After sixteen

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Public schools form the backbone of the independent sector. With a few exceptions all public schools are single-sex boarding schools, providing residential accommodation for their pupils, though many of them take some day pupils too. A typical public school has about 500 boys but a few have more (e.g. Eton has more than 1100 boys).

Some of the public schools date from the 16^th century or earlier and they form the pinnacle¹ of fee-paying education (in the 1990s the average boarding public school-fees were over 7000 pounds annually). Of the several hundred public schools, the most famous are the «Clarendon Nine*. Their status lies in an attractive combination of social superiority and antiquity. These are the oldest and most privileged public schools: Winchester (1382), Eton (1440), St. Paul's (1509), Shrewsbury (1552), Westminster (1560), The Merchant Taylor's (1561), Rugby (1567), Harrow (1571) and Charterhouse (1611).

Demand for public school education is now so great that many schools register babies' names at birth. Eton maintains two lists, one for the children of «old boys», those who studied there and the other for outsiders. Usually there are three applicants for every vacancy. For example, in 1988 there were 203 names down for only 120 places at Radley School in the year 2000. And it is not surprising that public schools cream off many of the ablest teachers from the state sector and teaching standards are very high and much better than in any other secondary schools.

Public schools admit pupils from private preparatory schools («preps») which prepare children for the Common Entrance Examination.

Public schools offer entrance scholarships (from 6 tolO annually). But the fees remain heavy even for scholarship winners. The competition for those scholarships is very severe, and the syllabuses of the scholarship examinations with their high standard in Latin and other subjects are quite out of keeping with the primary school curriculum.

Independent fee-paying schools were exempted¹ from teaching according to the National Curriculum.

Pupils going on to higher education or professional training usually take «A» level examinations in two or three subjects. These require two more years of study after GCSE, either in the sixth form of a secondary school, or in a separate sixth-form college. The «A» level exam is taken at the age of 18, and is the main standard for entry to university education and to many forms of professional training. But some pupils want to stay on at school after taking their GCSE, to prepare for a vocational course or for work rather than for A level examinations. Then they take the CPVE examination, which means the Certificate of Pre-Vocational Education.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-26