Posted: Jul 28, 2011 11:32 am
MacIver wrote:Scot Dutchy wrote:You surprised campers?
Just going back in time. When I was at school it was exactly the same (I was at school before the whole notion of comprehensive education).
The 12+ in Scotland determined which school (or part of) you went to. Once there it was almost impossible to move. I was dumped in a junior secondary which at the time only had a crummy local leaving cert which was not worth the paper it was written on.
What Scot said. This reminds me of the horror stories my parents use to tell me of. They'd do a test at the end of Primary School, and that would decide whether they went to the "Smart School" or the "Thick School".
Yes we are probably of the same generation. There was on school which had the two schools within it but the dividing wall was solid and could never be breeched.
I hope in these "new" schools there will be a possibility to breech the wall.
In my High School, a certain level of segregation made sense. I was in the second bottom class for French, but the top class for maths and science. These classes would progress at different levels. But importantly, other subjects, such as PE, RE and art would be a mix of abilities.
The comprehensive system in Britain while in principle is a good system seems to fail too often. Here there is much tighter streaming. You stay in the stream that you qualified for after primary school but at the end you can move on if you qualify.
Age is of less importance in the Dutch system. You can easily repeat a year. Nobody bats an eyelid if the ranges of ages in a class varies by two years or more.
I would like to see a much better exam system with proper exams not the mickey mouse stuff they sit today.
In university they should scrap all those stupid vocational degrees.