So, let's sum everything up!

What is the National Curriculum?

The National Curriculum is the agenda for teaching and learning in schools.  It establishes the subjects taught and the knowledge, skills and understanding required for each subject.  It also sets standards for each subject, outlining targets that children should be encouraged to achieve.  Additionally, the National Curriculum determines the assessment methods that are used to measure children’s progress. 

Schools have the opportunity to choose how to best teach the National Curriculum to their pupils, and to create their own lesson plans and learning methods according to their pupils’ individual requirements. 

The National Curriculum is determined and developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA).  The QCDA is part of the Department for Children, Schools and Family.  As well as setting the National Curriculum, the QCDA arranges assessments, exams and tests, and makes decisions about the qualifications that pupils can take. 

Subjects taught at each Key Stage

Children in Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7) and Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) must study the following subjects:

• Art and design
• Design and technology
• English
• Geography
• History
• Information and communication technology
• Mathematics
• Music
• Physical education
• Religious education
• Science.
   

 Children in Key Stage 3 must study the following subjects:

• Art and design
• Citizenship
• Design and technology
• English
• Geography
• History
• Information and communication technology
• Mathematics
• Modern foreign languages
• Music
• Physical education
• Science
• Careers education
• Sex education
• Religious education.
   

 Children in Key Stage 4 must study the following subjects:

• Citizenship
• English
• Information and communication technology
• Mathematics
• Physical education
• Science
• Careers education
• Sex education
• Work-related learning
• Religious eduction.

I want to present you some famous independent schools.

Cheltenham College Senior School

is a co-educational independent school, located in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. One of the public schools of the Victorian period, it was opened in July 1841. An Anglican foundation, it is known for its classical, military and sporting traditions.

The 1893 book Great Public Schools by E. S. Skirving, S. R. James and Henry Churchill Maxwell Lyte, which had a chapter on each of what they regarded to be England's ten greatest public schools, included Cheltenham College.

Canford School

Canford School is a coeducational independent school for both day and boarding pupils, in the village of Canford Magna, near to themarket town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, in South West England. The school was founded in 1923. There are approximately 630 pupils at Canford, organised into houses and ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen. The school performs well academically and in the last four years has exceeded both the LA and national average for GCSE performance. The Good Schools Guide called the school "Hard to fault, kind, confident, enthusiastic, unpretentious and good all round."

City of London Freemen's School 

(CLFS) is a coeducational Public school for day and boarding pupils, located at Ashtead Park inSurrey, England. It is the sister school of the City of London School and the City of London School for Girls, which are both independent single-sex schools located within the City of London itself. The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.

The Good Schools Guide described the school as "A traditional academic and sporty school in a stunning setting with impressive facilities but not at all elitist – in fact quite the opposite."

Dean Close School

Dean Close School is a co-educational day and boarding school which provides continuity of education from age 2+ to 18. The School was established in 1886, and is set in 50 acres of parkland in the centre of Cheltenham. Visitors regularly comment on the atmosphere, saying how warm and friendly they find it and it is felt that this positive environment can be attributed directly to the Christian heart and principles of the School.  

Dean Close is a Christian school and community which aims to uphold the Christian faith as a positive force for all, including those who do not share this faith.                                                                                                  The School is renowned for focusing on individual development. Small classes, excellent learning facilities plus a 550-seater professional theatre,amphitheatre, 2 floodlit astro-turfs, 25m indoor pool, climbing wall, indoor rifle range, dance studio and fully equipped gymnasium all help to nurture each child’s strengths and talents. With around 260 pupils in the prep school and 500 in the senior school, Dean Close is small enough to allow everyone to know one another and to feel valued. It also allows everyone to get fully involved in the life of the School. However, it is large enough to have an extremely strong boarding community, vibrant and exciting creative arts, impressive academic results and great sports results across all ages.

     

Felsted School

Felsted school is a co-educational day and boarding independent school, situated in Felsted, Essex. It is in the British Public School tradition, and was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich (also known as Riche) who, as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, acquired considerable wealth from the spoils of the Dissolution of the Monasteries including the nearby Leez Priory, which he enlarged and made his own home.. Felsted School has been awarded the Good Schools Guide award twice and is regularly featured in Tatler's Schools Guide.

School meal

In the areas in 1944 it was made compulsory for local authorities to provide school dinners, with legal nutritional requirements. Free school meals were available to children with families on very low incomes. As a result, staple traditional "school dinner" foods became embedded in the national psyche from the 1950s onwards. "School puddings" in particular refers to desserts traditionally (historically) served with school dinners, in state and private schools. Examples include tarts such as gypsy tart and Manchester tart and hot puddings such as spotted dick and treacle sponge pudding.

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government ended entitlement to free meals for thousands of children, and obliged local authorities to open up provision of school meals to competitive tender. This was intended to reduce the cost of local-authority-provided school meals, but caused an eMedical Research Council suggested that despite rationing, children in 1950 had healthi their counterparts in the 1990s, with more nutrients and lower levels of fat and sugar.

