Fyi: it’s called post secondary because, I think, UK calls it primary, secondary, and after that is post secondary.
Slovakia.
If I am to translate it word-to-word:
Základná škola - Base school (so primary) (9 years) - split into 1st degree (1-4) and 2nd degree (5-9).
Stredná škola - Middle school (2-5 years based on field of study, 4 and 5 year fields are with graduation)Get ready for a twist: Gymnasium (8 or 4 years) - 8 year gymnasium starts after 5th grade of primary school and 4 year after 9th grade. They also replace middle school. It’s not that popular since you basically won’t get any job without college with gymnasium. It’s really just a preparation for college (literally “high school” (Vysoká škola)) (though perhaps better than middle school).
US.
Middle School and Jr. High vary depending on how the grades break.
When I was coming up it was this:
Grade School: 1-6
Jr. High - 7-9
High School - 10-12But when I hit 9th grade, they changed it:
Grade School: 1-5
Middle School: 6-8
High School: 9-12Grade school, didn’t even know that one.
US. In my dialect, all three are different.
Middle school: 6-8
Intermediate school: 7-8
Jr High: 7-9
I attended an intermediate school that called itself a jr high, so I can understand the confusion.
For my state in Australia its
Kinder Ages 3-5
Prep Ages 5-6
Primary School Ages 6-12, called Grade 1-6
Secondary/High School Ages 12-18, Called Years 7-12After that you’ve got higher education choices via TAFE or University, theres no cut off ages for that.
School is mandatory from ages 6 To 17.
Finland
0-5 year olds Kindergarten (voluntary)
6 y.o.'s pre-school (mandatory since 2018)
Grades 1-6 in comprehensive school are called “low school” (mandatory) Grades 7-9 in comprehensive school are called “high school” (mandatory)
Second degree years 1-3 (mandatory since 2021), you choose either “upper secondary (gymnasium)” or vocational school (or both).
And if you wish to study further university/uni of applied sciences. Basically everyone does their masters (3+2 years) if they choose uni. Uni of applied sciences is usually 3 years.
That’s interesting given that in California pre-school is 4-yo and kindergarten is the year after that.
In Denmark it’s called Grade 0. 4-5 Grade 1-10. 6-15 Gymnasium (not sure why?) 15-18
Romania. We call it primary (1-4), gymnasium (5-8) and lyceum (9-12). They come from French/Latin.
Latin is one of the roots of our language and we underwent a big pro-Latin cultural movement in the 19th century, while French also had a big cultural and educational influence.
Gymnasium and lyceum are both Greek. They did pass through Latin on their way into modern use. Lyceum was the name of Aristotle’s school in Athens.
Uk.
Its primary school then secondary school.
Primary school is 6 years “full time” (5/6 years old to 11/12 years old). There are pre-school and “reception” years.
Secondary school is 5 years, with an optional extra 2 years.
Anything beyond secondary school is uni/college/apprenticeship/lifeI found secondary school year 6/7 to cover the majority of the foundation of 2 years at Uni (ie, maths, physics, chemistry had a huge amount of repitition before building on it and specialising).
Heres more info:
https://cdn.roostermarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/school-years-1.pngPrimary is 4-11.
The extra 2 years are no longer optional. You can choose where you do them but you’re not allowed to just not.
My part of the country “pre-school” is called play school. Not sure if that is a national thing though.
I’ve also never heard this post secondary thing OP is on about.
Post secondary is university, college, community college, etc. I hear it all the time on US News.
I understand the concept but you said you thought it was used in the UK, I have never heard it used in the UK before was my point :)
Only England and Wales though. Scotland and Northern Ireland work differently. And some areas of England, because of course we can’t keep it simple.
Canada:
Elementary: grades 1-8
High School: grades 9-12
Weird. I’m in Nova Scotia and we had elementary (primary to 6th), junior high (grade 7-9) and high school (grade 10-12), then college or university. Didn’t Ontario used to have grade 13 as well?
Used to. Now it’s optional. People call gr13 the “victory lap”, and it’s primarily to give students an opportunity to get their grades up before applying to universities.
Which province?
Ontario
Same, but we have middle school where I am. It’s grades 6~8 or just 7 and 8 depending on who you ask.
But primary and secondary are also recognized and used in some official circumstances. Tertiary is something I’ve heard only once, and I’m surprised it doesn’t get used more often.
I went to French immersion, so I also heard a lot of “primary” and “secondary” school. Never heard tertiary, only “post-secondary”
I heard “tertiary education” from an international student. It made me wonder why we call it “post-secondary” when “tertiary” makes more sense.
