Independent, private

Part One Educational Institutions and Their Work

I. TYPES OF INSTITUTION

1. In England there are both state and independent (or pri­
vate) institutions.Before dealing with the various institu­
tions, it is worth giving the names of the bodies and people
respons'ble for the state system of education, together with
their functions, as some of them will be mentioned in discus­
sing the institutions, and all of them occur in the press and in
books on education.

The Department of Education & Science (DES)is the min­istry responsible for national educational policy. Until 1964 it was called the Ministry of Education, and (government) department has the same meaning as ministry.

The Secretary of State for Education & Science,or, in less formal style, the Education Secretary,is the minister who heads the DES.

The local education authorities(LEAs) are responsible for:

providing and maintaining schools in their areas in accord­ance with national policy;

the day-to-day administration of schools, the employment of teachers, and the curriculum (see unit 397), although in practice much of this responsibility is delegated to head teach­ers;

post-school education, except for universities (see unit 28).

The chief education officeris the official at the head of a local education authority. In some areas the title director of educationhas come into use instead.

independent, private

The word independent,when applied to an educational institution, means "independent of the state". However, such independence is not complete. For example, independent schools must register with the DES and be open to inspection by the Department; universities are increasingly dependent on the Department from the financial point of view (see unit 28).

Privateis often used of educational institutions in the same sense as independent, especially in non-formal style. Strictly speaking, however, a private institution is one run mainly for the profit of its owner(s), in contrast to other, non-profit-making institutions, which are controlled by some form of governing body.

PRE-SCHOOL INSTITUTIONS

IN ENGLAND

3. nursery school

This is a school fot children under five, mainly from three to five. Attendance is not compulsory, and in any case there are not enough of them to take all children of that age group. Although they are called schools, they give little formal in­struction (in the sense of systematic teaching). The children spend most of their" time in some sort of play activity, as far as possible of an educational kind. Most nursery schools are state institutions provided by the local education author­ity, but there are also some independent nursery schools.

4. day nursery

Day nurseries take children from two months to five years, and are run by the local health authority. Besides the fact that they take younger children than nursery schools, there are some other differences between the two types of institu­tion, which Tyrrell Burgess, in his GUIDE TO ENGLISH SCHOOLS, describes as follows: "Broadly speaking, the differ­ence is in the word school. A day nursery meets a social need: it minds children while their parents are at work. A nursery school is an educational establishment and is more positively concerned with the children's development. Nursery schools operate during normal school hours (approx. 9 a. m.— 4 p.m.) and observe normal school holidays. Day nurseries are nor­mally open for longer, and remain open virtually all the year round. What is more, you pay according to your income for day nurseries run by the local health authority; the local education authority's nursery schools are free."

5. kindergarten

This term of German origin, is defined by the SOED as fol­lows: "a school for developing the intelligence of young children

by object-lessons, toys, games, singing, etc., according to a method devised by Friedrich Froebel". *

The word was used to denote the first free schools in Brit­ain for children of pre-school age, the so-called free kinder­gartens, forerunners of the nursery school. It is now used in England only of certain private schools, nursery school being the usual term. However it is sometimes used by English people in a wider sense than that given in the SOED, to mean any school for young children. In this case it often refers to foreign countries, for example, the USA or Australia, where there are establishments called kindergartens.

6. creche

This word, of French origin, is defined in the SOED as follows: "a public nursery for infants, where they are taken care of while their mothers are at work, etc." According to BEE, it was originally used for day nursery and is still used to denote a few such nurseries pioneered by the church at the end of the 19th century, when there were no state-run nurs­eries. In modern English, however, it more often denotes something temporary, arranged to fulfill a specific need. For example, a creche is sometimes organised while a meeting is being held, to enable both parents to attend.

Play group

This is a small group organised on a voluntary basis, usu­ally by the parents themselves, for children under fivewho cannot get into a nursery school or day nursery.

IN THE SOVIET UNION

8. Ясли can be translated as (day) nursery and детский сад
as kindergarten or nursery school. Remember, however, that
the age groups do not completely coincide (see units 3-5).

SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND State Schools

9. state/maintained school

Although the expression state school is widely used in written and spoken English, the official term is maintained

* a German educational reformer (1782-1852)

School.This is used in official announcements, publications, etc. but is usually avoided in everyday situations, since it is very formal and not self-explanatory, even to many English people. It means "maintained", in the sense of "kept in good repair, organized and staffed", by a local education author­ity. Maintained schools may therefore also be called local authority schools.

County school

This is a synonym of maintained school or local authority school, as the local education authority is usually at county level.

Voluntary school

This is a school founded by a church or other collective body but now partially controlled by the local education au­thority.

12.State schools in England are still generally divided into
primary schools(ages 5-11) and secondary schools(11-18),
although some local education authorities have recently intro­
duced new divisions, with different ages of transfer (see
unit 17).

The primary/secondary stage in/of educationis sometimes used in formal style.

e.g. At the primary stage children are taught by one teach­er nearly all the time, whereas at the secondary stage they have a different teacher for each subject.

In everyday speech and writing, however, we would use: ini at primary I secondary school(s). There is no difference of meaning here between in and at. The definite article is some­times used with the singular forms: in/at the primary I secondary school

Primary school

By primary school we usually mean in practice schools for children from five to eleven, although officially the primary stage also includes pre-school institutions.

A primary school in the generally accepted sense is usual­ly divided into two parts, or departments:

the infant(s') department— for children from 5 to 7 the junior department— for children from 8 to П These may be in separate buildings and have separate head

teachers, but they are normally very close together or are housed in the same building under one head. If there is one school, the expressions infant(s')/junior department are used; if there are separate schools, infant(s')/junior school. Infants/juniors are also used as plural nouns for children of infant/ junior school age.

e.g. Margaret used to teach infants, but this year she's taking juniors instead.

14. elementary school

This term was formerly used in England, but is now obso­lete, referring to the period between 1870 and 1944. It de­notes the state schools established by the Elementary Educa­tion Act of 1870 for children from five to thirteen. After the Education Act of 1944 these schools became secondary mod­ern schools. In America, however, elementary school is still the usual word denoting a public school (BrE state school) for children of 6 to 12 or 13.

15. secondary school

This is a general term for any school taking the age group 11-16 and over (up to 18/19).

16. grammar/technical/modern school

These are the three types of school in the so-called tri­partite system of education introduced in 1944. This system was retained in most areas until the early 1970s, but was increasingly replaced by the comprehensive system (see unit 17 below). By 1979 the majority of local education authorities had reorganised secondary education in their areas on compre­hensive lines, and the older, tripartite system now continues to exist only in about a quarter of all local authority areas. The rest of this unit therefore applies only to these areas.

Grammar schools provide a predominantly academic edu­cation and prepare pupils mainly for higher education. The name grammar school was given to them because grammar, particularly Latin grammar, formed an important part of the curriculum of the original grammar schools, some of which were founded as early as the Middle Ages.

Technical schools were the heirs of the junior technical schools, which date from the beginning of this century. The new secondary technical schools were planned as the academic equals of the grammar schools, but specialising in technical

subjects. However, there were never many of these schools, and for various reasons they were widely considered inferior to the grammar schools.

Secondary modern schools were established in 1944, on the basis of the former elementary schools (see unit 14). The word modern implies a contrast with classical. These schools were to teach modern subjects, in contrast to the grammar schools, where classics (that is, Latin and Greek language and literature) traditionally formed an important part of the curriculum, although their importance is now declining. The modern schools were given the task of providing a gen­eral, non-academic education for children of average ability. Most secondary modern pupils leave school at 16 (the min­imum school-leaving age since 1972), either to start work or to do some kind of vocational training.

