British school system...

Since the British school system is different from the one we are accustomed to in United States, I thought I would try to explain how things work here. I did borrow the below graph from Wikipedia.com, where you will find a much more detailed explanation if you are interested. Just type in "Education in England".



This chart kind of shows the age of children based on the year. The middle section shows how Alyssa and Nathan's school district (catchment area) is set up. Children attend primary school until they reach 11 years and then they will transfer to secondary school which they will be required by law to attend until they are 16. Kids won't have any more changes until they graduate from this school. They go into secondary school as 11 year olds and have to live in peace with the 16 year olds! Yikes!

This is different than the US schools where law requires student to attend school until they are 18. However, England is currently passing a law to require students to stay until 17 years of age.

Currently, when students reach 16 years they have a choice of going on to "Sixth Form" College, where they prepare for GCE A-level examinations required for University, or they can stop their formal schooling and attend a trade school, get a job, or do what they like.

Unlike the US where about 75 percent of high school students move on to attend university, it does not seem to be as important to students here. I could not find any statistics to support this theory, but this is the impression I have. Parents here don't talk about their children going to university like they did when we were in the US. I remember parents talking about which university they wanted their child to attend as their child was crawling around the floor in front of them! Here parents complacently state that "you can't force kids to go". I suppose that seems strange to me because a 16 year in the US is still considered a minor and are still under the guidance of their parents.

I still feel like I don't quite understand the school system here, but I am trying. The fact that you have to spend two full years preparing for college entrance exams here seems a bit daunting to me. I am personally glad that I did not have to do that. From what I here about the exams, they sound extremely hard and stressful!!

Going to college...

Alyssa just started her final year at primary school, "year 6". In the US, that would be grade 5 because here they start "reception" at age 4 so "year 1" for British students starts when the kids in the US start kindergarten. School started the first week of September and three weeks into the year, I have already recieved a letter explaining that Alyssa needed to apply to the "college" of her choice for next year.

In order to apply, I had a choice of either completing a lengthy application by hand or by going to the county website and applying using their secure application process. Being electronically driven, I chose the website.

Before I began, I had to type in a number supplied on the letter I recieved. The number resembled the codes Microsoft uses for product activation in that it was ridiculously long. After this, I found I had to verify Alyssa's age, current school, address, and any medical history that might have a bearing on school related activities.

Finally, I managed to get to the screen that gave me the opportunity to pick our preferred school. Our "preferred school" is 3 miles down the road from the Hardwick Primary School. It is the only public school in our catchment area. It is a very well regarded school and many families move into the village in order to attend the college. As it turns out, however, a very large development further west has added a heavy load to our catchment area and it is no longer guaranteed that we will get to attend this school. The form informed me that I was "encouraged" to select THREE schools as there is a possiblity that we won't get our first choice. This means that Alyssa could potentially get sent into Cambridge for her secondary school.

This knowledge does not sit well with the other parents I know who are also applying for the "Year 7 transfer". They have said that they chose Hardwick more for the schools that the location (perhaps they don't like to spend so much time driving behind farm machinery to get home). We all have our fingers and toes crossed that we will get our kids into Comberton College so that we don't have to spend more time shuttling our kids to school activities than we currently already do!

Despite all of the handwring by parents, Alyssa, thinks it is fabulous that she will be attending "college" next year as opposed to her peers in the States who will be ONLY be attending middle school.

English spellings

Three things of note in Alyssa's year 6 (5th grade) spelling words. They are "Spellings". Dates are formatted DD•MM•YYYY. Plus airplane is spelled "Aeroplane". (Or "spelt" as they say here)
Aerodrome, I suppose is spelled the same way we would do it.
-Dale

Thank you for your custom?

This was a new expression to us. "Thank you for your custom" Does a custom-er provides a business with "custom", or is it our custom to patronize this Hotel? -Dale

Alps

This was in Chatel, France, a ski town about 75 miles from Geneva. These bits are called the "Dents du Midi".

-Dale

A day at the beach...

To celebrate the end of the finishing of school on July 22, we decided to take a family trip to the beach. We returned to Brancaster, shown to us by some friends that has beautiful sandy beaches that are not overcrowded. We took all of our regular beach gear, awning for sun protection, sunscreen, cooler for lunch and snacks, buckets, shovels, etc. However, we were missing the one thing essential for all British beaches: a wind screen. If you double click on the picture to the right, you will notice all the blue and striped wind screens stuck in the sand. The first thing packed here is the wind screen and a mallet to pound it in. We found that out after our emergency purchase of a wind screen that day. The sand was so packed together from the wind and wet that it was like trying to dig a hole in cement. We spent most of the day righting out wind screen since the wind kept blowing it out since we could not get the wind screen poles deep enough.

After a day at the beach, tradition recommends going and getting fish and chips for dinner. We went to nearby Hunstanton for this. Hunstanton is an established beach town with boardwalks, carnival rides, ice cream stands and all things associated with beach going. The boardwalks were not made of "boards" but of cement and probably served both as boardwalk and protection from the sea.

The best part of our day was that it was nearly 80 F and it did not rain!!

Creative thinking...

Alyssa needed to create a costume for a carnival. I thought it was so hilarious that everyone should see it.

Just in case you are wondering, she was a bumble bee.