This became a major topic of debate in 2004 when chef Jamie Oliver spearheaded a campaign to improve the quality of school meals. School dinners at state schools during this time had normally been made by outside caterers. The schools sold a lot of deep-fried fast-food like chips, fried turkey nuggets, pizza and pies. After the programme was shown on Channel 4 (Jamie's School Dinners), the public showed support for the increase of funding for school meals, causing the government to create the School Food Trust. The topic became a factor in the 2005 UK general election. Some parents opposed Oliver and the scenes of parents passing hot-dogs and hamburgers and chips through school fences was seen.

 

Extracurricular activities

Extracurricular activities are performed by students that fall outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school or university education. Extracurricular activities exist at all levels of education, from 4th-6th, junior high/high school, college and university education.

Such activities are generally voluntary as opposed to mandatory, non-paying, social, philanthropic as opposed to scholastic, and often involve others of the same age. Students often organize and direct these activities under faculty sponsorship, although student-led initiatives, such as independent newspapers, are common.

Examples

• ·         Student government
• ·         Political science organizations
• ·         Internships and other school sponsored work programs
• ·         University societies
• ·         Debate
• ·         Drama
• ·         Guitar
• ·         Sports
• ·         School journalism
• ·         Robotics
• ·         Entrepreneurship
• ·         Orchestra
• ·         Band
• ·         Choir
• ·         Art

School club

These are activities performed by students that fall outside the realm of classes. Such outside the normal curriculum of school or university education or, as in the case of subject matter clubs (e.g. student chapters of professional societies), may supplement the curriculum through informal meetings and professional mentoring.

 

Listen to this funny podcast about school uniform!

 

Eleven plus exam

In the United Kingdom, the 11-plus or Eleven plus is an examination administered to some students in their last year of primary education, governing admission to various types of secondary school. The name derives from the age group for secondary entry: 11–12 years. The Eleven Plus examination was once used throughout the UK but is now only used in a number of counties and boroughs in England. The Transfer Test is especially associated with the Tripartite System which was in use from 1944 to 1976.

The Transfer Test examination tests a student's ability to solve problems using verbal reasoning and mathematics. The intention was that it should be a general test for intelligence. Introduced in 1944, the examination was used to determine which type of school the student should attend after primary education: a grammar school, a secondary modern school, or a technical school. The base of the Tripartite System was the idea that for this purpose skills were more important than financial resources: different skills required different schooling.

Structure

The structure of the Eleven Plus examination varied over time, and among the different counties which used it. Usually, it consisted of three papers:

• Arithmetic — A mental arithmetic test.
• Writing — An essay question on a general subject.
• General Problem Solving — A test of general knowledge, assessing the ability to apply logic to simple problems.

Some exams contain:

• Non-Verbal
• Verbal

Most children took the Eleven Plus transfer test examination in their final year of primary school: usually at age 10 or 11. In certain counties (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire) it also was possible to sit the test a year early — a process named the Ten Plus; recently, the Buckinghamshire test was called the Twelve Plus and taken a year later than usual.

Originally, the transfer test was voluntary; currently, some 30% of students in Northern Ireland do not sit for it.

In Northern Ireland, pupils were awarded grades in the following ratios to pupils sitting the exam: A (25%), B1 (5%), B2 (5%), C1 (5%), C2 (5%), D (55%) and there was no official distinction between pass grades and fail grades.

GCSE

The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The qualification is equivalent to a Level 1 or Level 2 (grade depending) Key Skills Qualification. (In Scotland, the equivalent is the Standard Grade.) Some students may decide to take one or more GCSEs before or after they sit the others, and people may apply for GCSEs at any point either internally through an institution or externally. The educational systems of other British territories, such as Gibraltar,[1] and South Africa also offer the qualification, as supplied by the same examination boards. The international version of the GCSE is the IGCSE, which can be taken anywhere in the world, and which includes additional options relating to coursework and the language the qualification is pursued in.

Structure

In secondary schools, GCSE courses are taken in a variety of  subjects, which are usually decided by the students themselves in Year 9 (age 13-14), however, more increasingly students from many schools in England are deciding in Year 8 to study their chosen subjects in Year 9 raising the question as to whether the exams are becoming easier to pass. Typically though, study of chosen subjects begins at the start of Year 10 (age 14-15), although some subjects start earlier, for example Maths, English and Science, mainly because these courses are too long to be taught within the traditional 2 years; final examinations are then taken at the end of Year 11 (age 15-16). In Northern Ireland, these age groups are designated as one Year higher, so that Year 9 elsewhere is equivalent to Year 10 in Northern Ireland, and so forth. The number of subjects a student studies at GCSE level can vary. Usually somewhere between eight and ten subjects are studied, though it is not uncommon for more, or fewer, subjects to be studied.

In secondary schools, GCSEs are compulsory in the core subjects and are more common qualification taken by 14–16-year-old students. The only requirement is that in state schools English, mathematics, science and physical education are studied during Key Stage 4 (the GCSE years of school). In England and Northern Ireland, students following the national curriculum (compulsory in state schools) must also study some form of information communication technology (ICT), and citizenship. In Wales, Welsh (as a first or second language) must also be studied. These subjects do not have to be taught for any examination (or even be discrete lessons), though it is normal for at least English, mathematics and science to be studied to GCSE level.