"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , lid says...
At what age in US schools do they make the transition from having the
same
teacher for all subjects to have different teachers for different
subjects.
I think by age 9 and certainly by age 11 I had one teacher for English,
another for Math(s), another for French etc - this was in the UK.
Around here in North Carolina you usually start the 1 st grade around 6
years old. There is some pre school that start sooner. The 7th grade
is where it usually starts one teacher per subject. That would usually
put you about 13 or 14 years old.
Ah, so the change from one teacher for everything to one teacher per subject
happens quite a lot later in (some) US schools than in the UK. I hadn't
realised that.
The separation of schools in the UK happens at around 11-12 (it varies
slightly from one county to another) but I *think* subject teaching usually
starts towards the end of the primary school, before children move on to the
secondary school. I'm a bit out of touch with not having children of my own
but I'm going by what my sister has told me of her boys.
One thing that varies from one county to another is whether the
comprehensive system has been adopted. I mentioned a while ago up-thread
that in the early 1970s *most* counties adopted a policy of all children in
a given area going to the same secondary school at age 11, whereas
previously children had taken a verbal and numerical reasoning test ("the
11-plus") which decided whether they went to a grammar school or a secondary
modern school. A *few* counties (for example Buckinghamshire where we moved
when I was about 13) decided to continue with the old 11-plus system to this
day. There's probably not much difference between a grammar school and a
secondary modern school nowadays - apart from catering for two sets of
children of supposedly different abilities, I think there's a lot less
assumption that the less-clever children will only want to become
secretaries/housewives (for the girls) and manual workers (boys), and the
SMs probably still aim to get children in to university or other
higher-education colleges on less academic, more vocational courses.
One thing that has changed is the numbering of the school years. Until maybe
about 20-30 years ago, the secondary school years were named starting at 1
for the first year *in the secondary school* - ie age 11. This led to the
well-known fifth form (year) for age 15-16, when children could legally
leave school after taking O level (Oordinary Level) exams in a large number
of subjects studied at a more superficial level; and sixth form (divided
into Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth) for the two extra years 16-17 and 17-18
when children could choose to stay on at school to study usually three
subjects in much greater depth to take A level (Advanced Level) exams, the
results of which govern which university will accept you for a degree
course.
That concept has remained, though O levels are now called GCSE (General
Certificate in Secondary Education), but the numbering of school years now
starts when children start primary school at age 5 (a year earlier than in
the US - or at least in North Carolina) - so our numbering is now a lot more
like yours. It takes some adjustment to work out that Year 12 is what I knew
as Fifth Form and Years 13 and 14 are what I knew as Lower/Upper Sixth ;-)