Unit 2 Education text 1. Nursery and school education in great britain

Pre – School and School Education in Great Britain

The legal basis of the education system in the United Kingdom is the Education Act of 1944 and the amendments made by the following Acts of Parliament. They prescribe the duty of government local education authorities (1EAs) and parents in a system which is compulsory for those aged five to sixteen, and which contains optional pre-school and post-school provision.

Over ninety per cent of children attend schools, which are wholly maintained by the local education authorities and at which no fees are charged. The education of about seven per cent of the population is financed mainly by parents’ contributions at independent schools, which have to be registered with the Department of Education and Science.

Nursery (Pre-school) Education

Free nursery schools are provided in some areas for children under five years of age, usually for those between two and five, but only a small percentage of the nation’s children of this age group attend, as accommodation and admittance are restricted, in some places there are waiting lists of several hundreds.

A nursery school is an educational establishment and is positively concerned with the children’s development. Nursery schools operate during the normal school hours and observe normal school holidays. In these schools equipment including toys of all kinds is provided to keep the infants busy from nine o’clock in the morning till four o’clock in the afternoon. Here they play, lunch and sleep under the guidance of two supervisors for each classroom of about 20 – 25 youngsters.

When a mother starts looking for a nursery school, she might be confused by the existence of both nursery schools and day nurseries. The latter are run by the local health authorities. A day nursery meets a social need: it minds children while their parents are at work. Day nurseries are normally open for longer than nursery schools and remain open all the year round. Unlike nursery schools they charge tuition, you pay according to your income for day nurseries.

In addition many children attend informal pre-school playgroups organized by parents and voluntary bodies in halls or private homes.

Primary Education

Most children start school at five in a primary school and go on at eleven or twelve to the next stage of education in a secondary school of some kind. A primary school may be divided into two parts (departments) – infants and juniors. These may be in separate buildings and have separate headteachers, but they are normally very close together or are housed in the same building under one head. Primary schools are usually quite small; most of the infants schools have between one hundred and three hundred pupils, and most of the junior schools have between one hundred and four hundred pupils. Almost all primary schools are mixed schools. In infants schools the methods may seem like an extension of those used in nursery schools. The class-room is normally free and probably noisy. The children are likely to be in groups doing quite different things. Some may be keeping shop, selling each other goods and keeping accounts; some may be engaged on a project, like making a model village, or drawing, cutting and pasting, modelling, etc. Others will be in a cluster reading together, writing or figuring. Even when the whole class is doing more or less the same thing, they are likely to be doing it not as a body, but in smaller groups. It is assumed that by the time children are ready for the junior school they will be able to read and write and do simple addition and subtraction of numbers (“the three Rs”). At seven or so, children go on from the infants school to the junior school. The junior school has the same kind of staff, the same size of classes. Parents often feel that the transition from the infants school to the junior school marks the transition from play to “real work”. The curriculum begins to be arranged more formally into individual subjects. The children have set periods of arithmetic, reading and composition. Other subjects that would appear on an average time-table are: history, geography, nature study, art and music, physical education, religious education. The children are graded.