Interview

Hey guys! Unfortunately my friend's brother was unavailable for the interview but I have another friend volunteering at a private school nearby and she let me go in to interview one of the students. While there are some differences between public and private schools here, the subject matter in structure are fairly similar. 

I interviewed a student named Rob, but because of the circumstances under which I got the interview, I can't put his picture in this blog.

Rob told me that the UK has core subjects, like the US, including English, Math, and Science classes and optional courses. Rob is taking History and Spanish. The goal of these optional courses is to try new subjects to take for your GCSE's. Rob is in year 8 so he will be taking his GCSE's in two years. 

GCSE's are classes focussed on specific subjects to decide what you will take your A levels in. You can take as many GCSE's as you are able to if you do them outside of school but in school students generally take 10-12. You can only take up to 5 A-levels, however, and most of the people I know only took 3. From the A-levels you do well on, that's how you decide what you will study in a university.



Rob usually has about 1 hour of homework/ night, which he says is average. He says they do use some textbooks, but they mainly use workbooks and printed sheets.

The classes are generally an hour long with about 5 subjects through the day. The core classes usually go all the way through the year while the optional ones usually last just one semester.

Some of the differences in Rob being in a private school were the uniform and the food. While public schools don't use uniforms, Rob has to wear trousers, a collared shirt and a blazer to school. Also, this school makes homemade food for the students, but this is because the students live at the private schools.

All in all, UK schools seem to be structured very similarly to schools in the US, but their preparation for attending a university is a bit different. What do you guys think? Did anything sound wildly different from your school experience?