UNIT 1C
ADDITIONAL READING
SCHOOLING IN BRITAIN
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Jason Clark and Petar Savić are Facebook friends. This is one of many correspondences between the two of them.
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How much do you know about British schools? Before you read the text, discuss the following statements in class. Then read the text to see if your answers were correct. True False 1. British and Serbian schools differ greatly in many aspects. 2. Pupils can leave school at the age of 16. 3. If they have bad marks, they have to repeat the year. 4. They have to pass a certain number of exams at the age of 16 and 18.
P: A mong other things, I’d like to know more about your school and to see how much it differs from mine.
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J: There are probably many differences between schools in Britain and schools in your country. I’m in Year 9 at a comprehensive school. It is a mixed school for boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 18. P: I n my school we only use computers for Computer Science lessons, but we hope to get more computers soon. What do you use your computers for? J: We use Tablets PCs to do our work on and to search the Internet. They are connected to a Network so we can send our work straight to our teachers and they can send it back with their comments. It is very convenient because we don’t have to carry loads of books around and it is much quicker working on a laptop. P: If you have bad marks, do you repeat the year? J: Promotion to a higher class every year is almost automatic. We never repeat the year. But at sixteen some pupils leave school and get jobs. Most pupils take national examinations called GCSEs, though. Pupils pass or fail individual subjects. They might have one, five, or ten GCSEs, meaning they have passed examinations in that number of subjects. What about your exams? e attend secondary school for 4 years and then we sit some exams - it depends on our plans for P: W our future studies at University. What do you do after GCSEs? J: Pupils who continue their studies go into the sixth form to study for two more years and then take more public exams at advanced level - the A level examinations. Good grades at A level will qualify pupils for entrance to higher education or improve their job prospects. P: Now I know much more about education in Britain. If I get good grades, I might study there. Who knows! 19 Note: Comprehensive school is a state secondary school for local children of all abilities.
