British School System Help!

All those subjects would be on the list, with the possible exception of RE - although only if there's a specific reason to drop it - almost every school will teach it. They won't be choosing anything at that point.

In primary school, they'll have one teacher (usually), moving up to specialist ones in secdndary school.

Schools are basically going to follow the National Curriculum until pupils are ready for their proper exams, then move to a specific exam board for GCSE and A-Level - usually their local one, although there are exceptions for certain subjects.

English Schools

Tilda, 11-12 year olds in the UK are usually in their first year of secondary education. (high school)

5-11 year olds are primary school children. They have one form/class teacher who teaches them the core subjects and specialist teachers for subjects like PE, RE (if they have it) music, may be art and science.

11-12 year olds will have a form teacher for the daily form meeting and roll call/registration/. They will have a different specialist teacher for each subject.

You forgot to mention science which is a core subject, as is a language. Some schools also include classical studies in the form of Latin.
The core subjects are compulsory at age 11-12.

In a public(private) school there might be a few more choices per subject for 11-12 year olds. For example they might be able to choose a langauge or science (general, bio., phys., chem.) or form of music or art.

Yes, public schools can differ a lot from state schools. A Steiner school for example or one of those private schools for nice but not too clever girls or boys. Mainly though they are traditional and academic. Students can take many more subjects and have greater choices.

The main difference between the privately funded public schools and the state schools is in their expectations.
Of course there is the snob thing but many middle class parents are deeply concerned about the quality of education. For example they feel that Social Studies is a 'warm fuzzy' useless subject and want their children to learn History and Geography. They expect their children to have the chance to win a place in a University (A very small percent of the Uk's school leavers win a place) and want academic style education.

What happens is that a public school must follow the National Curriculum but then it is free to be much more academic or artistic or sports orientated than a state school could be.

Hope this helps!

Well i've only just left school. At 11-12 in England you would just be starting primary school.
In my first year i studied Art, Computing, French, Geography, History, Latin, PE, RE, Drama, Electronics, Design, Music, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Maths and English. I think that's it. It was (and still is) a private school though.

In primary school yes there is usually one teacher for the class apart from specialist subjects. But in Secondary school where twelve year olds would be you tend to move for every class and not have a specific teacher. Wha twe did have in my school were housemasters and mistresses. Houses were small groups which met up in the morning to register and each group had a teacher in charge.

Just to add.

I don't know how long your character is at an English school but here are a couple of things that might help.
1 S/he'd have to wear a uniform. Particularly if s/he was at a public school and not a state school.
2. S/he'd also have a lot more homework than US kids are accustomed to and of a different sort. Think of Harry Potter having to write scroll lengths for his homework. English kids find that funny because they have to write x number of pages!

At the end of primary school (your elementary) we can choose to take an exam called the "11+". So the people in yr6 are 11 or slightly older. The exam decides on whether you go to a comprehensive school or a grammar school (I'm not sure how private schools work; lots of money as well as the exam I think.)

Also, in many cases our schools are all fused into one. My grammar school taught kids from 11 to 18, which is the equivalent of your middle, junior-high and high schools. Also, grammar schools tend to be single-sex.

Here's a list of what I did in yr7;
English, Maths, French, History, Geography, Computing, Latin, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Technology, Music, Art, PE (gymnastics etc), Games (field sports), and RE (a legal requirement now).


And yes, there are uniforms, latin slogans, school songs, ...

I went to a grammar school. They're definitely still around, although there's a lot of controversy about them.

You don't need to look back in history ;-)

Rooms or classrooms are usually okay, although a lot of the time it'd informally be 'Mrs. Smith's room' or 'Mr. Jones' room, depending on if a teacher had staked a claim to them. There'll usually be more than one though - probably only one Art room or one CDT room or others that need specific equipment, but several where English or French is taught, and plenty of general ones.