[Survey] Education in the UK

What if the UK grew on me? What should I do?

I'm from Scotland! You start high school at 12 years old(1st year). In 3rd year you pick 8 subjects (English, Maths, A Science, Religious Studies, Social Education and Physical Education are mandatory), those are all standard grades that can get you into college. After 4th year is finished you pick 6 subjects at either intermediate 1(lower level) or intermediate 2(higher level). If you get a A or B in standard grade you can immediately go to Higher. In 6th year you can follow on to Advanced Higher, do highers if you did intermediate 2. You can leave school at the age of 16.

Oh but that was the old system! When I was in 6th year(I'm 20 now) they started nationals which is still confusing to me even when my younger sister explains it...

Grade system normally was:
A:80%+
B: 70%
C: 60%
D:45%

I took english, maths, chemistry, pe, rms, home economics, art and modern studies at standard grade. Then at higher I took administration and computing (crash course) and english, maths, modern studies and something else I forgot...

I can't remember having any difficulties really! There are access courses and stuff which is the lowest level you can study at so if you struggle it gives you a pass grade but not a grade as in A,B,C or D. Oh and nursery is like anything from a few months to about 4/5 years old...

PS: I love Nicholas <3

I am from Reading. We start school at age four to five in year one of primary school up to year six where we do sat tests and give three choices in order of preference to what secondary school we want. This is defined by catchment area and for some schools you must pass a test to get in. Then you start year 7 in secondary school, building up to gcses in year eleven. You choose your subjects you wish to do in gcse generally around year nine. You begin your gcse work in year ten, sometimes before, and have several mock exams later. After gcses you can choose to continue into sixth form, join a college, have an apprenticeship or leave school. You have to achieve a gcse grade boundary to get to sixth form. Here you begin your a levels, around four subjects. I don't really know what happens after this clearly enough.
As well as this, you have Key Stages. Key stage one is years one to three, key stage two is up to year six, and key stage three goes to year nine. You have an end of Key stage test when you finish ks3. You also have end of year tests.holidays are in between six half terms, summer being six weeks, winter and spring two weeks and all the rest one week.You also have bank holidays. It all roughly add up to about 190 days of school a year, give or take.

Grew up living in Africa going to international schools (originally american, moved when I was ~11). I did both IGCSEs and the A levels.

IGCSE started in form 4/9th grade for me. The cool thing about the IGCSE/GCSE seems to be the flexibility you have, as you get to choose ~7-8 classes to study depending on what the school offers so you can take classes you are actually interested in. I took bio/chem/phys/math/french/ICT/English during this time, and while the exam schedule at the end was hard, it wasn't too bad. For some courses you also have the opportunity to do a coursework type project instead of an exam (some courses still had multiple exams you had to take at the end though, eg french - written/listening/speaking)

My parents got a job in a different African country the year I finished my IGCSEs so I moved to a different school that did the A levels (I would have done the IB program at the old school). At this school we started A levels in lower 6th form (11th grade). The thing about A levels is that you can only choose 3 or 4 subjects to take, and they are much more intensive (probably why they're called the advanced level). It was weird going from a school where you had lots of options on what to take to a school where people (or their parents) had been working towards a specific path for most of their middle/high school careers (multiple people in my class had been working towards becoming doctors since they were 11 or something). I kinda hated it. The other problem I had with the way my school did things is that they decided to do all of the A level exams at the end of upper 6th form (12th grade). Since there are multiple exams for each course you take, this leads to a fuckton of stuff you have to revise for all at once, rather than spreading the exams out over the course of two years as the class completes each module of the syllabus (which I understand is done in some schools and not others, really seems like it would help the student)
EDIT: Just wanted to add my classes: I took Computer Science, Economics, Biology (bad call on my part) and AS French (kind of less intense than regular A levels, I didn't have to study things like french lit and history and such)

At this point, it's all a fading memory, but I'm glad I got to experience a different type of school system than the one I might have taken had I stayed in the US. Still wish I had gotten to do the IB program though....

I grew up in England. I went to nursery, infants and junior school (which were all actually on the same site which was helpful for bigger children that wanted to beat up smaller children). About all I can remember that far back is falling off things and hurting myself. Also there was a pub next to the school with a big guard dog roaming about the beer garden during the day and we used to dare each other to climb over the fence and get chased around until that time Fiona got hurt really badly...

In fact it was also Fiona who got the good climbing frame taken away after she broke her arm falling off it. Goddamn Fiona...

Anyway at 11 years old I got sent to 'big school' (a modern secondary school, which shall remain nameless but it has since been closed due to terrible results). After a few years I got to pick which subjects I wanted to do as GCSEs. I was from the first year of students that had to do GCSEs instead of O Levels and everyone was clueless about what was going on so that was nice.

At 16 many of my friends left school to become professional heroin addicts and so forth. A few stayed on at school to do A Levels, which are academic qualifications suitable for going on to higher education such as university. The sensible ones went to college to study for useful vocational qualifications.

I went to college, but only so I could do A Levels without wearing a uniform or seeing any of the teachers that I hated ever again. I went on to do a degree at university and since then my life has obviously just been one success after another. Apparently I have 812 hours played in Terraria.

We also have a variety of schools - "public" schools (which are actually "private" schools) for which you pay fees unless you get a scholarship. Comprehensive schools that are paid for by taxes and are free to study at and follow the national curriculum set out by government and managed by local authorities. And the odd "grammar" school which is a hangover from a previous school system based on intelligence tests taken at age 11. We now also have "free" schools (paid for by taxes but not run by local authorities and are in my opinion a terrible idea for various reasons). We also have religous schools (Church of England/Catholic/Muslim/Islamic etc) as well as the odd alternative school, I currently live not far from a Steiner school.

Thanks for the answers, guys ^^