Talk:Education in the United Kingdom

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UK Collaboration of the Fortnight Education in the United Kingdom was the UK Collaboration of the Fortnight for the fortnight starting on 13 November 2005.

For details on improvements made to the article, see Past Collaborations and History

Contents

[edit] Article is despeciable

Compared to awsome articles such as Education in Sweden,Education in Japan, Education in the United States. This one article on the topic is really unformative. Lord Metroid 16:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Education infobox

I created a template, Template:Education infobox which can give a quick at a glance demographics table for education articles. See its implementation at Education in the United States and feel free to help improve the template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:00, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

The content from School years (United Kingdom) was integrated into this article. However it probably ought to be broken down into Education in England, Education in Scotand, etc by someone who feels at home with the topic. -- Mic 19:31, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)


Mentions about uniforms and pupils not wanting to wear them - surely this is purely a matter of opinion and not factual in any way? Who has the authority to say that people grow up and want their children to wear uniform? This needs to be removed.Chrisp7


Regarding this page being split into four: This has been broken down too much! Education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is identical! The differences are no different than those between counties. I propose either a return to one page with two headings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland or having just two pages using the same headings.

Furthermore, all the UK-wide information is now included in England's entry (when it in fact covers the entire UK). This is a mess.

Thoughts from anyone?

They are not the same at all! Look at their assessment practices for example - these differ hugely between the countries. England still have statutory national testing testing at 3 key stages. Wales currently do them at 2 keystages, but may soon not have them at all [1]. Northern Ireland never had them. Northern Ireland still have the 11 plus, whereas Wales don't at all, and it's limited in England. The assessment regulating bodies are separate in each country. The countries have different school starting ages. The requirements for teacher training are different in Wales. etc etc. There's no way these can be grouped together. Angela. 00:14, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
You make some good points, but I'm still not entirely convinced (and I'm a British teacher). Perhaps more of an effort could be made in the articles of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to point out that the systems are broadly similar. Furthermore, teacher training is not that different in Wales (they have to do one less test) and Northern ireland are scrapping the 11+. Also, the UK-wide information must be stripped out of England's entry.
Do you think having one article, but dividing it into separate sections for the different countries would be a better solution? By the way, you might want to login so you have a username. It makes discussions easier to follow when you can sign them. The login page describes other benefits too. Oh, and don't write off the 11+ in NI just yet. It's going to be here for a few more years I'm led to believe. Angela. 23:56, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)
I believe this would be appropriate for the relatively minor differences in the system in England, N.Ireland and Wales. Scotland however has always had an entirely different system and imo deserves it's own page.

[edit] Adult Education

Interesting. Very schools and uni-oriented (OK, that's kind of fair enough, considering that's where most of the education budget goes), but nothing on AE and very little on FE. They deserve at least a passing mention, I think. Will see if I can figure out where to put something within the 'collaboration fortnight' without messing existing stuff up. (Not really my specialism, but I've done some work with AE depts now and then.) Tarquin Binary 23:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cooking?

I'm not sure about the rest of the U.K, but "cooking" in Northern Ireland is also about childcare, shopping and life at home among other things and is called H.E (Home Economics).

[edit] Exclusion link

Hey, the exclusion link in the article takes you to a disambiguation page that mentions nothing of what it means in this context. Just FYI. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.197.19.242 (talk) 21:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] First, middle & high schools

I see no mention of this system (first school age 4/5-8, middle school age 8-12, high school age 12-16)! CC 91 13:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

We use Infants, Juniors, Seniors. it's already on there. -Grim- 02:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
No, Infants is 4/5 - 7; Juniors is 7 - 11; Secondary school ("Seniors" is not mentioned in the article at all) is 11 - 16. I think the system of First, middle, high, with the different age brackets, is available in some areas of England/Wales. Stannered 11:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
It's gonna change to Infant-Junior-High in my area in September anyway. Not sure if it applies to other areas. CC 91 18:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
First, Middle and High is used in town I come from in North Worcestershire. The age brackets are First school 4-9, Middle School 9-13 and High School 13-16. I know this is true because I went through this system and it is still in place. The graphic used to display 'the English school system' is incorrect. It does not take into account first, middle and high schools proper. The article on Middle Schools shows this. T.roome 20:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

This still seems (in my opinion) to be an unresolved point... given that there are still quite a few middle schools around, someone more sensible than me should add some sort of clarification... Trust (talk) 21:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ill-informed and inaccurate

This is a shoddy article. It seems to be written by someone who is not within education at the moment and is using their own half-remembered experience of school and what they have picked up in the newspapers about school reforms. They possibly have a kid in school, and have misunderstood a few ideas there. I have tidied up some of the glaring spelling errors and typos. I have also started to tidy up the section on curriculum and will start to add cited sources (govt. sites etc) and clear explanations of the subjects today. i.e. it isn't 'IT' but 'ICT', cookery is no lomger taught, nor indeed, Home Ed. - Food Technology is the vogue - forming part of technology as a whole. The issue of Grammars and Secondary moderns is not explained (these exist in some areas). There are still lots of errors in the articles. I'm going to invite a few more teachers to come and sort the mess out!

[edit] Oh dear...

Not only is the article not of the standard formate, with an infobox for general information, but much of the information is untrue. The assertion that all students begin secondary school at eleven is untrue, as many (most/all?) leading public schools do not begin until the age of 13. Smiles Aloud 12:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] England, Wales, N. Ireland, Scotland articles

As linked to in the opening line of this article, there are articles on Education in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which are of a better quality than this one - if the system is devolved is a single article on Education in the UK necessary? I'm really not sure what it's trying to achieve. Alaeangelorum 16:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There is a case for this page just being a disambiguation page. Any thoughts? Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 20:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
As a single country, the topic of how education is structured within it is an encyclopaedic and interesting one. Comparisons and contrasts - an overview - should be made in this article. If the article is poor quality then it should be improved not removed. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I took your point and have started to change the article so it provides comparisons. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 18:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] P.E. Mandatory?

I'm pretty sure PE is not a mandatory GCSE as this article says. It wasn't when I did my GCSEs 4 years ago, and my sister is in the middle of her exams right now and I know for a fact she isn't doing a GCSE in PE. 81.109.27.158 (talk) 23:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)