in English: the old boy network.
The old boy network, so it's people who went to these prestigious elite schools.
So these are all former public school students that would help each other out…
Because they're all at positions of importance.
Well yeah, in industry and finance and also in government as well.
In the end, let's look at some of the expressions in English about schools.
Yeah. So for example we would say as easy as ABC.
As easy as ABC, to mean something very very easy. This is what you learn first at school. And a teacher's pet?
Teacher's pet is, it's the teacher's most favorite student…
And also the ones that really like to be around teachers, asking them questions, sucking up.
Well yeah pretty much, so if someone calls you a teacher's pet, that's quite negative thing.
Once I've also mentioned doing something old school means doing something old fashioned, in an old fashioned way.
Yeah it's having an attitude or an idea of something that was popular and was important in the past, but it's no longer considered relevant anymore.
For example, he's very old school.
It can be positive, it can be negative, it depends on the context. And there's also another expression that uses school and that is school of thought.
A school of thoughts, ah~ here school would be 流派。
Yeah.
A school of thought and also in terms of art, in terms of any movement, you constantly hear school, like Bauhaus school. Education or school is a big big topic, I think we can expand it in the advanced episode.
Absolutely there's lots and lots of information. So if you are interested, please leave a comment. Hopefully we've given you a nice introduction, there's so much more to learn.
We will wait for you in the advanced episode.
Until then
See you next time bye.

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