For all children in state schools, secondary education begins at the age of eleven. Grammar schools are for children who win places at them by getting high marks in the eleven-plus examination or who are selected by some other means. Most grammar schools are maintained by local education authorities, some receive direct grants from the Ministry of Education, and receive some pupils who pay fees and some (at least 25 per cent) who do not. Some of these schools are academically among the best in England.
The pupils of these schools live at home, and both they and teachers usually leave the school buildings when the day's classes are finished, at 3.30 or 4 in the afternoon. There is often much school activity outside school hours. Almost all girls' grammar schools require their pupils to wear uniforms, and most of the boys' schools have special blazers and other items of school uniform. Pupils may stay at the grammar school until they are seventeen or eighteen. In all grammar schools the curriculum includes, besides religious instruction and physical education, the arts and sciences, mathematics, a foreign language or even two, Latin, history, geography, the English language and literature, domestic science, woodwork, metalwork, music, and others. The pupils do not necessarily take all these all the time, and they usually begin to specialize at the age of thirteen, dropping some subjects and taking up others. Grammar schools give a.liberal and scientific education up to the age of eighteen, preparing pupils for the General Certificate of Education and for university entrance.
Many schoolchildren in Britain go to a secondary' modern school. They study the arts and sciences, modern languages and more practical subjects like woodwork, metalwork, needlework, shorthand and typing. In some other types of secondary schools some of the above mentioned subjects may be left out. For example-there are many schools where a foreign language is not taught, some do not teach sciences. On the other hand in rural schools a subject called rural sciences is becoming very popular. Secondary modern schools give general education, including some practical instruction, up to the age of fifteen. Secondary technical school takes pupils who want to study specialized practical subjects such as commerce, industry and agriculture.
Assignments
I. Find the equivalents in the text:
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II. Render the text into English.
Comprehensive Schools
At the age of eleven English children take an examination. If they do well in the exam, they go to a grammar school; if they do not, they go to a secondary modern school.
By about 1960 the division of children between the two types of secondary school - grammar and modern - was unpopular, particularly among people who were politically on the left. The eleven-plus examination by which the more academic children were selected for grammar school was widely distrusted. The separation of children was hated because it looked like the beginning of a separation into classes that would continue throughout life - and the proportions of manual workers' children, who went to grammar school was low. Comprehensive secondary schools, with children of all levels of ability were introduced. These new schools known as comprehensive schools, or non-selective schools, are usually very large. In London there are very few grammar schools and modern secondary schools left now. Nearly all the schools have been reorganized' into comprehensive schools. Much progress has already been made with changing the structure of secondary education though instituting comprehensive schools in which all secondary age children from an area are placed together. Local Education Authorities were required to prepare a scheme for converting all of its secondary education to the comprehensive system. Now over 85 per cent of the secondary school population in England and Wales attend comprehensive schools which take pupils without reference to ability. But even in some of comprehensive schools there has still been a kind of segregation through the practice of placing the pupils in stream according to academic ability. There is always difficulty in switching children from one stream to another. Nobody is happy to be in a stream of a lower level. Some comprehensive schools try to overcome this problem by allowing their pupils a wide choice between subjects to study.
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