1. First Steps

Around half of 3- and 4- year-olds in Britain receive nursery education, and many other children attend pre-school playgroups, mostly organised by parents. Children of nursery age need care as well as education, however, and it is not just their mental requirements, but social, emotional and physical needs that must be met. In nursery schools, qualified teachers, usually primary teachers with a nursery teaching qualification, work alongside helpers and nursery nurses to achieve this.

2. Starting off

Compulsory primary education begins at the age of 5 in England, Wales and Scotland, and 4 in Northern Ireland. Children usually start their school career in an infant school and move to a junior school or department at age 7. In some parts of the country, though, children begin at a first school at age 5, and move on to a middle school at age 8, 9 or 10. Primary schools vary in size and location, some having as few as two teachers and others as many as 30.

Subjects covered include English, mathematics and science, along with technology, history, geography, music, art, and physical education.

At 7 and 11 years old (and at secondary school, at 14 and 16) teachers measure children’s progress in each subject against attainment targets. In English, for instance, there are five basic targets: speaking and listening; reading; writing; spelling and handwriting. For each target, there are ten levels of attainment. For example, in order to achieve attainment level 2 in writing, a child should, amongst other things, be able to structure sequences of real or imagined events coherently in chronological accounts – this could be in an account of a family occasion, or in a practical mathematics task, or in an adventure story.

3. Building the future

In Britain, most children of compulsory secondary school age (11 to 16) receive free education financed from public funds. A small proportion attend private, or independent, schools, not financed by the state. The large majority of schools teach both boys and girls together. The school in England and Wales normally begins in September and continues into the following July; in Scotland, it runs from August to June and in Northern Ireland from September to June.

Children build on the knowledge they have acquired at primary school – and they also start to learn a modern foreign language. Their years at secondary school may lead to General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) qualifications.

Those who choose to stay on at school after GCSE usually study for two further years for A (Advanced) level exams in two or three subjects. They can broaden their range by taking AS (Advanced Supplementary) levels, which demand the same standard of work as A levels but cover only half the content, or by taking courses leading to vocational qualifications.

Breaking down the artificial barriers between education and business is an important Government aim. Pupils of all ages take part in workplace activities, including work-based projects that teachers believe ‘help them to develop their personal as well as commercial skills’. For example one large school in the South of England set up links with a telecommunications firm, which installed satellite dishes on the roof of the school giving the children experience of industry at first hand, and the school access to foreign language television programmes to use in lessons.