In Brazil the names changed quite a bit across the years. I believe that the current ones are
- fundamental - 9 years (6yo to 14yo)
- médio (middle) - 3 years (15yo to 17yo)
- superior / universitário (universitarian) - typically 4~5 years, but it varies
The first two used to be called primeiro grau (first grade), segundo grau (second grade). And even further back, the primeiro grau was actually two, primário (primary - 4y, from 7yo to 10yo) and ginasial (gymnasial - 4y, from 11yo to 14yo).
Republic of China, Taiwan
Kindergarten, Elementary/Primary 1-6 grade, Junior High 7-9, Senior high school 10-12, though most say year 1 junior(7th grade), year 1 senior(10th grade), then College/University/Tech University.
Some choose vocational high school after junior high, and most people from vocational high choose Tech University.
I attended a complete high school, means the whole secondary education combined, so we call junior high section 1-3rd grades and senior high section 4-6th grades🤣
I’m going to take this opportunity to re-use the phrase I sent my Chinese friend!
新年快乐 🎉🐉
新年快樂🐲 To you too.🎊
Sweden, none of the above since we are not English native speakers. 😬
Grundskolan (mandatory for 6-15 year olds). Gymnasiet (optional for 16-19 year olds).
Roughly what percentage of people go on to Gymnasiet? Is the next step University of some sort?
Basically everybody attends gymnasiet. Some programs are focused on preparing for higher studies, such as University, other programs at focused on a trade. All programs have a minimum core curriculum of math, Swedish, English etc.
Yes, the next step is University (or some other kind of higher education), or not, if higher education is not your thing.
UK:
- Pre-school
- Primary school
- Secondary school (BUT my old HS literally has “high school” in the name so it’s interchangeable with “HS”)
- College (16-18)
- University
It can vary on area though. Some people have middle schools but I’ve no idea what ages they are since I’ve never seen one. Also, some UK people will hear me say “HS” and assume I’m American, not realising some secondary schools are called “high school”
To complicate matters more a “public school” is private.
ETA: I think US grades are off by one to UK “years”. Though I’ve got into arguments with Brits about this I can only reference my own life. So our “Year 7” kids starting high/secondary school are 11yo. I believe that’s 6th grade in the US?
Is “6th Form” not used as an alternative to College anymore (it was archaic when I went to 6th Form 20 years ago so wouldn’t be surprised if it has bitten the dust)
Yeah it is. Sorry I was talking mainly of my experience - I left school to go to college across the country but everyone I knew carried onto sixth form.
That along with all the other complications mentioned in another comment (HE College vs uni) makes for an exciting mess. 😁
Oh and it’s called 6th form cos you’re in year 6 of secondary school. Which is also called year 12!
Oh and it’s called 6th form cos you’re in year 6 of secondary school. Which is also called year 12!
I think it’s a hold over from some time in the past where the year numbers started over again at secondary school, as I understand you’d do your O levels in 5 form, then A levels in 6th.
To add to that, college can sometimes be an alternative to university rather than something which precedes it. And high school can go on until 18. As you say, it can be geographical - I only really have experience of the Scottish system (and even then it’s been a while…)
I grew up in an area with middle schools, and went to one, I think they were age 8 to 12. So people went up to secondary school a year later than most regions. I have no idea why it was like that. We also had spam fritters for lunch which no-one else I know from my generation (Gen X) had to endure. We were just fucking weird I guess.
Weirdos make the world interesting. 🙂
I’ve heard of spam fritters but never had one. I’ve eaten a lot of ‘old fashioned’ foods though like toad int’ hole, kippers, faggots, etc.
Canada (Ontario)
- preschool
- junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten, grades 1-6 | elementary school
- grades 7-8 | middle school (or also elementary if the school is K-8)
- grades 9-12 | high school
In the US, the names vary a lot by location. Even which grades are included can change based on the local population and how they choose to organize it. My wife and I went to school in the same state, maybe 45 minutes apart, and we did not have the same names or grade delineations.
For me, pre-school and kindergarten are each there own thing. Grades 1-3 were “elementary school”, 4-6 were “middle school”, 7-8 were “junior high”, and 9-12 were “high school”. We called them this based on the actual names of the school buildings. But even by the time I was in junior high, they started moving the 4th grade classes to the elementary school, so I’d assume kids in my own home town might say 1-4 is “elementary”. We didn’t have a “junior high” building. Grades 7 and 8 were still part of the “middle school”, but based on the changes in curriculum and the fact that they were held on a designated side of the building, it was colloquially referred to as “junior high”