Children are allocated to the different types of secondary school according to their results in the eleven-plus (11+) examination. The name eleven-plus appears to refer to the age at which children transfer to secondary school, rather than to the age at which they take the examination (in their last

year at primary school, at about ). There is no national

examination; each local education authority devises its own. However, they have much in common, and generally consist of intelligence tests, tests in English and arithmetic, and some­times English composition. In addition to the examination, some LEAs take into account primary school teachers' assess­ments, and some interview the children. Those children with the best results go to a grammar school, on the assumption that they are capable of benefitting from the academic type of education provided there. On average 20% of children go to a grammar school, although the percentage varies from one part of the country to another, according to the number of grammar school places available in each area. In districts where there is a secondary technical school, children who do well in the П + may go there instead, if their parents choose. Since the prestige of the technical school is often lower than that of the grammar school, children with slightly lower marks are often accepted. All other children, that is, 75-80% of the age group, go to a secondary modern school.

17. comprehensive school

The comprehensive school was first officially defined in a Ministry of Education circular in 1947 as "one which is in-

tended to cater for all the secondary education of all the children in a given area, without an organisation in three sides", i.e. grammar, technical and modern (see unit 16).

The word comprehensive expresses not only the idea that the schools in question take all the children in a given area, without selection, but also that they offer all the courses taught in the three traditional types of school. For this reason they are usually much bigger than the traditional types (at least 1,000 pupils). The area from which a comprehensive school takes its pupils is called a catchment area.

Comprehensive education became national policy in 1965, and later, in 1976, the Comprehensive Education Act was passed under the Labour government, compelling all LEAs by law to reorganise secondary education in their areas along comprehensive lines. However, before the law could be en­forced everywhere, the Labour government was replaced by a Conservative one (May 1979) and the new government removed from LEAs the compulsion to adopt the comprehensive system (or, in less formal style, to go comprehensive). As a result approx­imately 75% of LEAs have comprehensive secondary educa­tion, and the remaining 25% (those who resisted the change until May 1979) have retained the old, tripartite system de­scribed in unit 16 above.

Comprehensive schools in most places are all-through schools, that is, one school takes the whole age group 11-18, like the grammar, technical and modern schools. Some LEAs, however, have introduced new patterns. One variation is com­prehensive schools for children of 11-16 (the minimum school-leaving age) linked with sixth-form colleges (see units 176, 394) for pupils who stay on after 16. (Such colleges are sometimes called tertiary colleges.) Other authorities have middle schools, for ages 8-12, 9-13 or 10-14, linked with upper schools (or high schools (for ages 12/13/14-18). Middle schools bridge the traditional division at 11 between primary and secondary edu­cation, and in areas with this system the first schools which children attend compulsorily (from 5 to 8/9/10) are called first schools. Thus children in these areas go to three schools instead of two, as follows: first school — middle school — upper/high school.

All these new types of school can be described as comprehen­sive in the sense that they are non-selective, even if their name does not include that word.

The word comprehensive is widely used in conversation as a countable noun meaning "comprehensive school".

e.g. a. John goes to the local comprehensive. b. Some people are against comprehensives.

High school

Before the introduction of universal secondary education (in 1944) some schools of the grammar type (see unit 16) were called high schools.High here meant "secondary", sometimes with the added implication that the school was the main, or most important secondary school in its city.

e.g. Bath High School — in the city of Bath

Much later, with the introduction of comprehensive educa­tion, the name high school was adopted by some of those lo­cal authorities who reorganised schooling in three stages, to denote the third school to which children went, at 12, 13 or 14 (see unit 17 above). This is close to the American use of high school, that is, as a general term denoting a common school for children of 12 or 13 upwards. In the USA such schools are the norm.

In practice high school in the USA usually means senior high school (for ages 14/15-18), a school for younger pupils (12/13-14/15) being called junior high school or simply junior high.

Special school

This is a school (primary or secondary) for children who are handicapped in some way, either physically or mentally, for example, children who are blind, deaf, crippled, or educa­tionally subnormal.

Special educationusually has this meaning too. It is de­fined in BEE as "education adapted to the needs of pupils who are handicapped by a disability of body or mind."

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 752