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GCSE’s

Let’s get this straight once and for all for all of you confused Americans out there. When British people go through the edumacation system they most likely (but do not have to) start at Nursery School, what I believe you call Pre-School or Kindergarten.

When we hit 5, that or thereabouts (woo Dickens), we go into Year 1 of Infant School, Primary School or, more precisely, Key Stage 1. If you’re confused, think of our first educational dwelling as a piece of cake - on the bottom you have Infant School or Key Stage 1. We continue to be considered as ‘Infants’ until Year 3 when we simply enter into Key Stage 2 and we drop the whole Infant School thing and just call it Primary School. This is the top slice. The jam/cream/etc. in between the slices is our Year 2 SATs (see, thought this one out) because it’s meant to be difficult to pass though. It isn’t. Finally, the whole cake is actually called Primary School. And, yes, it is needlessly difficult.

Okay, so you go into Year 6 and you’re either already 11 or are nearing it. This is the final year of your, aptly named, Primary Education. You take tests and go on visits to potential Secondry Schools, which we call High School, but I believe you call it Middle School or Jr High… Do feel free to call me out on these. So pretty much the same thing happens in High School, you start in Key Stage 3 until you do your Year 9 SATs (yes, we have two lots) passing into Year 10 and Key Stage 4. Finally you do roughly three quarters of a year in Year 11, using the rest of the time studying* for our GCSE’s. These are basically High School ending exams and I honestly do not know what Americans would call these. Care to get back to me? Okay so when you’ve done your GCSE’s you can leave school with your qualifications printed neatly on a piece of paper and venture out into the world to get a job. By now, you are at least 16, most likely 17. Or you can be of value to society, whilst completely avoiding it at the same time by continuing onto either College or 6th Form. These are basically exactly the same thing, a 6th form being part of a school, whereas a college is an establishment in its own right. Then A levels, AS levels, onto University, Med School… The possibilities are endless.

Dear God, did I just spend half an hour of my life dictating the British Education System to nobody in particular?

I did, didn’t I.

God I suck.

Bye now xx

*masturbating